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rfmcdonaldA passing remark by Mad Men actor Jared Harris, caught at Gothamist, has created a minor storm in Toronto.
This passing remark even inspired a prominent article in this morning's Metro Toronto under the title "Mad Men star disses Toronto’s architectural landscape".
I do not think it's completely unfair at all. It's worth noting that Harris is an actor, working in the film and television industry, an industry that for decades has picked Toronto specifically because its architecture was so generic that it could stand in for anyplace. All it took for Toronto to stand in for Raccoon City in the second Resident Evil film was the digital deletion of the CN Tower.
Does Toronto have interesting points? Of course. Quite frequently I've photographed these points for my readers, here and elsewhere. The problem is that these are only points in what can be fairly described as a generic North American cityscape. This is not something to be ashamed of. It's just something that, in subsequent decades and generations, with the help of people like Keesmat, Toronto will need to work on.
[Jared] Harris advocated for the protection of mom and pop shops saying, "This area is attractive to people, to real estate developers, because this area has character. If you rip down the buildings and rip out all the character, you just end up with Toronto, which is a fantastic city, but everything looks the same there."
This passing remark even inspired a prominent article in this morning's Metro Toronto under the title "Mad Men star disses Toronto’s architectural landscape".
Toronto’s chief planner is inviting Mad Men star Jared Harris on a tour of the city after he publicly dissed Toronto’s architecture.
Harris, known for his role as Lane Pryce on the AMC series, was speaking at an event in New York in support of an East Village eatery on the verge of closure. According to Gothamist, he said losing small businesses like the deli would rob the Big Apple of its local character.
[. . .]
“It’s completely unfair to say the city of Toronto is all the same,” said chief planner Jennifer Keesmaat. “We need to give him a tour of the city … I can take him to a lot of really interesting and dynamic places.”
Any city that’s growing quickly can risk becoming homogenous, Keesmaat said, but she insisted Toronto is maintaining “the distinct identities” of its neighbourhoods. As an example, she pointed to the intersection of King and Spadina, where condo developments have integrated heritage buildings into their design.
I do not think it's completely unfair at all. It's worth noting that Harris is an actor, working in the film and television industry, an industry that for decades has picked Toronto specifically because its architecture was so generic that it could stand in for anyplace. All it took for Toronto to stand in for Raccoon City in the second Resident Evil film was the digital deletion of the CN Tower.
Does Toronto have interesting points? Of course. Quite frequently I've photographed these points for my readers, here and elsewhere. The problem is that these are only points in what can be fairly described as a generic North American cityscape. This is not something to be ashamed of. It's just something that, in subsequent decades and generations, with the help of people like Keesmat, Toronto will need to work on.
