Ever since Victorian factories made Hogtown smoggy, right down to our post-industrial present, many Torontonians have dreamed about building perfect houses in the countryside. What such a place should look like, of course, has always been a matter of very varied opinion.
New country-seat designs currently on offer from architects around Toronto run the gamut from pompously baronial mansions and pumped-up suburban - obviously not among my first choices - to finely tuned contemporary updates of such old favourites as the Muskoka cottage and the Ontario farmhouse.
Because the taste of clients is so wide-ranging, and because designers can always be found to satisfy every yen (however dotty or downright bad), the new architecture of getaway country will always be - alas! - a schmozzle of styles.
But what happens when architects find themselves in a position to ignore the opinions of clients and make art with no one but themselves in mind? I got some interesting answers to this question last week. At the downtown Toronto offices of core architects, principals Charles Gane and Babak Eslahjou are at work on schemes for rural retreats for themselves and their families. Each man's building is different in manner and atmosphere from the other, but both are rooted firmly in the legacy of the last century's architectural avant-garde.
Which can be a problem.
When fully built out, Mr. Gane's 2,850-square-foot dwelling of stone, glass and wood will run long and low across a four-acre, exposed outcrop of mainland rock on Georgian Bay. (The $400,000 first phase of construction is expected to begin next year.) The terraced building's floor-to-ceiling glass walls are sandwiched between two horizontal slabs, though the dead-flat roofline is occasionally interrupted by massive, boxy stone chimneys, a ceiling lift over the living room and other shifts in height.
The site is tight, with a rattlesnake precinct crowding in on one side - I don't have much sympathy for these nasty creatures, but I suppose we must protect them - and a shallow marsh encroaching on the other. Despite these geographical restraints, Mr. Gane has fashioned a holiday abode with the low-slung sweep typical of modernist residential styling in Canada and the United States, circa 1950.
Is Georgian Bay ready for the summer residence of this kind? The answer you give depends on your position in a long-standing architectural quarrel.
Those who believe that all new refuges up north should always look like traditional cottages won't like this proposal. They have a point, if not a very powerful one. Long before architects began to busy themselves in escape country, local craftsmen had established a solid tradition of practical, handsome building that accorded well with the harsh climate and splendid terrain of the north - a vernacular tradition that some thoughtful latter-day architects have learned excellent lessons from.
Then there are critics - I am one of them - who argue that architects should design, everywhere and always, according to the best lights of our present age. But, here again, Mr. Gane's building does not fit. Its inspirations come from what modernism was some time ago, not what it is today: His structure brings to mind the prairie houses of Frank Lloyd Wright, and (more vividly) the mid-century California residences by Richard Neutra and Rudolph Schindler. And like these precedents, Mr. Gane's retreat is suave, urbane - too chic by half, or so it seems to me, for its delightfully savage natural surroundings.
If Mr. Gane's Georgian Bay architecture reminds us of post-war America, Mr. Eslahjou's $1.2-million, 7,500-square-foot villa, slated to rise in Southern Ontario's wine-making region, recalls the stringent, elegant residential modernism of Le Corbusier in the 1920s. A series of bone-white concrete boxes, raised on a stone base and arrayed on a long axis, are penetrated by strips of black-framed windows. A central pavilion, which separates the building's two principal volumes, is open to the elements and views on both sides.
Set down in an orchard on a 14-acre property, Mr. Eslahjou's building is intended to be a rural gathering place for his large Iranian-Canadian family, which comprises three generations.
Hence the ample appointments for luxurious relaxation by people ranging in age from patriarchs down to teenagers and infants: a pool, screening room, Turkish bath and steam room, nanny suite and party room, six bedrooms, a dining room for 14 and so on.
There is no question here of an awkward fit between house and context. Like Corbu's country homes in rural France, this highly civilized project is a good match for the old, civilized agricultural landscape round about.
We might have hoped that Mr. Eslahjou had put his energy into a more contemporary remodelling of venerable modernist country-house ideas - but never mind. As it stands, his design is a potent restatement of certain modern moves - clean, long lines, taut and unadorned solid geometry, the bold contrast between stark white walls and verdant orchards - that will probably remain stylish forever.