Scope & Purpose
Mid Mod T.O. is a digital research project intended to raise awareness about the existence and condition of mid-century, atomic-age architecture in Toronto. During the early days of the pandemic, the demolition of the former Knob Hill Hotel, together with Dave LeBlanc’s “Saving Suburbia, One Freaky Building at a Time”, inspired me to investigate the histories of several such structures.
This project examines buildings and other structures constructed during the immediate postwar era, from the 1950s to the late 1960s, located within the City of Toronto and the contiguous former suburban municipalities of Etobicoke, North York, Scarborough, and York.
Combining detailed historical research with an appreciation for the styles of bygone decades, I examine the vernacular architecture of everyday life: private, institutional, commercial, and public built environments embedded in the existing urban and suburban fabric. These often-overlooked structures include houses, hotels, storefronts, malls, schools, libraries, movie theatres, gas stations, and other buildings adorned with quirky and fanciful architectural details.
This project seeks to examine the contemporary experience of mid-century architecture, particularly in peripheral urban areas, while debunking the misconceptions that suburbs lack historical significance and that mid-century modern designs merit no preservation.
This website is maintained by Agatha Barc, an academic librarian.
Next in the Series
The scope of this project will be extended to include profiles of the following locations:
- Ascot Inn (534 Rexdale Boulevard)
- Beverly Hills Motor Hotel (1677 Wilson Avenue)
- Etobicoke Motels (Lakeshore Boulevard West)
- Lawrence Plaza (534 Lawrence Avenue West)
- Lord Lansdowne Public School (33 Robert Street)
- Park Plaza Hotel (2 Avenue Road)
- Worth Building (3089 Bathurst Street).
Credits
The entire project was created by me. Its design is based on the Illustatr template for WordPress, which I modified, and it is hosted by Web Hosting Canada. The typefaces used are BioRhyme Expanded (display text), Craw Clarendon Book (body text), and Craw Modern (display text). The webfont kit is courtesy of Font Squirrel, uploaded using Custom Fonts. Flickr Album Gallery Pro was developed by WPFrank, and all images were edited with GIMP, the free and open-source image editor.
Lead image: Montoro Motel, 4274 Kingston Road.