“The Fight for Toronto’s Skies”: How the Mirvish+Gehry Condos Are about Art, Heritage, and Capital

Whether he meant to or not, Ed Mirvish became a city-builder. His enterprises have become landmarks, including the Royal Alexandra Theatre and, of course, Honest Ed’s. Now his son, David Mirvish, wants to make his own mark on the city of Toronto. In the process, he’s turned himself into a local reprobate, though most of the criticism aimed at him stems from his $100 million sale of Honest Ed’s and surrounding properties. Mirvish Junior is abandoning this block in the Annex to focus on King Street, where he plans to tear down the Princess of Wales Theatre and the adjacent century-old warehouses. In their place, he’s going to build condos, but not just any condos: he plans on building three 80-storey condo towers designed by architect Frank Gehry, responsible for projects like the Guggenheim Bilbao, the Walt Disney Concert Hall, and the AGO’s renovation. The plan, Mirvish+Gehry, includes an OCAD branch, an art gallery, and Gehry’s signature curved architecture that looks like it came out of dreamland. The model[1. “Mirvish+Gehry Toronto,” Mirvish+Gehry, Dec. 26 2013, mirvishandgehrytoronto.com.] looks impossible to build. One of Chief Urban Planner Jennifer Keesmaat’s fears is that all the art and sculptural quality touted in the project will disappear once council has approved demolition and development.[2. Hume, Christopher. “Toronto’s chief planner, Jennifer Keesmaat, challenges Mirvish/Gehry scheme: Hume,” Toronto Star. Oct. 7, 2013.] I turned to Barbara Isenberg’s Conversations with Frank Gehry, a book-length interview, to learn more about the famous architect and his past projects. Gehry delves into a career that stretches as far back as the 1950s and goes to some length to dissociate himself from his “starchitect” reputation. He emphasizes his concern with the urban and natural environment of his projects and includes a story on how he wound up building Guggenheim Bilbao with titanium: “We decided to make the building metal because Bilbao was a steel town … So we built twenty-five mock-ups of a stainless steel exterior with different variations on the theme. But in Bilbao, which has a lot of rain and a lot of gray sky, the stainless steel went dead.”[3. Isenberg, Barbara. Conversations with Frank Gehry (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2009).] Another anecdote explains that the iconic pinch in Prague’s Dancing House was made to preserve the view of Prague Castle from a neighbouring balcony. His buildings start as sketches and evolve into equally outlandish, if legible, models. Briefly, the book touches on a software program Gehry helped develop in order to provide contractors with detailed instructions for actually building his unconventional designs. According to Gehry, the software helps limit instances in which contractors offer a lower price if they “straighten out a few walls,” leading his clients to do away with the project’s artistry. Gehry’s art is architecture that treats buildings as lived-in art, or “art with toilets,” although Gehry himself avoids calling his work “art” to prevent controversy. When architects and planners get together, they have the difficult task of balancing the city’s aesthetic value with its functions. Streets need to be comfortable, they need to facilitate movement, and at best they encourage both social and commercial exchange. This is especially true for King Street West, which is both a traffic artery and an important commercial strip. Mirvish+Gehry would cohere with King Street’s current look, defined downtown by a combination of the Toronto-Dominion Centre, TIFF Lightbox, and heritage structures (like the very warehouses Mirvish wants demolished), while still bringing out something radically new. Like most of these mega-projects, an OCAD branch and an art gallery are meant to add some institutional palliatives to the lavishly commercial office/condo/retail triad. As much as the book promotes appreciation of Gehry’s work and process, a trip down to the warehouses in question was in order to fully realize what’s at stake. These four buildings, all built in the early 1900s, are part of the old fabric Toronto is avariciously tearing up. The first thing about these warehouses I noticed is that I never discerned them before they entered the headlines. The Anderson building has incredible brick details and adds visual depth to the streetscape. The Edwardian Reid building is harder to point out with the crowds rushing past on King West, as the walls are mostly flat. The public notice of intention to designate 284 King West (Anderson Building) a heritage building cites its unique application of terra cotta and its contribution to the historical character of this former industrial neighbourhood.[4. “Public Notice – Heritage Land,” City of Toronto, Sept. 27, 2010.] King-Spadina’s warehouse character is certainly the source of its downtown energy. Back-end streets like Richmond and Adelaide are reprieves from relentless retail signage and traffic without losing the historic core’s impressive height and feeling of density. That said, these four ex-warehouses are harder to defend when one takes into account what they house now. There are offices, naturally, and something tells me their prime location disproves the correlation between a building’s older age and lower rents. Their basements and street-levels house the same kind of retail you expect in Niagara Falls: cheesy, touristy, and over-priced. I have no love for the Dunn’s Famous in the Anderson Building, where well-dressed theatre-goers have waitresses pour out bottles of wine while they munch on fatty Reubens. There’s a Golf Land in the Reid Building (the Reid Building was designed by the architects who did the Hart House), a Shoeless Joe’s in 276 King, and in the Eclipse Whitewear Building there’s a Tim Horton’s and a From Hockey to Hollywood memorabilia store. When Ed Mirvish took over these warehouses, he opened Ed’s Warehouse, Old Ed’s, and Most Honourable Ed’s Chinese. They were as tacky as the discount department store on Bathurst, and were frequented, like Dunn’s, by well-heeled patrons of hit musicals and other stage schlock.

“Gehry’s art is architecture that treats buildings as lived-in art, or ‘art with toilets.’ ”

When the manufacturers left, it was Ed Mirvish’s circus-barker marketing style that characterized the neighbourhood. As corny as Golf Land is, the kitsch is dulled by the sheen of the suburban plaza franchise. This “heritage” space is heritage simply because the bricks are old. It’s a facade heritage, and the interior functions are probably no better or worse than the “high-end” retail David Mirvish plans for his own development. On November 19, 2013, Gehry and Mirvish addressed Toronto City Council. Gehry’s comments made headlines. The National Post quoted him as saying only Old City Hall and Osgoode Hall are worth saving. The architect’s defense for demolishing these old warehouses in the entertainment district was, “I don't know whether we should be designating heritage buildings.”[5. Kuitenbrouwer, Peter. “The only two buildings in Toronto worth saving are Old City Hall and Osgoode Hall, Frank Gehry says,” National Post. Nov. 19, 2013.] His flippant attitude toward historical preservation jarred many in Toronto. The city has a reputation for tearing down its older elements. Toronto seems to have ignored its architectural heritage up until now. Gehry himself lamented the fact that the old General Hospital was torn down, although its facade still stands at University and College. It is clear that facadism will not be an option in Gehry’s design, and that is a principled stand largely missing in Toronto. Too many old stone structures have lost their context and beauty by sprouting glass skyscrapers, or they have been swallowed entirely in tower lobbies. Facadism is a popular compromise between preservation and development, but the result is usually an aesthetic disaster. The problem is that it hides and neglects the parts of the building that are actually used and inhabited. Conversations, fortunately, provides more background on Gehry’s thoughts on heritage preservation:

It’s like the grande dame going to the ball with her Oscar de la Renta outfit, or whatever, with a hair curler in the back which she forgot to take out. You wonder why they don’t see it, but they don’t. Then in comes a guy with something that is thought out and potentially beautiful. Maybe it’s not beautiful by definition in their world … Over time, if they’re any good, they become iconic and accepted and change people’s minds about what’s beautiful. And I think that happens because they’re well thought out in terms of human scale and function.[6. Isenberg, Barbara. Conversations with Frank Gehry (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2009).]

Gehry’s concern for livability, function, and scale come through in his gallery designs. Both Guggenheim Bilbao and the AGO have galleries branching off from the central atrium rather than each one leading into the other. The plan was meant to help with “museum fatigue,” allowing visitors to return after each gallery to the central space before deciding which way to go next. Gehry also says that he “wanted to have the central space open to the city” so the art could interact with the city at-large.[7. Ibid.] As an architect, Gehry invents buildings in relation to the urban space that already exists. That’s why his three towers are going to be connected by a six-storey “podium” to human-scale the development where it encounters the street. Some have proposed that this “podium” integrate the warehouse facades, a solution that benefits neither Gehry’s project nor the real historical look and feel of the district. A parallel drama in preservation is in its early stages to the north, at Bathurst and Bloor. After the initial shock of Honest Ed’s sale and comparisons with the tearing down of Sam the Record Man, some lamented the fact that Markham Street was included in the sale. Ed Mirvish bought the Victorian houses on Markham Street, now known as Mirvish Village, to demolish them and build a parking lot.[8. Blackett, Matthew. “Mirvish Village, circa 1982,” Spacing Toronto. June 19, 2013, spacing.ca.] The City of Toronto denied Ed’s application to tear them down, so instead he leased them out to artists and shop owners. The street now houses restaurants and record, book, vintage clothing, and jewelry stores. Markham Street has a reputation for charming and independent retail, but without the City’s intervention it would be a parking lot, and looming condo development would be a practical infill for improving density. Unlike Markham Street, the King Street warehouses are home to offices and franchise retail. In other words, the loss to the urban fabric at King Street is architectural, whereas on Markham Street development will cost the city not only some of its historic architecture, but its independent and artistic character, too. The heritage debate goes a lot deeper than whether or not you like old buildings. Mark Crinson, literary and urbanist critic, questions a cult of memory that transforms central cities into empty museums, while people with lower incomes are pushed out into ever-farther peripheries. One criticism of architectural preservation is that heritage space is an elite and unfair privilege.[9. Crinson, Mark. Urban Memory: History and Amnesia In the Modern City. New York: Routledge, 2005.] Since the 1980s, the TTC’s response to government divestment has been “tailoring service to meet demand,” an austerity-driven attitude that led to service cuts on surface routes and deterred transit use among those who could afford to drive instead.[10. Munro, Steve. “Transit, for the love of Toronto,” Spacing. Summer 2009.] Increasingly, the people who cannot afford to drive live too far away from the centre to cycle or walk to work. They depend on often-unreliable buses and face hour-plus commutes even when everything runs on time. The anti-preservationist line is that central real estate is underutilized by heritage buildings. Osgoode Hall can be developed to provide more living space to reduce huge commutes and geographic inequality. The problem is that new housing stock is never cheap. Without government intervention, housing stock only becomes affordable over time, as it deteriorates. Heritage demolition rarely, if ever, makes way for public or subsidized housing.

“Markham Street has a reputation for charming and independent retail, but without the City’s intervention it would be a parking lot.”

Mirvish+Gehry is going to house the rich, if it houses anyone at all. According to The Globe and Mail, a quarter of Vancouver’s condos are vacant, built primarily because real estate offers greater investment returns than stocks or bonds.[11. Bula, Frances. “Vancouver’s vacancies point to investors, not residents,” The Globe and Mail. Mar. 21, 2013.] The development’s greatest contribution to the city is not going to be improved density in the core, cheaper housing as a consequence of greater housing supply, or decreased congestion and shorter commute times for everyone. The biggest contribution these towers will make is an aesthetic one. The way a city looks doesn’t belong to the public, but it arouses more passion (and disdain) than the fate of any public square. The skyline is the visual and indelible definition of any city’s identity. In Toronto, big bank towers and Victorian bay-and-gables represent Toronto to the world, the rest of the country, and most importantly, to ourselves. City council and municipal planning bureaucrats are meant to mediate between the private developers and architects (who decide what Toronto will look like) and the public, with a vested though non-monetary interest in the appearance and function of private properties. Typically, developers aren’t interested in creating iconicity. Instead, they build cost efficiencies. They use the cheapest suitable materials and “design” features (like the Picasso on Richmond’s red cubes, tacked on to attract prestige-seekers). Make no mistake; Mirvish is going to make a lot of money if he builds three 80-storey towers in downtown Toronto. However, Keesmaat’s claim that these towers are too tall for a neighbourhood next to Metro Hall, the Toronto-Dominion Centre and the CN Tower is truly bizarre. In this case, city council is cheating Toronto out of its public image and actively promoting mediocrity. If these warehouses on King Street were put to better use than they currently are, they would be worthier of preservation. As it is, the “should we/shouldn’t we?” conversation regarding Mirvish+Gehry would be more constructive if it engaged with the issue of how all the new space in three huge towers is to be used. At the moment, Toronto’s official affordable housing policy is “100% replacement.” What this means is that developers only need to replace the affordable housing they demolish to make way for the new development.[12. Apostolides, Kayla. “The problem with development in Toronto,” Spacing Toronto. Nov. 26, 2013, spacing.ca.] The “100% replacement” policy fails to account for Toronto’s growing population and a growing need for affordable housing. According to the City of Toronto, the only affordable housing project completed in 2013 was 8 Chicester Place. Rents at 8 Chichester are all below Toronto’s market average ($1,149 for 2 bedrooms) and they are only available to tenants over the age of 59. There are 210 units. Toronto Community Housing is currently building three affordable housing projects around West Don Lands. Combined, the three projects will create 292 rental units. By comparison, Mirvish+Gehry, as proposed, would create 2,709 residential units. Keesmaat’s insistence that the towers be scaled down is a fear of heights. She told the CBC that “Tall buildings have a special obligation because their impacts are so profound,” and “I believe we can have three fabulous Gehry buildings … if the massing and scale of the buildings have become more in line with the public objectives.”[13. “Mirvish King West plan needs changes, planner says,” CBC News. Dec. 16, 2013, cbc.ca.] If Mirvish+Gehry does in fact approach its full residential capacity, the implications on downtown infrastructure, such as street and transit capacity, will be undeniably enormous. Keesmaat could pressure Mirvish+Gehry for affordable housing inclusions and financial assistance for building necessary infrastructure improvements. Instead, her opposition is an offer to let Mirvish build his luxury retail-residential complex exactly as proposed, only shorter. Without losing sight of Mirvish+Gehry’s profit potential, it is also significant that both the developer and the architect were born in Toronto. Even if Gehry made his career in Los Angeles, where he still lives and keeps his office, in Conversations he attributes an early affinity for the visual arts to the AGO, located near his childhood neighbourhood. Mirvish published a defense of the project shortly after Gehry told city council only Osgoode Hall and Old City Hall were worth a heritage designation. In the National Post[14. Mirvish, David. “Building an optimistic Toronto and a livable city,” National Post. Nov. 21, 2013.] he writes about his family’s legacy in Toronto and about continuing to build the city. Mostly, Mirvish is doing damage control after Gehry’s faux pas. He also writes that, “we can create a Toronto of optimism and pride, a city that celebrates culture.” More significantly, he includes more of Gehry’s address, namely when Gehry said: “Life is about people. So make buildings for people.” As much as Mirvish’s defense stinks of advertising copy and culture-washing, Mirvish+Gehry is the kind of project Toronto needs to see more often. Unfortunately, the reality of city building in our era is that great buildings are made more often for profit than for utility.

“The heritage debate goes a lot deeper than whether or not you like old buildings.”

A city’s skyline is its most important signifier of civic identity. Almost every major city in the world can be identified by its tall buildings alone. Today, condominiums and hotels are making a much bigger impact on our cityscape than the corporate headquarters, city halls and museums that defined Toronto in the past. Recognizing this, we have to expect a greater level of city building in all of these projects. Mirvish might be bluffing when he asks for a height that would surpass even the Trump Tower. The city would be better off calling that bluff and demanding a project that would radically change a skyline that is already well developed. Toronto’s biggest advantage here is that it already has the weight and height to make Mirvish+Gehry a radical contribution to the skyline but not the single definitive landmark. Between this developer and this architect, there seems to be genuine will to do something big for Toronto and to do it right, whatever else this project will net them. A cookie-cutter condo project would have passed with less fanfare. Part of the problem Mirvish has visited upon himself is also his biggest asset: since Gehry’s name is huge, writing about his projects will find an audience. A condo-developer interested exclusively in the money would have picked a boring architect to do a boring project, and no one but a small residents’ association would have noticed when council approved the demolition of four buildings that no one knew had a heritage designation until Frank Gehry became responsible for tearing them down. Unlike Mirvish+Gehry, the boring version of this story is happening across Toronto right now. It’s happening right down the block from Mirvish+Gehry at 24 Mercer Street, just south of King and west of John. Mirvish argues that his development on King West will “take back the public realm, creating a space where Torontonians can live, shop, visit a gallery, right where they work.”[15. Loney, Heather. “Toronto staff recommends scaled-down version of Mirvish, Gehry King St. Plan,” Global News. Dec. 18, 2013, globalnews.ca.] The most productive challenge the city can present to David Mirvish is not height restrictions or heritage preservation; the real way to create the city Mirvish talks about making is to recognize who else works downtown. When you’re looking at the big towers and the renovated warehouses leased by architecture and design firms, you might miss the restaurants, the dozens of coffee shop franchises, or the many janitors, street-cleaners, and window-washers who could keep everything downtown tidy. There may be less money in building them a place to live, but they are Torontonians, too. Keesmaat and Toronto City Council are missing the point when they demand a shorter Mirvish+Gehry that fits into the neighbourhood and makes less of an impact on downtown Toronto. Toronto is tall and dense, and the city’s bureaucrats need to catch up to that fact instead of denying its truth. The architecture and design going into this project are in Gehry’s capable and proven hands. Keesmaat would be better off making sure Mirvish lives up to his own grand speeches about city building and the public realm.