Built Heritage News

This series links three of the buildings on ACOToronto’s Buildings at Risk List, Peter Pennington’s Davisville Junior School, 1962, Peter Dickinson’s Tyndale University College and Seminary,(Regis College) 1962, and York Square, 1968 by Diamond and Myers.

April 4

Robert Moffat - Mid-Century Brilliance: F.C. Etherington and P. Pennington

Faced with growing hordes of Baby Boom children, the Toronto Board of Education undertook a massive construction program during the 1950s and early 1960s. Board architects Frederick Etherington and Peter Pennington, drawing upon Modernist design principles, created fresh, lively and inventive school buildings for the postwar generation. Today, many of these now-historic schools are in need of renewal and at risk for redevelopment. How can they be preserved?

Robert Moffatt is the author of Toronto Modern, a primary online resource for Toronto’s heritage Modernist architecture. He is a marketer for architecture and design firms.

April 11

Annabel Vaughan - Perception Modern

Framed through the lens of modernity, Annabel Vaughan will examine the profound influence that Peter Dickinson’s modern sensibility had on a number of Toronto architecture firms and will look at the conditions that precipitated the shift from the corner office onto the studio floor. A move that drove the creativity, epic martini fuelled parties and the building of a cool, clean version of the future city.

Annabel Vaughan is a BCIN certified M.Arch, Principal of publicLAB RESEARCH + DESIGN and Project Manager at ERA Architects. She is the daughter of Colin Vaughan, architect, activist, journallist, colleague of Peter Dickinson and John Sewell.

April 18

John Sewell - Questioning Modernism

John Sewell, will speak of the beginnings of post modernism, in Toronto. City Council’s Reform movement in the 1970’s questioned modernist urban renewal and began the heritage movement in Toronto. Diamond and Myers’ York Square, currently at risk, was one of the first projects to blend new with old and to consider contextual design. It was followed by several other Diamond and Myers’ projects, including Dundas Sherbourne and the Hydro Block, and by the St. Lawrence Neighbourhood. These and other projects showed how new development could respect existing communities, increase densities and provide affordable and market housing in attractive forms which complemented existing built form.

John Sewell, former Mayor of Toronto, author of “How We Changed Toronto, 1969 – 1980,” .

April 25

Panel Discussion: Is This the City we Want? Conservation in 2016 Toronto

Panelists:

Kim Storey, Brown and Storey Architects
Robert Allsopp, partner, DTAH, Member ACO President's Circle
Mary MacDonald, Manager, Heritage Preservation Services
Alex Bozikovic, Globe and Mail, Architectural Correspondent
Dave LeBlanc, Globe and Mail, Architectural Correspondent
Jamie Bradburn, Torontoist, Researcher/Writer to Historicist

Moderator:

Catherine Nasmith - Architect, ACO President

Discussion:

What is the role of conservation in today’s rapidly changing Toronto? Cultural? Environmental? Social?
Can we do better than urban taxidermy?
What lessons of the 70’s have been lost?
Does it matter that we barely recognize parts of Toronto?
How much is too much?
Do we need a new generation of reform activists and politicians?