In 1974 Murray McLauchlan released “Down by the Henry Moore,” his country rock hit about The Archer sculpture in Nathan Phillips Square. With lyrics like “I went down to the Henry Moore / Skated all in the Square,” it showed how much a Toronto landmark it was.

McLauchlan could have written it about the other very public sculpture by artist Henry Moore in Toronto: “Two Large Forms” found on the southwest corner of Dundas and McCaul Streets. Installed by the AGO the same year, it likely hadn’t begun to live in the imagination of Torontonians yet, but some 40 years on it’s as much if not more a city landmark as The Archer, visible to the tens of thousands of people who walk, cycle, drive or ride the 505 streetcar by it everyday.

Up close its bronze clefts are polished bright by the endless rub of soft bums sitting inside it and the kids using it as a slide. It’s become part of the landscape as much as the CN Tower, but at a human scale. Not for long though: earlier this summer the AGO confirmed the sculpture will be moving around back to become a prominent part of a revitalized Grange Park.

A city like Toronto is always changing — new buildings, new people, new ideas — and that’s good. A city that isn’t in flux is a dead city, but that change also makes people nervous and it’s good to have a few constants around a town where the names of buildings and parks also frequently change. When the World Trade Centre disappeared, many New Yorkers said they lost their sense of direction. Torontonians would have the same feeling if the CN Tower disappeared.

Two Large Forms may not help us with direction, but its molten form is like a bit of Precambrian Canadian Shield, an anchor in a shifting city that was there when people were kids, and one they bring their own kids to now. Stand nearby and watch how many people interact with it or pose for photos; sculpture traffic is nearly constant. How many people touched its smooth surface and decided to go into the AGO to see more art over the years?

That interaction won’t stop once it’s moved to Grange Park, but sidewalks are our most democratic of spaces, used and seen by everyone. We have to be cautious with objects and landmarks people have such emotional attachments to.





The Grange Park revitalization itself is a great civic project as it’s been neglected for too long and hasn’t had the prominence it should. With the 1817 Grange estate house at the north end, now part of the AGO, it’s as close as Toronto comes to an old world urban square or, in Canada, a space like Montreal’s near-perfect Saint-Louis Square.

Unlike Montreal, or the old world for that matter, an entirely Torontonian heterogeneous mix surrounds Grange Park. Its location at the top of John St. is a dramatic, terminating view. Frank Gehry’s blue titanium AGO extension rises like an ultra vivid simulated sky into the real sky above the old house, making this one of Toronto’s great vistas.

Entering the square from the south the steeple ruins of St. George the Martyr, destroyed in a 1955 fire, are a bit of old worldliness dating to 1845. Further on is the cool midcentury zigzag roofline of University Settlement House, a social service agency. Victorian houses line Beverley St. on the park’s west side and the OCAD University tabletop hovers above on the east.

The revitalization will add a new playground, dog area, seating, landscaping, lighting, washrooms and more trees, turning Grange Park into the gem it deserves to be. The AGO will also finally get its own entrance to the park, connecting the two as they should be.

The Moore sculpture will be quite happy here, and kids and adult kids will continue to slide their bums on it. The cost is just that a hole will have been created in the emotional geography of Toronto that will take a long time to fill.