|
Dated Thinking May
Doom Tower
By CHRISTOPHER HUME
Toronto Star Architecture Critic
When the Concourse Building opened in the late 1920s, Toronto was a city of the future.
Seventy-two years later, the tower is threatened and Toronto is in danger of becoming a city of the past.
The unique Art Deco office structure at 100 Adelaide St. W. is in danger of being torn down
by its owners, Oxford Properties, to make room for the next big thing.
As is so often the case, a façade or two would be saved along with certain interior details. This
will allow developers to make pious noises about their commitment to heritage and to the city.
But nothing could be further from the truth.
Indeed, if there’s something that must be eliminated, it is the hopelessly out-of-date approach
taken by Oxford Properties and dozens of development firms like it. It is an approach based on
tired notions of construction, marketing and architecture.
The starting point is a blank slate and an empty site. It sees old buildings as obstacles to profit
maximization, and relies on complex, but misleading formulae to justify its actions.
Now we know better. A new breed of developers such as
Michael Tippin and Margie Zeidler have shown what can be done with heritage sites in
Toronto. Zeidler has transformed an enormous former factory at 401 Richmond St. W. into
a thriving complex or studios and offices. Tippin has brought back the Gooderham (Flatiron)
Building at Church and Front Sts. as well as other historical structures in old downtown.
“If I got the word, I’d have my offer ready in 10 minutes,”
says Tippin, with deadly seriousness. “I’m ready, and I want it. I’ve already been getting
calls from brokers asking if I’m interested.
“It needs to be renovated on the inside and restored on the exterior. I believe that it could
bring rents that are comparable to any Class-A building in downtown Toronto. “The key is
proper marketing. Those guys at Oxford don’t have a clue ... They’re right that they can’t
make money on this kind of project because they don’t have the right mind-set.
“I could fill it with new economy tenants. Heritage is what the ‘new economy’ tenants want.
They place a premium on historic properties because they have character. This building
especially has lots of style?’
Tippin’s confidence is based on personal experience. The proof, he argues, “is that the
rents at the Gooderham Building are higher than BCE Place.”
In the meantime, the Concourse Building looms shabbily over Adelaide St. The exterior
is stained with the grime of decades and a series of unsympathetic fix-ups don’t help.
The Art Deco flourishes that enliven the outside are almost lost in the dirt. The striking mosaic
around the main entrance remains intact but now surrounds a banal, out-of-a-
catalogue door that is utterly unworthy of its setting.
The many replacement windows could hardly be more at odds with the building. The unfortunate
awnings put up on the Adelaide facade by a sandwich shop and a restaurant add insult to injury.
But photographs of the building and its lobby taken when the building was just opened in 1929
reveal a level of integrated decoration that has been completely lost over the decades. The lobby,
for instance, is now busied beneath layers of paint and wood panelling.
Designed in the 19205 by Toronto architects, Baldwin and Greene, the 16-storey tower was a
showcase of a sort. J. E. H. MacDonald, member of the Group of Seven, and his son Thoreau
MacDonald designed and executed the mosaics. These express an exuberant sense of optimism
and the endless possibilities of technology. This integration of art and architecture has rarely been
attempted, let alone equalled in Toronto.
With the arrival of the International Style in the ‘50s, developers saw an opportunity to reduce
costs by paring their buildings down to the very structure.
A quick look around the Concourse Building area reveals many examples. Even the First
Canadian Place, that mess of marble, will forever look unfinished. Despite acres of Cararra marble
—the kind preferred by Michelangelo — these walls feel blank and empty.
To developers like Oxford, none of this matters. They have been left behind, dinosaur-like, by
fundamental shifts in values and taste. They have yet to understand the depth of their
predicament, however, and their health rises and falls with each real estate boom and bust.
There’s always Mississauga, of course, where space abounds and dinosaur development is a
matter of public policy. It was built by companies like Oxford, aided and abetted by municipal
politicians. It’ll be interesting, though, 70 years from now, to see whether Mississaugans will be
fighting to save their architectural heritage. It seems unlikely.
On the good side, Tippin is optimistic that Toronto developers haven’t destroyed the
detailing that made the Concourse something of a landmark.
The foyer may have disappeared beneath bad renovations, but applying the landlord logic
of buy low, rent high, it’s possible the original murals and decoration are only covered up by
drywall. ‘I think we’ll find that it’s largely intact,” Tippin explains.
Oxford’s proposal goes before Toronto community council on Thursday, and it will then
make its recommendations to full city council. Toronto architect and preservation board
chairperson, Catherine Nasmith, hopes the meeting will expose the deep flaws in the Oxford scheme.
“I think Oxford should be so proud to own that building, that they should make it the
flagship of their development,” says Nasmith. “But they’re so locked into a specific template
they can’t see the opportunity that the building offers them. “I am convinced that all these
small floorplate office towers like the Concourse Building will be the hottest real estate in
Toronto in the next five years.”
The only question is how many will be left if developers and municipal politicians don’t do
the right thing, not many.
other articles
c o n c o u r s e
|