Accounts held at the Building Records office at City Hall show that this project was one, long, drawn out battle. There are 25 microfiche pages on record, 19 of which hold correspondence detailing the struggles of the City and the neighbours against the proposed building and its subsequent construction. This includes Ontario Municipal Board hearings, letters of complaint from the Art Gallery of Ontario, multiple stop-work orders, orders-to-comply, and other pleasantries.

Of interest in the records is a 1965 site plan showing a shorter building, using the same staggered and bent plan, closer to Stephanie Street, along with eight townhouses arranged to the north, next to Grange Park. This plan was not carried out. Instead, when the drawings were submitted for a building permit in 1966, the proposal was for the present 24-storey building only.

The project illustrates Uno Prii’s interest in the possibilities of the building type, but unlike his more identifiable buildings that create a singular, swoopy image, this experiment exposes each component of the building to make it as multifaceted as possible. Some of the techniques he uses include:

• the dog-leg stagger of the plan that plays with the cellular nature of the structural system and its sculptural possibilities;

• the extensions of the concrete shear walls and their punctuation across the facade that fractures the massing of the building;

• the concrete decorative features at grade – the free-standing colonnade and the dimpled concrete canopy (both have the affect of diverting the eye from the facade);

• the cantilevered corner balconies that breakdown the structure by “dematerializing” its corners.

Ian Panabaker