Canadian mythology has long held onto the popular notion of the one-room schoolhouse from a time when this country was largely rural. That wasn’t so long ago though; my own Baby Boomer mom attended a two-room school heated by a wood stove in the tiny Nova Scotia fishing village where she grew up. The experience in Canadian cities, however, was often a very modern one, though it hasn’t been celebrated nearly as much.

Toronto Boomers may have been schooled at mod gems like Lord Lansdowne on the west side of Spadina Cres. Built in 1961, the school looks like a giant crown made of brick, glass, and concrete, a counterpoint to the Gothic glory of One Spadina Cres . across the street. Imagine what it was like catching a glimpse of Lord Lansdowne when it first appeared at the meeting point of a few traditional Toronto neighbourhoods: a shock of inexplicable newness a few years before even New City Hall and the TD Centre made their big, city-changing, modern statements.

All over Toronto and slightly older parts of the GTA there are buildings that may not have been considered as bold as Lord Lansdowne’s crown, but are just as elegant nonetheless. A couple kilometres to the west, École élémentaire Pierre Elliot Trudeau, on Grace St. in Little Italy, has been well taken care of, unlike many buildings from the mod era. Attention was paid to the design details and the building has been maintained as befitting the great public investments that are our schools.

Its playful rectangular window slits, scattered about part of its façade, pay homage to Notre Dame du Haut the landmark 1954 chapel in Ronchamp, France designed by modernist architect Le Corbusier. On one side, through big panes of glass, the slender staircases with their great rectangular metal railings are in full view from the street.





















Buildings like this, with their great terrazzo floors, were commissioned by various school boards throughout the GTA. For hundreds, even thousands of students over the decades, they defined a large part of the Canadian and Torontonian experience. They were the backdrop for everyday life.

Graeme Stewart, the Toronto architect who started the Tower Renewal project that aims to revive the hundreds of aging midcentury apartment towers, calls these buildings “fabric modern;” the everyday modernism of our city that gets overlooked because traditional neighbourhoods and architecture dominate our idea of the city. Those older parts deserve the love they get, but they don’t deserve it all because they don’t represent how everybody here lives. They’re just one part of the story.

The fabric is all over, in both the older and newer parts of the city. Think of so many local neighbourhood arenas built between the 1950s and 1970s, like Pine Point in Etobicoke, its geometric brickwork and triangular roofline visible from Highway 401, just west of Weston Rd. Some malls preserve similar elements amid their fashion-following architectural updates. Visit the round rotunda at Centre Point mall at Yonge St. and Steeles Ave. for a fantastic mod vestige amid the contemporary food court or walk the gentle curve of the Cedar Heights Plaza on the northeast corner of the Markham Rd. and Lawrence Ave. E. intersection in Scarborough, now home to many South Asian and Middle Eastern shops.

Like the Victorian and Edwardian buildings that came before, Toronto’s modern landscape is extensive and adaptable to whoever chooses to move here.











Shawn Micallef writes every Friday about where and how we live in the GTA. Wander the streets with him on Twitter @shawnmicallef Correction - February 28, 2014: This article was edited from a previous version that mistakenly said Grace St. was east of Spadina.

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