Conventional wisdom in Toronto says that when city dwellers grow up, they graduate from apartments and condos to "real" homes. But this town is becoming a city of condominiums. There is a shift in priority for many home buyers in the city core - a detached home with a yard is no longer the goal for many downtown buyers. However, is there a future for larger, family-sized suites that celebrate good architecture?
The quick cancellation of an exciting project called N-Blox is not a good sign. This Little Italy building was designed for dyed-in-the-wool downtowners. The units were large, the prices comparable to houses — not the small concrete boxes typical of the condominiums offerings. The ill-fated plan was replaced with a conventional condo development that sold out in two hours.
To maintain a cohesive plan for each city neighbourhood, it is important to keep builders and designers in check, but it is also important to encourage change and growth. Between buyers who aren't ready to pay for innovative architecture and city planners and residents who block many plans to increase density in the core, it's difficult to change the streetscape in Toronto.
While community groups oppose increases in the density of the downtown core, the city expands into the far reaches of the suburbs to meet the needs of an increasing population. A city needs people living, working and shopping downtown to remain vital. While some historic buildings are worth preserving, a city is not a museum.
John Bentley Mays
Architecture expert John Bentley Mays was online earlier to answer your questions about the state of architecture and design in Toronto. Are you a fan of the condo boom in the city, or would you prefer that the older neighbourhoods stay just as they are?
John Bentley Mays is an award-winning Toronto writer on architecture, visual art and design, and general topics in contemporary culture. He is architecture columnist for the real estate section of The Globe and Mail, columnist for The Catholic Register, and a frequent contributor to Azure, Canadian Architect, Canadian Art and other periodicals. He is currently at work on a book that profiles key shapers of modern Toronto's culture and public life.
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Danielle Boudreau, globeandmail.com writes: Thank you for taking the time to speak to us today. Why do you think there is so much opposition to some real estate projects -- the towers at Yonge and Eglinton for example -- and yet there is less opposition to Concord's much larger development near the waterfront? Is it that the residents are better organized in some neighbourhoods, or that some plans are better suited to their location?
John Bentley Mays writes: That's a good question, Danielle. Whether or not a project runs into opposition has everything to do with location. Concord Cityplace, for example, is going up on unpopulated former railway lands, and therefore has no impact on nearby neighbourhoods. The towers at Yonge and Eglinton, on the other hand, have been dropped into an established residential area, mostly low-rise and affluent. The problem in the Yonge-Eglinton example is that Yonge Street, a main arterial thoroughfare, has been designated by the city a zone of intensification—even though it runs thought a residential neighbourhood. Conflict was inevitable. The same problem will certainly arise, should developers try to put up more high-rise buildings on Bloor Street West in the Annex.
