[URBAN NOTE] "When will Toronto love its Modern architecture?"

[rfmcdonald]

Spacing Toronto's Chris Bateman uses the impending demolition of the Carlton Tower, built on the northeast corner of Yonge and Carleton almost fifty years ago and now slated for demolition, to look at the problematic place of Modern architecture in the city.

What do you picture when you read the words “heritage building.”? It probably isn’t the Carlton Tower at Yonge and Carlton streets.

The 18-storey office building was completed in 1958 in a Modern style typical of Toronto’s post-war boom era. It predates TD Centre, Toronto City Hall, and is an early example of the tower-on-a-podium style used practically everywhere in Toronto today.

This week, its owner submitted plans to demolish the building for a pair of 72-storey condominium towers. The Carlton Tower, which is currently home to a Shoppers Drug Mart and Bulk Barn, is part of the planned Historic Yonge Street Heritage Conservation District, but it is deemed “non-contributing,” which means it lacks legal protection from demolition.

The Carlton Tower, like many Modern Toronto buildings, is in late-middle age, when indifference and neglect are at peak levels. Every architectural style goes through this period before enough people become willing to love and defend it.

Old City Hall was the subject of at least two demolition proposals in the 1960s and 70s, when it was roughly the same as the Carlton Tower. During planning of New City Hall, the venerable old municipal building was derided as being “fortress-like” and unworthy of protection by the Globe and Mail.