It wasn’t just standing room only in the City Hall council chamber last night, it was like a sardine can. People arriving 20 minutes ahead of the 8 pm start time were stunned to find the public gallery completely full and the upper deck quickly approaching capacity. The occasion was the centenary of the birth of City Hall architect Viljo Revell; the draw was a talk by world-beating, Toronto-born architect Frank Gehry, left.
A symposium at City Hall this week dubbed Revell/Toronto/Helsinki celebrates the late architect’s work and his hand in the creation of one of Toronto’s most distinctive architectural landmarks. Former mayor David Crombie opened the evening with a brief reminiscence about seeing Revell’s incredibly modern City Hall rise from the ground in the early 1960s. When it was completed in 1965, said Crombie, “the building, in one structure, was a symbol of change and possibility.”
Globe and Mail architecture critic Lisa Rochon, above, steered an engaging interview with Gehry following a fascinating presentation in which the architect showed slides of his most recent work in England, France, Abu Dhabi and the U.S. He also talked about his design for the transformed Art Gallery of Ontario noting that he tried to integrate the building into the Dundas West streetscape by creating a long, welcoming “front porch.”
Gehry’s AGO features lots of wood, especially in the galleria immediately above street level. “My fascination and affinity with wood comes from my Canadian roots and probably from some of the same genesis as Alvar Aalto and the Finnish architects who also loved to use wood,” he noted.
Gehry recalled traveling to Finland for the first time in 1972 and visiting Aalto’s office only to find the great architect and designer away for the day. “But his staff let me into his office and let me sit in his chair. I just sat there and soaked it in, memorized the paintings on the wall, the books in the shelves, the space itself.”
The audience jamming the chamber laughed frequently at Gehry’s wry asides and clearly appreciated his thoughtful assessment of architecture’s place in the modern world. Like Crombie, Gehry believes strongly that buildings can and should be symbols of change and possibility.
Photos by Jose San Juan, except AGO Galleria Italia courtesy of the Art Gallery of Ontario
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