Lantern of Love and Peace

 

Location: Nathan Phillips Square

Date photo taken: 14 December 2023

This year the Cavalcade of Lights in Nathan Phillips Square includes a number of softly glowing Chinese lanterns. Most are large spheres adorned with flower patterns, like the ones pictured here, but there is also a much larger, more intricate dragon boat. The lanterns were hand crafted by artisans from Zigong in China’s Sichuan province. They're presented at City Hall thanks to a partnership with Woodside Square Shopping Centre in Scarborough. Last year they hosted a large outdoor Lantern Festival and they've brought it back this year. While you can visit during the day, the lanterns are lit from 4:30 to 9 pm daily. 

Metropolis

 

Location: City Hall

Date photo taken: 1 April 2015

Just inside the main doors of Toronto City Hall, on the east wall, is this large scale work by David Partridge. It's really worth a visit. This image shows the central portion, and it really doesn't do the piece justice. 

The winner of an art competition held in 1974, this "nailie", as it is sometimes called, is the artist's interpretation of a great city, or metropolis, with its central core, its ravines, and its suburbs. It's called a nailie because it's constructed of over 100,000 individual nails, made of different materials and hammered to differing depths. The effect elicits comparisons to both the topography of a city, and to the individuals that inhabit it. As an added bonus, the durable materials allow for perhaps greater interaction than a piece of public art would normally afford. William Denton, as part of "Listening to Art", even drops a coin down through the nails and records the sound as it pings its way to the bottom (jump to about 10:50 to catch the sound).

Nathan Phillips' sundial

 

Location: Nathan Phillips Square, north west corner

Date photo taken: 1 November 2019

While not immediately obvious, at least to me, this sculptural piece on the north west corner of Nathan Phillips Square is a sundial. Designed by engineer and geophysicist G.R. Johnson, it's six feet in diameter and made of brass. It was a gift to the people of the city from former mayor and namesake of the square, Nathan Phillips. He served the city as alderman for 28 years and then as mayor for eight more, from 1955 to 1962. The international design competition held for the new city hall, which sits adjacent to the Square, was undertaken during his tenure and he was still in office when construction began. Phillips wanted to show his gratitude for being allowed to serve, and he wanted his gift to be something that would be artistic, unusual, functional and permanent and this sundial was the result. It was presented in April 1969.

Primrose

 

Location: Bay north of St. Joseph

Date photo taken: 28 March 2022

You are loved, Donkey! Get well soon

That's one of the many messages that have been written on the casts of this adorable donkey sculpture in Clover Hill Park. At first I wondered if the casts had been added as a prank, but no. Canadian artist Myfanwy MacLeod took inspiration from a real live foal named Primrose who was outfitted with pink casts to help her underdeveloped legs form properly. Cast in bronze, and larger than life, the donkey is a playful send-up of the traditional equestrian monument. This work was commissioned by the City of Toronto, selected via a competition led by the City's Economic Development and Culture division, and financed through Section 37 funding. 

The Faces of 77 Elm

Location: 77 Elm Street

Date photo taken: 27 March 2021

It's funny. I've always liked the building at 77 Elm Street. Built in the early 1980s, it's rather stark and monolithic, but there is a playfulness there too. Take the detail above. Panels like this are arrayed along the ground floor, facing the street. To me they remind me of the moai of Easter Island, patiently standing, watching the city as it passes. I was surprised then to learn that the building is sometimes referred to as the Nightmare on Elm Street. One critic I read gave it a grade of D- and used phrases such as "arbitrary and inappropriate" and "the architectural equivalent of a black hole". 

Known as the Alan Brown Building, it provides rental housing specifically     for physicans, nurses and other professionals working at SickKids.

Communicating

Location: North side, 481 University Ave.

Date photo taken: 7 May 2019

This sunken relief carving is one of two panels designed by Canadian sculptor Elizabeth Wyn Wood. Both are meant to represent communication. While the woman holds a paper scroll, author John Warkentin argues that the inclusion of a bird, sun and clouds, combined with the impression that she is floating, are meant to indicate that the information is being sent through the air. This building was commissioned by Canadian communications giant Maclean-Hunter. Known for publications such as Maclean's magazine and the Financial Post, Maclean-Hunter began diversifying into radio in 1961, the same year that this building opened.

Inner City Gate

Location: Elizabeth Street, north of Gerrard

Date photo taken: 12 December 2017

While it may be unusual for large pieces of public art to move around, it's certainly not unheard of. But what happens to the art when it moves? This piece, Inner City Gate by Kosso Eloul, today sits on a small grassy mound outside the Elizabeth Street entrance to Toronto General Hospital. While it looks at home there, it was originally created for the urban square at the TD Centre. There it reflected, on a more human scale, Mies van der Rohe's black office towers, and the pieces were arranged to imply movement, as if the sculpture were glimpsed in mid-stride. The artist felt that the move to the new location changed the personality of the piece. It is now more firmly-rooted and solid, creating a monumental entrance to the hospital complex behind. 

Louis B. Stewart Observatory

Location: Hart House Circle

Date photo taken: 16 February 2017

The Louis B. Stewart Observatory, located in Hart House Circle and home to the University of Toronto's Students' Union, used to be something very different. It even used to be somewhere different. The Royal Magnetic and Meteorological Observatory, considered to be the birthplace of Canadian astronomy, was first built in 1840. Measurements taken there helped determine that sunspots caused fluctuations in the Earth's magnetic field. At the time, it was located to the west of its present spot, close to where Convocation Hall now stands. In 1855 the log building was replaced by this more solid structure, but as early as the 1890s, development around the site was rendering it unsuitable for its original purpose. The use of metal for streetcar tracks and in the construction of modern buildings was interfering with the magnetic instruments, and light pollution eventually posed separate challenges. In 1907 the telescope housed under the dome was moved and the building was donated to the university. It was subsequently torn down but thanks to the efforts of Louis B. Stewart, it was reconstructed in its present location. It would provide a home for a number of different functions over the next 45 years before becoming the home of the Students' Union. 

In this photo the dome is painted to resemble a Poke ball. It has become a tradition to re-paint the dome under cover of night. Other treatments include a rainbow, a mushroom from the Mario video games, and a storm trooper helmet. 

Lest We Forget - Edith Cavell and Canadian Nurses

Location: Outside the University St. entrance of Toronto General Hospital
Date photo taken: 4 September 2018

Edith Cavell was a British nurse who served at a Red Cross hospital in occupied Brussels during World War I. While at the hospital, in addition to treating wounded from both sides, she also sheltered and helped arrange the escape of Allied servicemen and Belgian nationals of fighting age across the border to the neutral Netherlands. In August 1915 she was arrested and tried for treason. Found guilty, she was executed by firing squad, an act which caused outrage in Britain and many still-neutral countries such as the United States.

This memorial, which also recognizes the Canadian nurses "who gave their lives for humanity in the Great War", was erected by Societa Italo Canadese on November 11, 1922.

Note: At about the same time I chose this memorial to feature on NeaTO, I started reading Kate Quinn's The Alice Network. It was pure coincidence, but the novel features a female spy network in WWI and Cavell's death is referenced.

Zen West

Location: St. Michael's College grounds, NW corner of Bay and St. Joseph St.
Date photo taken: 24 September 2013

This precarious looking sculpture is the work of Kosso Eloul. It was created as an edition of two, and its twin can be found in Tokyo, Japan. While simplicity and geometry are hallmarks of his work, this  idea of duality is one that he also acknowledges as an influence. "In Canada, every outdoor sculpture is a twin. I am keenly aware of this duality. I study it and count on it when I conceive my works... It's solid, it's there, but it's never the same. Not only does it change moods with that of the viewer, but it also changes appearance with the passing of the day, the changing shadows.... And so, my sculptures have a distinct and refreshingly different personality, a different meaning in the white of winter to that of the colours of summer." Quote from "Celebrating With Sculpture", a 1991 exhibit catalogue.

Zoo Woods

Location: St. George south of Harbord

Date photo taken: 6 May 2016

Walking along St. George Street, thru the heart of the University of Toronto's downtown campus, you pass this small, wild looking patch of green. This is Zoo Woods, a project undertaken in 1994 by the Zoology Landscape Committee to recreate the Beech-Maple forest environment that once predominated in this part of southern Ontario. Many of the plants here were rescued from the Altona Forest, a remnant of the beech-maple forest within the GTA which was cleared in 1994 to build a subdivision. With increased interest in fostering native species and increasing biodiversity within urban areas, learning spaces like this one can play an important role. To see what the space looked like prior to the project, or to download a map of the woods, check out the Zoo Woods webpage.