Tag Archives: national ballet school
History of Radio City
The Radio City/National Ballet School sits on the former site of CBC’s English headquarters and broadcast tower, and was the site of the first Canadian TV transmission. The CBC history is the origin of the name “Radio City”; not the famed music hall in New York. The buildings no longer were used upon the opening of the CBC Broadcast Centre on Front Street in 1992.
Where the south tower and south townhomes now sit was once CBC’s now-demolished Studio 7. Originally an elementary school, it became home to legendary CBC shows Wayne & Shuster, Mr. Dressup, Front Page Challenge and The Kids In The Hall, among other productions. These were the first TV studios ever built in Toronto.
The CBC’s transmitter tower, which stood in what is now the central courtyard, was built in 1952 and was once the tallest structure in Canada at more than 150 metres. It was also the tower broadcasting TVOntario until all television transmitters were moved to the CN Tower in 1976. In the 50s, it was known as the “Eiffel on Jarvis” and its first broadcast debuted on Channel 9 on September 8, 1952. It was pulled-down by steel cables in 3.5 seconds on August 24, 2002.
The red-brick building directly beside the South Tower was once prestigious Havergal Ladies’ College, built in 1898. It also served as the CBC’s executive offices and home to famous radio programs like As It Happens and recordings by internationally-known composer Glenn Gould.
The National Ballet School surrounds the Georgian-style Northfield House (1956), which was the home of Sir Oliver Mowat, Father of Confederation and Ontario’s most powerful and longest-serving premier (24 years). Both Havergal College and Northfield House are federally-designated historical properties.
Sirman Lane was named for the National Ballet School’s chief administrator, Robert Sirman. In May of 2006, he was nominated for Director of the Canada Council for the Arts.
The music printed on the glass on the Celia Franca Centre is from Tchaikovsky’s “Nutcracker.” Celia Franca is the founder of the National Ballet of Canada (with Betty Oliphant) and was its artistic director for 24 years. She now lives in Ottawa and has been awarded the Order of Canada.
Radio City was named #2 by the National Post in their review of the Top 10 Residential Towers in Toronto.
A balcony on the North Tower was featured on the cover of Toronto Life’s February 2006 issue on “The Condo Generation”. The photo was shot in the cold of December with two models, and the balcony was digitally shortened to fit on the cover. The story featured two other Radio City residents (story at http://www.torontolife.com/features/the-new-starter-home/ ).
Radio City has been lauded as an effective example of “mixed-use” architecture, incorporating high-density towers bordered by the National Ballet School and a neighbourhood-appropriate row of townhomes, all on a designated historical site. Experts and critics have lauded the design and utility of the complex.
Radio City’s Interior Designer Trevor Kruse is now designing the interiors for Toronto’s upcoming Trump Tower. Architect Peter Clewes is becoming known as Toronto’s premier condo architect, and has designed 18 Yorkville, 20 Niagara and the upcoming Ritz-Carlton, X-Condominiums, and the new Four Seasons Yorkville condo and hotel.
The art in the courtyard is entitled Radioville and derived from two of artist Roland Brener’s earlier gallery installations Capital Z (1993) and Endsville (1997). These previous works were lit-up cardboard “villages” reminiscent of Monopoly-style block houses. Radioville was originally exhibited at the University of Victoria (where Brener taught for 28 years) and features 36 stainless-steel pieces, each weighing up to 500 lbs.
Roland Brener died of terminal brain cancer on March 22, 2006 and is survived by his wife and daughter. His ashes will be scattered at sea from his beloved yacht Reality.
Jarvis Street was named after Samuel Jarvis, who once owned the land on which the street was built. This 100-acre block of land stretched from Queen Street all the way to Bloor, and he fondly named it Hazel Burn after its hazel trees and stream. Jarvis went broke and had to sell his land south of Wellesley, where a new street was built to access the newly-divided lots. Jarvis Street was the first paved road in the city.
Jarvis Street was once the most luxurious street in Canada, featuring only two lanes of traffic, a canopy of enormous old trees, and the most stately mansions in the city. The most dignified movers-and-shakers had homes on this street, including the Masseys, Cawthras, Gooderhams, McMasters, and Sir Charles Moss. What is now The Keg Mansion was once the home of Arthur McMaster, then Hart Massey (the richest man in Canada), and eventually CFRB radio, an art gallery, and a convalescent home.
Jarvis Street’s magnificent trees were cut-down in 1947 when the street was widened from an 11-metre boulevard to its current 16-metre width. Most of the lavish mansions were demolished following World War II to make way for generic apartment buildings. Toronto tragically lost very many of its architectural and historical structures during this period due to uncontrolled expansion and a lack of civic regulation, and many historical preservationists are concerned that vestiges of this trend remain today.
Mutual Street was once a dirt path used by horses.
Maple Leaf Gardens was the home of the Leafs from 1931-1999 and sold-out every Leafs game from 1946 until its closing. It has hosted concerts for legendary artists like Elvis Presley and Duran Duran (“The Reflex” video was shot there) and was the only location where The Beatles ever did two shows in one night. The Gardens cost $1.5 million to build. After the Maple Leafs left, Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment refused to sell the building to anyone who would use it in competition with the Air Canada Centre, which is why it is now becoming a Loblaw’s Superstore.
Church Street Public School was designed by architect Peter Dickinson, whose other works include The Hummingbird Centre, the Beth Tzedec Synagogue, and the Inn On The Park (the demolition of which in May 2006 was viewed by experts as the loss of a historical landmark). CSPS was enlarged in the 90s and was most recently used as an outdoor location for the 2004 film Sugar starring Brendan Fehr (Roswell, CSI: Miami) and Sarah Polley.
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Architecture of the Times
Torontoist.com
Looking back on the need for a landmark building, William Thorsell of the ROM writes of the attraction to international starchitects like Daniel Libeskind: “they could express themselves personally; they could bring in poetic aspects to buildings that were there for reasons that had nothing to do with efficiency or form. They have to do with function, and in a broader sense of what function really is. It is partly the function of major buildings like the ROM to be a symbol.”
Love it or hate it, the ROM’s overhaul is certainly symbolic, demonstrative of the best (or worst) in contemporary architecture in Toronto. It and the other big ticket, high-profile projects of the “Cultural Renaissance” like the AGO or the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts figure prominently in Margaret and Phil Goodfellow’s A Guidebook to Contemporary Architecture in Toronto, just published by Douglas & McIntyre. But these comprise just one small portion of the architecture that’s transformed the city between 1992 and 2010. The pocket-sized book’s sixty or more entries—each illustrated by miniature photos, renderings, or floor plans—are organized by neighbourhood, letting the reader plan their own walking tour.
The expected entries are here, such as Santiago Calatrava’s galleria at Brookfield Place, National Ballet School, and Will Alsop’s tabletop at OCAD. But so are some gems: smaller, unexpected projects and public spaces that you might not ordinarily stumble across unless you knew to look for them.
The Thomas L. Wells Public School, in out-of-the-way Morningside Heights, for example, is the school board’s pilot green school—designed by Baird Sampson Neuert Architects—and it is presented here as “a leader and model for the future direction of educational design.” Also here are the Laneway House on the back alley of Croft Street and the Leavitt Goodman House on Euclid Avenue.
Two- to three-paragraph blurbs place each project within the context of their neighbourhoods, such as the way the McKinsey & Company–designed Isabel Bader Theatre blends traditional materials and stonework, which acknowledge the Neo-Gothic traditions of surrounding Victoria College, with contemporary design.
Beyond buildings, parks and public spaces like the Village of Yorkville Park and HTO Park on the waterfront are included. Even Yonge-Dundas Square is recognized: the square, designed by Brown + Storey Architects, has undoubtedly changed that neighbourhood and brought it to life. Nevertheless, would many locals consider it as a significant architectural achievement for the city, “an urban piazza framed by commercial activity and striking billboards”?
Yonge-Dundas Square’s inclusion makes it surprising that other significant and controversial projects are not even mentioned—for instance, the largest residential development in the city’s history.
CityPlace’s workmanlike, generic architecture—even Concord Adex’s websites don’t prominently list their towers’ actual architects, apart from KPMB’s Montage tower—and its suburban-esque streetscape would make it a controversial inclusion from a design point of view. “At present,” the Goodfellows note, this “area is characterized by a series of imposing but nondescript residential developments along an incongruous public realm.”
But if you compare an aerial photograph from the 1980s to the present, as Shawn Micallef does in the book’s closing essay discussing the city’s changing skyline, you’d be struck by how orphaned the CN Tower and SkyDome seem, surrounded by parking lots and rail yards. CityPlace, and high-rise residential developments in general, have been central to the city’s real-estate renaissance. As a book ostensibly for cultural tourists and local explorers, the Guidebook is not really intended to engage debates, but CityPlace’s exclusion makes you wonder about where we place tall condos in the architectural imagination of our city.
The handful of condo projects that are included are mid-rise buildings, the majority of which are designed by Peter Clewes’s architectsAlliance for Context Development, such as 20 Niagara, District Lofts, and Radiocity. With through-units for wall-to-wall daylight and cross ventilation, and community-scale design, these are certainly the upper echelon of condos in the city—and the reason why Christopher Hume has called Clewes “the leading condo designer of his generation.”
Also in the residential realm are the Toronto Community Housing Corporation’s recent projects like 60 Richmond, and 246–252 Sackville Street (the first completed project of the Regent Park redevelopment). Like these, among the merits cited for the inclusion of Evangel Hall (which architectsAlliance designed for the Presbyterian Church) is that the social housing project “masks [itself] in the skin of a market condominium.”
It’s perhaps more interesting to wonder, as Bruce Kuwabara does in one of the book’s introductory interviews, just who is transforming the city more: international sources like Gehry or Libeskind, “invited to Toronto for a single project,” or local firms like Teeple Architects, ERA Architects, KPMB, and Kohn Shnier Architects.
Taken as a whole, does A Guidebook to Contemporary Architecture in Toronto suggest a distinctive architectural style to the city? If anything, the Goodfellows suggest, it is adaptive reuse of existing buildings and infill development. “The contemporary wave is appropriating the spaces in between,” Micallef adds, “filling in streetscapes and neighbourhoods. What this gives Toronto is an extremely heterogeneous typology. Toronto does not have a uniform look, but is this urban mix that may, in fact, be the signature style.”
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Merchandise Building Original Lofts
The Merchandise Building is a unique hard loft space converted from the historic Sears Merchandise building.
Just south of the Church Street Village and as part of the Ryerson University community, The Merchandise Building Lofts are one block east of the Dundas Square – Eaton Centre corridor and the Yonge subway line.
The Merchandise Lofts – located at Dundas Street East and Church Street – is one of Toronto’s largest loft conversions with over 500 suites. The development features 12-foot ceilings, exposed concrete ceilings, polished concrete or hardwood floors and massive mushroom columns. Glass-partitioned bathrooms, elevated bedrooms, granite, open-concept kitchens and huge solid maple sliding doors are some of the key features. 155 Dalhousie Street has some of the best facilities of any Toronto hard loft building, including 24-hour concierge, outdoor pool, party room, basketball court, fitness facilities, guest suites, and common terraces. The Merchandise Building showcased the demand for loft living in Toronto.
The lofts feature customer designed kitchens, polished concrete floors, solid maple barn doors and dramatic fluted columns.
The Merchandise Building community includes a spectacular urban roof garden with lap pool and barbecue terrace; recreation and relaxation facilities including a half-basketball court and a contemplative garden/sitting area; and all round retail facilities including a full-line Dominion store.
Once in a while a building comes along and changes the way people think about real estate in Toronto. This loft is one of those buildings. It’s the largest loft conversion in Toronto, taking up an entire city block right in the middle of downtown Toronto, and has over 500 luxury loft suites carved out of the old Sears warehouse. Each suite features a clever use of space, along with 12-foot ceilings, exposed concrete ceilings, concrete or hardwood floors, massive mushroom columns, elevated bedrooms, sexy glass partitioned bathrooms and huge sliding doors. Step outside your suite and get the best features a residential loft conversion could offer – 24-hour concierge, outdoor pool, party room, great fitness facilities and common terraces.
Completed in 1998, the Merchandise Building is one of the largest developments totaling 1,000,000 square feet and covers an entire city block. This building was originally the Sears Warehouse built in the 1930’s and now holds hundreds of hard lofts. One major feature is it’s location, only a few blocks from Yonge and Dundas, the Eaton Centre and Ryerson. Some of the many facilities of this building are the party rooms, outdoor pool, lap pool, partial basketball court, exercise room, billiards and two guest suites. Most units are single level deep rectangles with huge windows and great downtown views. The ceilings are atleast 12 feet and many suites feature exposed concrete, hardwood floors and massive mushroom columns. Some units have glass partitioned bathrooms, elevated bedrooms, granite countertops and huge solid maple sliding doors. Parking is underground and an added benefit is a full grocery store on ground level. Sizes start at 450 square feet and reach 2,500+ square foot 2 storey penthouses with huge terraces.
The Merchandise Building Lofts (135 & 155 Dalhousie Street) is one of the true hard lofts in Toronto that was converted into residential lofts back in year 2000. The entrance of the Merchandise Building Lofts is on Dalhousie Street, right next to the 24-hr Dominion Supermarket and Ryerson University. There is the entrance on the first floor and lobby on the fourth floor. Within the Merchandise Lofts, there are amenities that reach far beyond what one might expect from other loft projects. This true loft has views of downtown Toronto skyline and beautiful roof garden with indoor swimming pool that would impress anyone.
The Merchandise Lofts are very popular with young professionals because of its location to everything from restaurants, theatres, shopping district, business district and the new Dundas Square across from the new Virgin Record Store.
Transportation from The Merchandise Lofts is as easy as just walking out of the front door. Dundas subway station and streetcar are just within 1 min. walking distance. Gardiner and Lake Shore Blvd. West are just within a five minute drive away, providing easy access to the D.V.P. and Q.E.W.
The Merchandise Building Lofts is also great for real estate investors as it is right next to Ryerson University and just a few subway stops from George Brown College. As investors, you can have young professionals, students or young family that simply just love the convenience of living in downtown Toronto.
The Merchandise Building is a classic example of the renowned Chicago School of early 20th century industrial architecture. It is a loft conversion of a historic warehouse located in downtown Toronto on Dalhousie Street, near the campus of Ryerson University and the Toronto Eaton Centre. Built in various stages from 1910-1949 for the Simpson’s department store, and later owned by Sears Canada after Simpson’s demise, the Merchandise Building at over 1,000,000 square feet is one of the largest buildings by floor area in downtown Toronto.
The oldest part of the site is a six-story manufactory built in 1910 on Dalhousie Street for Simpson’s delivery business. Behind it on Mutual Street in 1914 the growing company added the “Robert Simpson Co Ltd Mail-Order Building”, a large distribution warehouse. Further expansion occurred in the years 1931-1949, tripling the size of the building, yet still conforming to the clean lines of the original design. The building architect was Max Dunning of the firm of Burke, Horwood and White. This noted Canadian firm’s other work in Toronto includes what is now the CityTV building on Queen Street West and the Simpsons (now Bay) flagship store at the corner of Queen Street and Yonge Street. Contrary to popular belief, Dunning and his firm were not responsible for the Tip Top Tailor Lofts – although sharing many design aspects with the Merchandise Building, it was produced in the year 1929 by the firm of Bishop & Miller.
The Robert Simspson Co. Ltd. Mail-Order Building incorporated many features, that while commonplace today, were relatively novel at the time – a steel structure, reinforced, fire-proof concrete, well-positioned emergency stairwells, and large windows for natural light. The building’s water needs were assisted by a 40,000 gallon rooftop water tower.
The complex – which eventually came to be known by the less cumbersome name of “the Mutual Street Building”, continued to serve the needs of the company until the winds of economic change forced it to close its catalogue service in the mid 1970′s and sell out to one of its old rivals, the venerable Hudson’s Bay Company, which eventually retired the Simpson’s brand in 1991. Many properties were sold to Sears Canada, including the old warehouse. When that company moved its catalogue operations to the suburbs in 1991, it became the property of the City of Toronto.
Happily at the same time the new mayor of Toronto, Barbara Hall, had relaxed zoning restrictions in certain areas of the downtown core, allowing redevelopment of under-used or empty 19th and 20th century factories and warehouses. There was a plan to convert the warehouse into public housing, but the City in the end sold the property to Crestford Developments (some say for a song). The project was one of the earliest and by far the largest warehouse loft conversions in Toronto. The ambitious plan to completely modernize the building was delayed by a general construction strike and a spectacular 3-alarm fire, started when a worker tossed a cigarette butt into one of the old freight elevator shafts, landing on a massive pile of debris dumped from all the floors to be cleared from the bottom. The huge pile burned for hours, but the building did not, testament to the original designer’s intent in 1914 to create a structure as fire-proof as possible.
Among the many modernizations was a green roof and coated windows to reduce energy loss. Other environmental upgrades included a “Tri-Sorter” recycling chute that accommodates 3 types of waste. The entire building was wired with fibre-optic cable, has a rooftop pool, patio, and dog-walking area, and all the usual amenities in a large condominium, plus some unusual ones including a 4-story interior lobby and indoor half-basketball court. The noted interior design team of Simone-Ciccone and the award winning designer Brian Gluckstein produced between them nine different primary suite layouts with over sixty variations. Notable interior features include 8 foot sliding barn doors, 12 foot ceilings with exposed duct work and support pillars with capitals, and ten foot windows. The ground floor of the building is retail, anchored by a 24-hour supermarket.
When it was finally completed in the late 1990s, the project garnered several awards including a commendation from Heritage Toronto and awards from the Greater Toronto Home Builders Association. The conversion even pleased the notoriously critical architecture writer for the Toronto Star, Christopher Hume, who gave the project an “A”. The Merchandise Building was one of the first large redevelopment projects east of Yonge Street, and has sparked other projects in the area such as the conversion of the Toronto RCMP Building into a luxury hotel, the old CBC building on Jarvis Street into condominiums and the new headquarters of the National Ballet School, and the plan of opening a hypermarket in the storied, but now vacant, Maple Leaf Gardens.
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