Last week, Toronto City Council’s Executive Committee approved a proposal from Outfront media, brought forward by Yonge-Dundas Square’s management board, to install new video screens in the square, some of which will exclusively show advertisements. You’d be forgiven if you ask, “where would they fit them?”

What’s different about this proposal is that the screens won’t be going on the private buildings that surround the square, but in the public space, itself, generating revenue for the board, and altering some of the square’s architectural elements, such as removing the entrance canopy at the northwest corner.

Toronto did not come to have this square without great effort.

In the late 1990s, the City of Toronto expropriated and demolished the buildings here and undertook an international design competition, ultimately won by Toronto architecture firm Brown and Storey.

In the 1950s, Nathan Phillips Square and City Hall were created the same way.

Brown and Storey were initially brought in by the Yonge-Dundas board last year to help guide the redesign of the square, but, in October, they withdrew from the process.

“I’ve had many sleepless nights thinking about it, of whether to be involved or not,” says Kim Storey. “Ultimately, we couldn’t sign off on it as the proposal compromises the square’s role as a public space.”

Initially, Yonge-Dundas was reluctantly embraced by Toronto as a true public space. Run by a board with a mandate to generate revenue and coupled with being patrolled by private security, its very “publicness” was, and is, often in question.

Others didn’t like the signs and screens that surround it, and it was often called “Toronto trying to be New York.” That seemed a bit unfair, ’though; many big cities have a square or intersection with their own vulgar display of electric commercial power.

Yonge and Dundas is ours, and it’s as close to a scene from Blade Runner as Toronto gets.

As it is now, there’s a balance between the clean public square and the commercial chaos around it, and, over the years, it’s slowly become part of Toronto.

Unless it’s well below zero or rented out, there are more often than not a lot of people hanging out in it, as strong an endorsement of the space as any.

It’s also become a political space to rival Nathan Phillips Square at times. Recall the “anti prorogue” rally in 2010, or the demonstrations by Idle No More a few years ago.

“That’s its highest use,” says Storey, of the occasional protests.

“This is what public space is for and why we spent five years working on the design.”

Perhaps taking a protest into the commercial heart of the city, not to the seat of government, makes them powerful in a different way.

The addition of some video screens to the square is not a terrible idea: there’s potential for public art; the watching of films and sports events, and perhaps their use during protests and demonstrations.

At Celebration Square in Mississauga, there are large screens and a program called “Art on the Big Screens,” although often they default to news headlines through the day.

The two screens currently in the square itself were not part of the original Brown and Storey design, but have had artwork run on them in the past.

How well such programs work in practice is debatable; in the mid-2000s, Clear Channel, the company that operated the two screens, ran short pieces twice an hour of video art curated by the collective Year Zero One.

One piece, a fairly innocuous critique of the square, was removed at the company’s request.

It appears Toronto has public space where freedom of speech is governed by private interests.

Mock-ups of the proposed screens have some placed high on poles, visually reminiscent of the long-legged alien spaceships in Spielberg’s War of the Worlds: a bit top heavy and awkward.

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At the executive committee meeting last week, representatives of the Eaton Centre and other surrounding buildings with media screens argued the signs were either too big or would block their own signs, although all were careful to say they’re not against screens themselves, of course.

Indeed, the Eaton Centre representative said they’ve majorly reinvested in their Yonge and Dundas corner, and that the proposed signs will significantly change the Square and affect their tenants.

Perhaps, but worrying about impact is a bit rich considering the Eaton Centre’s new H&M wall-of-light expansion on the corner is so bright it turns night into day.

Also making a deputation at executive committee was Outfront’s sign-designer, Jeremy Kramer, who said he designed the media towers and signage for the Eaton Centre, 10 Dundas E., and the Hard Rock Café building, all of which opposed this current proposal.

Torontonians are familiar with Kramer’s designs, as his firm was behind much of the street furniture we have today, including the much-loathed pot-bellied rubbish bins, the ones with the flap and pedal that routinely don’t work.

(We’ve all had to try to slip a piece of trash in without touching one of the broken cholera flaps, a filthy Toronto right of passage and reminder good design matters.)

“I’m a bit depressed there hasn’t been more protest,” says Storey.

“The square has lost its nature as a public square. Other parks don’t have to make money. The Bent Way (under the Gardiner) and the Rail Deck won’t have to make money.

“Why does this one?”

In the small world of Toronto architecture, it isn’t easy to take a stand such as that of Brown and Storey.

They should be commended for it.

Further chipping away at the public nature of our square should give us pause.

Why did we spend all the effort and money on the architecture competition if we’re going to let it be chopped up and de-architecturalized ad hoc later on?

Maybe this is truly a Toronto space after all.

Shawn Micallef writes every Saturday about where and how we live in the GTA. Wander the streets with him on Twitter @shawnmicallef

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