Concrete Toronto

A Guide to Concrete Architecture from the Fifties to the Seventies

Michael McClelland, Graeme Stewart, Michael McClelland, Graeme Stewart

• Publisher: Coach House Books
• Year: 2004
• Print ISBN: 9781552451939
• eBook ISBN: 9781770560314
• Topic: Architecture
• Subtopic: Architecture Methods & Materials

Toronto is a concrete city. From international landmarks to civic buildings to cultural institutions to metropolitan infrastructure and the single-family home, reminders of the era of 'brutalist' architecture surround Torontonians. But for how long? As architectural fashion has shifted to the glass-and-steel neomodernism of today, these concrete structures have been increasingly ignored – and in some cases, demolished.

Concrete Toronto takes readers on a guided tour of Toronto's concrete architecture. Editors Michael McClelland and Graeme Stewart have assembled a diverse group of industry experts – architects, university faculty, local practitioners, city planners, historians and journalists – to examine the unique and important qualities and the past and future of Toronto's concrete buildings in interviews, articles, archival photos, drawings and case studies.

Appealing to both the average reader and the enthusiast, Concrete Toronto provides a refreshing look not only at the neglected buildings, but also at the trends that produced them and the impact and consequences that resulted from their construction.

Fig. 1. Downtown Toronto, late 1960s, from the Park Plaza Hotel

concrete toronto downtown

Reinforced Concrete in Toronto: An Early History

Robert G. Hill

Architect, Historian, KPMB Architects

Despite American precedents recorded as early as 1895, the pioneering use of reinforced concrete in general construction did not occur in Canada until after the turn of the century. Considered ideal for use in commercial and industrial buildings, the material offered significant advantages for architects and engineers, including its inherent strength, its fire-resistant quality and the large, unobstructed spans made possible with few, if any, supporting columns to obstruct activity within the building.

Following the patented invention of the Kahn system of reinforced concrete framing in the United States in 1903, it wasn’t long before a competing system, developed by Ferro-Concrete Construction Ltd., was introduced the same year. Within five years, virtually all major Canadian cities had begun to debate and formulate bylaws and codes to regulate the use and standards of this construction method.1

Among the earliest buildings in Toronto to be constructed in concrete was a six-storey loft building at 60 Front Street West, just west of Bay.2 This landmark work would later draw the attention of Eric Arthur when he published an illustration of the rear of the building in Toronto: No Mean City (University of Toronto Press, 1964). The illustration is erroneously dated by Arthur as ‘c. 1900’ and unattributed; it is only recently that new research conducted by this writer has uncovered information about the architects who designed the building, enabling an accurate dating of the work to 1905–06. This confirms it as one of the first buildings erected after the Great Fire of April 1904, when the entire north side of Front Street West, both east and west of Bay, had been completely engulfed in flames and destroyed. Cited as a vacant building in city directories in 1906, the new building was fully occupied by 12 business tenants from 1907 onward; by 1920, the building had been renamed Wilson Warehouses Building. The designers of this innovative structure are Symons and Rae, who applied for a building permit on June 24, 1905, for a ‘6 storey concrete warehouse and office building for Mr. S. Frank Wilson … located at 60–62 Front Street West’. Sadly, this early and important work, one of the first of its kind in Canada, was demolished in 1958 to make way for additions to the Royal York Hotel.3

While major advances in reinforced-concrete construction were occurring in Calgary, Vancouver, Winnipeg and Montreal during the first decade of the 20th century, the introduction of this innovative construction method in Toronto suffered a significant setback with the appointment of Robert McCallum as City Architect in late 1905. McCallum (1851–1916), an engineer by training, was known for his conservative views on the introduction of this new building technology, and he frequently refused to grant permits for concrete buildings, declaring this construction method flimsy, dangerous and unproven. His demands, outlined in an illuminating article published in Toronto in The Contract Record in June 1908, included requiring architects to over-design the building strength of the concrete by a factor of 25 percent and requiring owners of new reinforced-concrete buildings under construction to employ, at their own expense, a special inspector to supervise the mixing and placing of concrete and steel.4 By June 1911, McCallum was increasingly intransigent on the issue of relaxing standards to allow for wider use of the method,5 but by late 1913 he had resigned his position after

Fig. 2. 60 Front Street West

extensive criticism from City Council committees who accused him of mismanagement.6

Only after his departure did the full-fledged, large-scale innovation of this new construction technique flourish, with outstanding examples including the Methodist Book Publishing Warehouse (1913; now Citytv), Queen Street West at John, designed by Burke, Horwood & White, and the sprawling Robert Simpson Co. Warehouse (1916; now the Merchandise Lofts complex), Dalhousie Street at Gould, designed by Max L. Dunning.

New City Hall

Christopher Hume

Urban critic, The Toronto Star

Though much unloved, concrete has changed the cities of the world, even made them possible. Sadly, architects have not always taken full advantage of its expressive properties, but Viljo Revell was different. The Finnish practitioner, chosen in 1958 through an international competition to design Toronto City Hall, fully understood the sculptural potential of this ancient medium. More than four decades after his masterpiece was completed, it still stands among the supreme examples of architectural concrete in the world.

True, people complain that Toronto City Hall lacks colour, but that’s more than adequately compensated for by the spectacular forms of the complex. The two curved towers, 27 and 20 storeys, embrace the ‘flying saucer’ that contains the council chamber. Revell’s concept, however abstract it may seem, expresses the civic ideal and the democratic spirit that lie at the heart of the modern city.

It was concrete that enabled Revell to achieve the organic, curvilinear qualities so essential to his vision. Though inspired by classical notions of civic architecture, his interest was not formal. Unlike, say, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, who sought to mesh the rationality of classical models with 20th-century technology, Revell took a more humanist stance. The rigid geometry of the Miesians held little appeal for Revell; he opted for a kinder, gentler architecture ideally suited to the plasticity of concrete.

Thus, City Hall is defined by its flow, soft edges, curves and circularity; it is a complex where every element connects seamlessly with the next. The ribbed tower walls, for example, are informed by Revell’s concerns for shape and texture. They feel more gestural than structural, more handmade than constructed. There is a fluidity here rarely found in architecture, especially in a building such as City Hall, which must bear the weight of municipal symbolism. In this case, it’s concrete that made such expressiveness possible.

Best of all, Revell does not seem to have approached concrete as a substitute for some other material. One doesn’t look at City Hall and wish it were clad in marble or limestone – that wouldn’t be appropriate. His building makes a virtue of the specific characteristics of concrete, its ability to take any shape, its almost liquid quality. Unlike some Brutalist building, with its fixation on surface and texture, Revell’s structure concentrates on forms and shapes.

Interesting, too, that even the now-legendary City Hall competition also helped set the stage for the acceptance of concrete as a material for use in a civic icon. Among the architects the contest drew to Toronto was John Andrews, whose submission was one of seven chosen from 510 entries sent from 42 countries. Though he eventually lost to Revell, Andrews went on to design several local landmarks, including the CN Tower and Scarborough College, both remarkable examples of sculptural concrete.

It is a testament to Revell’s genius and the power of concrete that City Hall ranks among the most beloved buildings in Toronto.

Fig. 3. Viljo Revell’s winning competition model superimposed onto site

Fig. 4. The ‘Ward,’ site of New City Hall before clearance

Fig. 5. Site cleared, in use as parking prior to construction of New City Hall

Fig. 6. Photo montage of Revell’s winning design

Fig. 7. New City Hall, giving Toronto an icon and vaulting it into the modern era

Figs. 8, 11. Nathan Phillips Square, Toronto’s first large public space, with Henry Moore’s Archer

Fig. 9, 10. Sculptural towers of the east and west office blocks are clad in precast concrete panels with marble inserts

Design in Concrete and Architectonic Form in Viljo Revell’s Toronto City Hall

Ronald Mar

Associate, Stantec Architecture Ltd. His father, Jack B. Mar, was Project Architect with John B. Parkin Associates, Architects and Engineers, who were the Associate Architects with Viljo Revell for New City Hall.

As pure, mannered sculptural form, Viljo Revell’s City Hall, with its iconic boomerang-shaped towers poised above the largest public square in the metropolis, has, since its inception, occupied a place in the collective imagination of the City of Toronto. With a futuristic architectural concept translated largely intact from the original 1958 competition-winning scheme to the built project that officially opened in September 1965, the project embodied the post–World War II spirit of optimism, looking forward to the new modern era in the second half of the century.

While the arc...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Prelude
• Foreword
• Guidebook
• Introduction
• Downtown
• Infrastructure
• The Modern Suburbs
• Beyond Toronto
• Building with Concrete
• Afterword