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).
Nina-Marie Lister will begin with a focus on the city’s “blue and green” arterial network, its ravines and rivers, through which we peel back the topographic and physiographic layers to explore ecological processes at work, and the broader cultural implications these imply. The evolution of Toronto’s natural landscape is presented as a framework for the city’s historical and contemporary spatial patterns—from the glacial formation of the landscape to its present–day condition as a network of manicured parks, recreational and natural areas. Indeed, Toronto now ranks among the world’s “greenest” cities in terms of the area of its parks and open spaces. Due largely to the “accidental foresight” of protection given to the city’s ravine and river valleys following the destruction caused by Hurricane Hazel in 1954, the city’s extensive system of ravines, stream and valley corridors, and the associated natural heritage system has become a significant natural and cultural asset, giving rise to provocative questions about the quality and experience of urban nature. This presentation concludes with some reflection on the nature of Toronto’s landscape, challenging ideas of identity and legibility—or “whose nature” is represented in place—making and stewardship initiatives.
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