It turns out, One Spadina Crescent, the big 19th-century building Spadina curves around just north of College, was never completed.
The University of Toronto School of Architecture is going to change that.
The school's Dean, Richard Sommer, announced this morning that U.S. architect Nader Tehrani has designed an addition to the north side of the building, which will be built in conjunction with thoroughgoing renovations to prepare the building to be the new premises for the expanding architecture school, the country’s oldest.
"It's one of those early buildings in the history of the city, like Upper Canada College or the provincial legislature, that was a kind of a frontal building, positioned to face the lake," Sommer says.
"It was a U-shaped building, what we call in architecture single-loaded. The north end of the site was never developed, and over time it just got filled in with stuff. Before it was even [the] Knox Theological Seminary and later college, it was built as a prospect for wealthy landowners. That was the original function of that circle. Then the seminary took over and had a building facing south."
Sommer says there have been a number of additions added haphazardly to the north of the building over the years, which will be demolished.
"The project is part of making design and city-building front-and-centre for the city of Toronto," he says.
John Daniels, of developer the
Daniels Corporation, and his wife Myrna have given another $10 million towards the project, in addition to the $14 million the couple gave in 2008 that triggered the renaming of the architecture school in his name.
Daniels graduated from the school of architecture in 1950.
"I would compare the Daniels benefaction to what
Alfred Taubman gave to the
University of Michigan more than a decade ago, and which completely transformed its prospects," Sommer says.
Some excavation of hazardous materials has already been done, and Sommer hopes that if the rest of the fundraising goes well, the entire project will be completed within three years.
Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Richard Sommer
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