Is Toronto a Beautiful Place? Depends Whom You Ask...

The next session at Creative Places + Spaces is called 'The Art of Creating Beautiful Places' - a panel involving five speakers mainly from Toronto itself. Lance Alexander from the City Manager's Office in Toronto makes a start. He begins by discussing the question of beauty itself - is there a common definition for what a beautiful city is, and therefore how policy and urban development could aim to build one? Architect Mark McClelland suggests that for buildings this is perhaps also a question of age - when they're built they might be in fashion or close to fashion, and fall out of fashion later on; if they survive long enough it may be possible for them to be seen as beautiful, iconic, and timeless - and even historic - again.

Elyse Parker also suggests that we all have a great discomfort in talking about beauty - but if a city looks cared for, then this is often seen as a sign of beauty in a city. So, in her role  as the manager of the Toronto Clean + Beautiful City programme this is what she focusses on. Howard Cohen also asks whether there is room for ugliness in cities, though - and suggests that there is a distinction between beauty and aesthetics: the way things look isn't necessarily a measure of their contribution to the urban environment, and even ugly buildings can help make a city beautiful. Michael describes the architecture in Toronto as 'brutalist', but likes this about the place - there is a value in having disorder in a city as this creates engagement. He suggests that 'we don't want a tidy city'.

Architect Tom Payne adds that Toronto's slogan used to be 'the city that works'. he is now working on a theatre redevelopment project in Chicago, and has encouraged Chicago people to look at Toronto as a role model even in spite of Chicago's own existing sense of impetus. Howard adds that the role of this conference as an arts-based one (rather than urban planning) is significant. It takes bold ideas and great strength and determination to create great things. Right now, in Toronto, there isn't a mood to get excited about doing bold things - in Chicago, there is. (I guess I'll be able to see this for myself next week…)

This is also a question of leadership and coordination, of course. Great things are done by people who have a determination and a bold aim to achieve, Howard suggest, and right now the city is busy regulating what happens on private property while ignoring its own responsibility for public spaces. Elyse disagrees, and says that it's the public which hasn't yet demanded a better public realm - when this happens, she says, things will finally fall into line. They haven't demanded a culture of aiming for something better, as yet. Howard disagrees, again, however, and calls for leadership from City Hall.

How to make the case to the public that beauty in urban spaces matters, though? Tom says that clearly the beauty of the place directly influences the feeling of the local space, and notes that many beautiful cities (like Paris or Rome) had a significant level of radical urban redesign at some stage in their history - his slogan is 'bring Barcelona to Toronto'. Would this be possible? Michael suggests that the arts commuity may be the potential leader for creating a local identity in a city (as has happened with Toronto's Distillery district). This is also about individuals actually doing things rather than waiting for policy to be developed, and such individual projects can have a great impact, and it may entice the community to get involved. Howard suggests that it's often the arts community that is most against change, however - sometimes out of a fundamental opposition to development. Elyse returns to the fact that the public do want a beautiful city, at any rate - and public consultation fora have found that Torontonians' greatest priority is for the city to be clean and beautiful, even beyond law and order and other typical civic issues.

Michael suggests that there is a certain amount of hypercriticality about building projects in Toronto, too - many problems get attacked (and sometimes shot down) before they are built. Tom adds that there is a sense of distinction between the stars of architecture and the lesser known architects as well, though - Daniel Libeskind, for example, can get away with more adventurous development projects in Toronto than domestic architects. And Howard adds that people often only mobilise in the face of major threats, and the only against potentially destructive developments rather than in support of new ideas.

Michael suggests that old buildings have a different sense of aesthetics applied to them than newer ones. We don't necessarily appreciate the things we already have, and they get demolished all too easily - any good city, though, has to have a good mix between the old and the new, rather than simply bashing the old. There is a need to celebrate the archaeological layers of the city, Tom adds, and to re-value them.

The personal and professional biases in those who are involved in urban planning and development can also prevent effective cooperation - there are different ideas between urban planners, architects, designers, and landscape architects, for example, which aren't necessarily easily reconcilable. It sometimes takes branding development projects with the idea of 'culture' to break through such impasses. Elyse describes landscape architects in this as the ultimate altruists (and she's one herself) - it's easy to get a key architect on a development project, but who designs the urban and street level spaces?

Well, that's it for this morning - quite a bit of Torontonian navel-gazing here, I think, and one of the audience describes this as 'a successful first therapy session'. Wonder what happens from here on in...