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Drivers slicing through the slush along Eglinton Avenue West between Oriole Parkway and Lascelles Boulevard – and the huddled pedestrians avoiding the spray – don't look up as they pass Unity Church of Truth at No. 173. Six decades ago, however, stalwart Globe and Mail Art and Artists columnist Pearl McCarthy built a persuasive case for modernist architecture around the then-new, striking building.

Not only was the John B. Parkin Associates design "worth more than a second look," the composition of "voids and solids" achieved something that "we have been clamouring for architects to do – express an idea," she wrote in November, 1953. However, she feared a negative reaction to this and other similar works slowly popping up in postwar Toronto "may set in against [modernism] before it has had a good chance to mature in Canada."

While it's true that modernism, an architectural movement born a century ago in Europe, washed up on North American shores much later – it took until 1949 for both Philip Johnson and Charles Eames to build their iconic houses – it was a little odd, to me anyway, to see such a strong argument being made well into the 1950s.

So, with The Globe archives at my disposal, I conducted a little experiment. What would I find by typing in the following keywords: modernism, modernist, Bauhaus, curtain wall and International Style? Could our pages tell me when the tide turned in modernism's favour? A side note: I decided to reject the term "modern" as it's too general, i.e., it was used by journalists to describe anything current and not the cultural movement.

After receiving results hotly debating women's Victorian-era necklines and a few from the 1920s regarding religious Modernists versus Fundamentalists, I decided to add "architecture" as a co-keyword. My gut also told me to set a 1957 cut-off, since Torontonians would welcome Viljo Revell's competition-winning design for New City Hall with open arms the next year, and Don Mills was already teeming with happy modern families. Besides, in his excellent book Making Toronto Modern, Christopher Armstrong writes "by the mid-1950s, modern architecture had finally elbowed its way into a small but definite place in the cultural life of Toronto."

Producing nine relevant listings, "modernism" was the most fruitful. The first hit was interesting, though not surprising: speaking to a room full of Ontario Association of Architects members in January, 1938, American Institute of Architects president Charles D. Maginnis said, "If the new architecture is satisfied to live within the darling restraints it has set itself, its life will be brief." He also hoped that steel would fall out of favour as a construction material, as it has "no capacity for interesting ruins."

The next oldest story, from March, 1940, came up under "modernist," which offered up five results. It was a filler paragraph about architectural "rivals" showing at a New York City exhibit. The modernist camp, "ran riot with cork screens, bamboo furniture … and brilliant colours" while the "classic school" calmly "displayed pictures of Pennsylvania Station [and] the New York City Postoffice [sic]."

A December, 1945, story – also under modernist – worried that the new style of architecture might mean the end of the "silent finger pointing to heaven": church steeples. And although Toronto hadn't yet seen a modern church built, legendary University of Toronto professor Eric Arthur foreshadowed the next decade with his quote: "It's absurd to pattern ourselves after the frills and trappings of the Middle Ages."

Modernism finally caught a break in April, 1949. Writing about an Architectural Conservancy of Ontario tour of homes (a group started by Prof. Arthur in 1933), Pearl McCarthy couldn't hide her preference for artist-couple Cleeve and Jean Horne's unorthodox home at 181 Balmoral Ave. over the stuffy Georgians and Victorians, calling it "100 per cent modernism giving both distinction and privacy for diverse pursuits." The Horne residence had started life as a Tudor, actually, until the couple hired architect Gordon Adamson to give it a modern makeover in 1947; 56 years later, I had the privilege of visiting the unchanged home when I interviewed Mrs. Horne about their hyperbolic paraboloid-roofed country home in Claremont, Ont.

After scanning an April, 1950, pictorial review contrasting traditional Gothic churches with plans for the city's "First Ultra-Modern" church to be built on St. Clair Avenue West at Avenue Road by the Unitarians (much altered today), I marvelled at a realtor's February, 1951, listing for a home that was "tops in modernism" for $14,500 on Whitmore Avenue; modernism as selling-point – could this be the beginning of acceptance?

Forward to February, 1952, and the first mention of "curtain wall" (there were only two), as Pittsburgh residents couldn't stop staring at the Aluminum Company of America's shiny new 30-storey skyscraper, which employed the "relatively new" construction method. By May of that same year, "unashamed modernists" studying under Prof. Arthur at the University of Toronto were exhibiting architectural models at Simpson's department store; this proved, the professor said, "that the impact of the students' work will be felt on the Canadian scene within a very few years." He was right, of course, as St. George Avenue and Avenue Road (among others) would soon fill with modernist high-rises designed by graduates.

A year after Ms. McCarthy's plea for Unity Church and modernism in general, Colin Sabiston wrote that the arrival of the new Ontario Association of Architects headquarters on Park Avenue (by John B. Parkin) meant "the weight of evidence is in favour of the view that 'modernism' is finding a characteristic Canadianism."

By April, 1957, when Ms. McCarthy praised yet another piece of ecclesiastical modernism, there was no need for flowery coercion; in fact, the style was common enough by then that she criticized the boring ceiling, suggesting "it might as well be in an office or a store."

Predictably, "International Style" – a very scholarly term – came up just once, and that was in reference to the credentials of the "Five Imaginative Men" selected in 1957 to choose Toronto's new City Hall design.

So what does this all mean? Well, other than the fact that I love combing through virtual, journalistic cobwebs on a

subzero day, it's that our collective acceptance of modernism happened within a generation. Late-1930s to the Second World War, it was the butt of jokes; late-1940s and into the 50s, a respected style. Perhaps that's because many of our future architects had been to Europe for the war; perhaps it's because new immigrants opened our dusty, colonial eyes.

And as those generations reach their 80s and 90s, it's up to us to save what's left of their efforts.

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