[URBAN NOTE] "Ontario Place revisited"

[rfmcdonald]

Shawn Micallef, easily Toronto's most famous flâneur, writes at Spacing Toronto about Ontario Place. What's there? What is it all about? What can it be about?

When it opened in 1971, it was Ontario’s $29 million answer to Montreal’s Expo ’67, if not in terms of civic pride then in dreams of waterfront and economic stimulus (a Toronto theme that never seems to go away). Designed by Toronto’s Eberhard Zeidler, it was constructed on fill dumped into Lake Ontario off the CNE shore, including three old lake freighters that were sunk and filled with sand to act as anchors for the landfill. The five pods that were suspended over the lake are like nothing else in the world, and the Cinesphere had the world’s first permanent IMAX theatre. For those who like to fret about Toronto’s world-class-ness, we’ve got some beauties right here. Once housing exhibits, the pods are only used for wedding and event rentals now. With floor-to-ceiling glass, they have some of the best views of Toronto, and few people get to see them.

Like Expo ’67, its opening brought with it a kind of Trudeaumaniacal excitement. If Expo let Canada be sexy, Ontario Place said this historically uptight province could be too. Ads from that first year proclaimed the glories of “The Girls of Ontario Place” claiming “There’s a lot to see at Ontario Place, and some of the easiest things on the eye are the attractive guides.” The Globe and Mail even did a photo spread of said girls, writing, “The 100 girls who are the hostesses at Ontario Place for the summer… have hot pants and pantsuits, a midi, a jacket and a stretchy yellow-and-white bubble blouse. Most popular are the hot pants. One girl commented ‘I’ve just got to shorten them.’”

Today, Ontario Place could use more hot pants. The uniforms (on both sexes) are frumpy and oversized now (though perhaps on account of the deep-fried foods that are served in huge portions — even the coffee bar is called a “fill station”). On a recent trip there, I spent over $15 just to enter the grounds for a walk that included few free attractions and a lot of either rundown or neglected buildings. On the east side, where the beloved children’s village once was, a dead, mostly paved space called “South Beach” is located near the waterslide park. The other older bits that have survived here and there are unloved, and the newer games and attractions seem temporary, as if part of the CNE.

[. . .]

Ontario Place needs a near-complete rethink. We should bring back the park, make it free and turn it into a great Toronto public space. Build housing in and around it, so it’s a 24-hour neighbourhood, not just alive during the summer daylight hours. As dense communities are growing in nearby Liberty Village and Fort York, putting people in Ontario Place would nearly surround the CNE with life.

Yet whatever we do with this place, we must retain the hot-pants parts: the pods and sphere. Modernist buildings at this age are at greatest risk. Like awkward teenagers, they are unloved and are routinely disrespected, but parents don’t disown them; they know they’ll come around in a few years. Also at risk is a particular Toronto look that Zeidler gave us at Ontario Place and at his Eaton Centre, itself about to get a $120-million renovation which will likely remove many of the 1970s “futuristic” Space Shuttle–era details. Because of the age of both these places, and their connections to fun times, it’s easy to dismiss our built heritage as nostalgia.