Compelling and visionary designers and others examine Toronto’s international leadership in landscape architecture-based development. Provocative, headline-making speakers at this May 2015 conference in Toronto highlighted exceptional design and sustainability in world-class waterfront projects, the city’s extensive ravine system and it legacy of parks. To learn more about the conference: http://tclf.org/sites/default/files/microsites/toronto2015/index.html
This opening session will introduce the story of the place that is Toronto: through revealing Toronto as what journalist Robert Fulford termed the “accidental city” (in his 1995 book Accidental City: The Transformation of Toronto) and its layered landscape, we will explore how the city’s landscape evolved, its inextricably intertwined cultural and natural contexts, and how we have come into “the second wave of modernism” that is the conference focus. Importantly, we will explore significant historic moments in the city’s landscape chronology such that we reveal the nuances of context (both physical and historical), difference, and identity, and from this, illustrating with examples of place and features, we will emphasize the importance of legibility as a precursor to identifying values and engaging meaningful stewardship — in policy making, in design intervention, and in civic engagement (e.g. advocacy and education).
Brendan Stewart will continue this theme, talking about how, in the midst of remarkable development pressure and growth, a new cultural idea about Toronto as a big, messy, complex and dynamic city is emerging, and challenging older, romantic notions of a smaller, simpler and more modest place. Unlike major American cities like New York, Boston, Detroit, Chicago and Buffalo, or Montreal in Quebec, contemporary Toronto does not inherit a bold, consciously planned 19th century urban legacy of parks and open spaces to build upon. Instead, Toronto was known as a polite city of houses, where high density housing was feared, and civic life happened largely in the privacy of living rooms and backyards, rather than in public streets, squares and neighborhood parks. Today, a burgeoning park movement, frequent press coverage, and constructed projects that embody a new set of urban values and bold ambitions, speak to this seismic shift. Building upon Professor Lister’s overview of Toronto’s natural landscape history, this presentation will provide an impression of Toronto’s cultural landscape history, explored through the lens of seminal and influential historic designed landscapes that range from Picturesque to Modernist. Forged through a cultural attitude of modesty, as described in Fulford’s Accidental City, Toronto has emerged to be the fourth largest city in North America. Through insights and examples, we explore how thinking about the design of the public realm has evolved over time and what an understanding of where we’ve come from can tell us about how to design for the future.
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