Unbuilt Toronto
Mark Osbaldeston
(published by Dundurn Press)
View Mark Osbaldeston's video
What the judges said:
"Mark Osbaldeston's magnificently-illustrated and intelligent review of 400 years of schemes and visions for subway lines (Queen Street), grand boulevards (Vimy Avenue), buildings (St. Alban's Cathedral), and expressways (Spadina), reveals Toronto as it might have been. Osbaldeston's comprehensive research exposes more than just missed chances, however, it is a plain-written lesson for today on the culture and politics of city building."
Unbuilt Toronto explores never-realized building projects in and around Toronto, from the city's founding to the twenty-first century. Delving into unfulfilled and largely forgotten visions for grand public buildings, skyscrapers, highways, and subways, it outlines projects like St. Alban's Cathedral and the Queen subway line.
Readers may lament the loss of some projects, be thankful for the disappearance of others, and marvel at the downtown that could have been. Featuring 147 images, Unbuilt Toronto casts a different light on a city you thought you knew.
Mark Osbaldeston
Mark Osbaldeston has written about Toronto history and architecture for the National Post, Eye Weekly, and Spacing. A lawyer, he has practiced in both the private and public sectors. He lives in Toronto.
Excerpt from Unbuilt Toronto
Change was in the air in 1968. Hair opened on Broadway, Rochdale College opened on Bloor Street, Trudeau was going to create a just society and Buckminster Fuller had a plan to turn Toronto the Good into Toronto the Groovy, the "livingest" city on earth.
A true Renaissance man, Fuller had made his mark in the 1920s and 1930s with his futuristic designs for an innovative mass-produced house, a three-wheeled car and an undistorted map of the world. With his optimistic message and emphasis on ecology, the seventy-two-year-old, pre-war futurist had found a new following among the hippy generation. In 1968 "Bucky" was known the world over for the American Pavilion at Expo '67, the most famous application of his most famous invention, the geodesic dome. Expo had transformed the image of Montreal — of Canada even — and Fuller's dome had stolen the show at Expo.
Like many people who visited the fair's artificial islands in the summer of 1967, Toronto sculptor Gerald Gladstone, who had been commissioned to produce three major pieces for the grounds, including the sculpture in front of the Canadian Pavilion, found the Expo experience inspiring. He was convinced that staid Toronto could benefit from the imagination and insight that Fuller could bring to its city planning. He got Fuller, then in high demand, interested in the job. What was needed now was a sympathetic sponsor capable of paying the freight. Gladstone, who had earlier done a sculpture for the new Telegram Building, found it in Telegram publisher and CFTO-TV president John Bassett. In February, the Telegram and CFTO jointly commissioned Fuller's architectural and planning firm, Fuller-Sadao/Geometrics to prepare a report outlining the Toronto of the twenty-first century. They would have three months to do it.
Intellectually, Fuller was given free reign: there were no terms of reference. Consequently, no one knew what to expect. This was a man who had, after all, proposed that a giant plastic dome be placed over a large chunk of Manhattan. If Metro councillors had any concerns about what he might propose, they were probably not comforted when, in a speech to council on the upcoming report, he said he saw his job as assisting in "the ballistics and navigation of humanity on spaceship earth." For politicians used to dealing with bureaucrats and ratepayers' groups, it was heady stuff.
Read the Committee's comments on the other shortlisted books.
2009 shortlist:
