Frank Gehry, the architect whose free-form Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, Architecture redefined and sparked a boom in museum building in the late 1990s, was recently back in Toronto celebrating the start of a new project.
Mr. Gehry was born and raised in Toronto. In Canada he only had one job: its highly acclaimed renovation the Art Gallery of Ontario, which opened in 2008 in the neighborhood where he grew up.
At 94, he’s notoriously uninterested in retiring, and he came to Toronto last month to witness another masterpiece in Canada: two residential towers that will be his tallest project to date. A tower will be 84 stories high; the other, 74.
Known as Forma, the project will be set near Roy Thomson Hall, the current home of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, on the streets Mr. Gehry roamed in his youth when the area was dominated by railroad tracks and warehouses.
It began as a collaboration between Mr. Gehry and David Mirvish, the theater owner whom Mr. Gehry knew from Mr. Mirvish’s days as the owner of a private art gallery. The original plan, unveiled a decade ago, called for three towers, each more than 80 stories, but was scaled back after backlash from the public and some politicians. The final design preserves the Princess of Wales Theater rather than demolish it and retains two of the four warehouses that would have been demolished in the initial plan. Mr. Mirvish also sold the project to a consortium of developers.
After Mr. Gehry posed for many photos of the groundbreaking, I met him at an office used by the developers. Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Do you still feel a connection to the streets here?
As a kid I delivered phone books on King Street; I pulled a little wagon. My grandfather’s hardware store was on West Fleet Street. And I used to walk downtown from 15 Beverly Street, where my grandma lived, to go to the movies and stuff. So this neighborhood was part of my early life.
So I have some feelings for the neighborhood but not for the way it turned out.
How did your old neighborhood turn out?
It turned out that a lot was just as old as everywhere else. They’re building a tower and there’s not really much talk about the legacy or the relationship; It’s only clunk! And the time has come.
The buildings in most cities in the world are pretty bad. I don’t just blame Canada.
Was remodeling your childhood neighborhood a particularly difficult project?
I can’t believe we’re doing this. It came about after a lot of talk, a lot of work and a long time. But these things happen over time.
The city bureaucracy, the planning department, they have always supported us from day one. But they had a lot of comments, they wanted this and that. I put them up because they knew the city better than I did.
A lot of work has gone into it. It’s like a painting. Therefore, the glass is offset in some places to catch the light in a specific way and to separate this surface from the rest of the building. A lot of care has been taken to organize this visually. That will show over the years. You’ll see it and say, oh, he did that.
After two projects in your old neighborhood, is there anything else you would like to take on there?
I grew up listening to classical music here in Massey Hall Sir Ernest MacMillan was the conductor. He used to ride his bike through Grange Park and I used to cycle through that park to Bloor Collegiate. One day he stopped and started talking to me. I said, “Well, I went to your concert last night,” which shook him up.
Unfortunately Roy Thomson Hall The acoustics are not the best. But I’m still very interested in classical music and would love to help fix the problem. Nobody asked me to do it, but I’m willing to do it.
-
Jim Robbins reports on how Vancouver-based Teck Resources is at odds with regulators, First Nations and scientists in the United States over whether selenium releases from one of its mines in British Columbia have increased a hazard to aquatic life across the international border.
-
A small lake in a nature reserve on the Niagara Peninsula in Ontario was chosen represent the Anthropocenea proposed and contested new chapter in geologic time.
-
A map created with annotated sonar images shows how close the Titan sub was to it Deep sea wreck of the Titanic when it imploded and all five people inside died.
-
Norman Mayersohn’s Guide to Summer destination car shows includes the Cobble Beach Concours d’Elegance near Owen Sound, Ontario. This year the focus is on the 75th anniversary of Porsche and the 120th anniversary of Buick.
-
“Black Ice”, a documentary film by Hubert Davis about The racism that black Canadian ice hockey players have endured in the hands of other players, coaches and fans is a reviewer’s tip from the New York Times. Mr. Davis, writes Nicolas Rapold, “shows how ice hockey is an important part of his country’s identity and how it felt for Canadian players of color who love the game to learn from an early age that they aren’t.” belong.”
-
In real estate, Tim McKeough describes how Stephan Weishaupt, a designer from Toronto, rrestored a tiny, dilapidated caretaker’s cabin in a rural area northwest of the city. A slide show documents the stylish result.
A native of Windsor, Ontario, Austen was educated in Toronto, lives in Ottawa and has covered Canada for the New York Times for two decades. Follow him on Twitter at @ianrausten.
How are we doing?
We’d love to hear your thoughts on this newsletter and events in Canada in general. Please send this to nytcanada@nytimes.com.
Do you like this email?
Forward it to your friends and let them know they can sign up Here.
