Places – Public Architecture: HCMA Architecture + Design
“This book provides a primer for architectural practitioners and the public alike; a portfolio of projects completed by a firm that, over its 40 year history has devoted much of its creative energy to...
View ArticleBook Review—Bruno Munari: Square Circle Triangle
Author: Bruno Munari (Princeton Architectural Press, 2016) All disciplines are filled with unsung heroes, significant figures who have contributed to their respective fields, and whose memory often...
View ArticleArt 24/7: The Legacy of the Toronto Sculpture Garden
By: Rina Greer For over thirty years, the Toronto Sculpture Garden was the site of innovative, temporary, contemporary sculpture installations. This small, urban park in the downtown core served as a...
View ArticleFife and Drum: The day the fort was saved from streetcars
The latest edition of Fife and Drum, the quarterly newsletter produced by the Friends of Fort York, was recently released. As always it’s filled with stories about both Fort York and Toronto history....
View ArticleLORINC: Which transit projects should be built first?
If you’re ever in the market for a choice example of bureaucratic obfuscation, look no further than the following section in the slightly amended version of city council’s newly unified transit...
View ArticleThe half-built relics of nixed Toronto skyscrapers
In 1914, John Eaton, the third son of retail magnate Timothy Eaton, began preparing plans for a massive expansion of his family’s empire. Aged 38, John had spent almost his entire working life in...
View ArticleBook Review: Scaling Infrastructure
Author: MIT Center for Advanced Urbanism (Princeton Architectural Press, 2016) The MIT Center for Advanced Urbanism (CAU) holds a biennial conference under the theme of infrastructure and this book,...
View ArticleUrban Confrontations: An Interview with Jennifer Marman and Daniel Borins
Interview by: Ilana Altman Jennifer Marman and Daniel Borins have been making large-format sculpture, mixed media, installation and electronic art since 2000. Jennifer Marman is a graduate of the...
View ArticleThe Troubles? An unconventional account of the NDP convention
written by Douglas Bell In a convention centre built into the north wall of the North Saskatchewan River Valley, New Democrats from every nook and cranny of the Canadian edifice last weekend discussed,...
View ArticleLORINC: Cops investigating cops
The Ontario coroner’s decision last week to call an inquest into the shooting death of Andrew Loku, a 45-year-old man killed last summer by Toronto police during a confrontation at the supportive...
View ArticleToronto’s Depression-era beauty queen baseball star
Women have been playing baseball for as long as anyone can remember. And for much of that time, they’ve been playing despite the men who’ve tried to keep them off the field. In baseball’s early days,...
View ArticleBook Review—Casting Architecture: Ventilation Blocks
Author: Florian Schatz (ORO Editions, 2014) Every once and a while a book reaches me that seems to be simple and short, but often times these books prove to be so much more, as was the case with...
View ArticleGrow Op: Urbanism, Landscape & Contemporary Art
It’s spring in the city, and what better way to get in the mood for the new season in Toronto than checking out an exhibit that combines cities, landscape and art? The annual Grow Op exhibition is at...
View ArticleThe curious origin of the original low-floor streetcar
Toronto is in the (unexpectedly slow) process of getting new low-floor streetcars. The goal of these new cars is accessibility — they can be used by people in wheelchairs, unlike earlier streetcar...
View ArticleThe signal distance factor — safe crossing “deserts”
Pedestrians are often accused of putting themselves in danger by crossing wide, fast streets at locations where there is no traffic signal. But in many parts of Toronto, traffic signals are 1 km or...
View ArticleBook Review – Vancouver Vanishes: Narratives of Demolition and Revival
“Since 2005, nearly 9,000 demo permits for residential buildings have been issued in Vancouver. An average of three houses a day are torn down, many of them original homes built for the middle and...
View ArticleLORINC: What Toronto can learn from street fighter Janette Sadik-Khan
Toronto has only one short and unflattering walk-on part in Janette Sadik Khan’s fascinating account of her experiences as the crusading transportation commissioner for former New York City mayor...
View ArticleContact at 20: An Interview with Bonnie Rubenstein
Interview by: Ilana Altman & Melanie Fasche Bonnie Rubenstein has been a director at the Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival since 2002 and is responsible for the festival’s artistic...
View ArticleBOOK REVIEW: Thomas Fuller: Architect for a Nation
Thomas Fuller: Architect for a Nation by Dorothy Mindenhall Lakehill Books, 2015. 158 pages, 92 illustrations, $45.00 Thomas Fuller (1823-1898) rose to prominence as one (of four) architects of...
View ArticleWhen Haileybury burned, Toronto sent streetcars
The town of Haileybury sits on the shore of Lake Timiskaming, a serpentine body of water on the northern reaches of the Ottawa River that marks the border between Ontario and Quebec. From the town’s...
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