Maple Leaf Gardens
You can prevent the demise of Maple Leaf Gardens!
SOUTH ELEVATION: Maple Leaf Gardens, Toronto. (Photo1998)
"If I were asked by some stranger to North American culture to show him the most important religious building in Canada. I would take him to Toronto's Maple Leaf Gardens." William Kilbourn, social historian
Name: Maple Leaf Gardens
Address: Carlton and Church Streets
Architects: Ross & MacDonald
City/Province: Toronto, Ontario
Built: 1931
Status: Maple Leafs played last game February 13, 1999. Future of Gardens uncertain.
SAVE MAPLE LEAF GARDENS
&
Email Toronto Mayor David Miller
Tell him NO to the renovation of Maple Leaf Gardens!
Tell him YES to the restoration of the interior/exterior of the Gardens as a hockey arena!
PUBLIC FORUM
on the Future of Maple Leaf Gardens
You are invited to express your views.
April 14, 2004, 7:30 p.m.
at the St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts, 27 Front Street East, two blocks east of Union Station, Toronto.
Speakers: Frank Mahovlich, Jack Diamond, Lisa Rochon...
Moderator: Phyllis Lambert
"The language of a Deco skyscraper deftly translated to a colossal box with set-back angular facade and Art Moderne decorative touches. Some 700 construction workers toiled night and day to finish the reinforced-concrete building in time for the opening of the 1931 hockey season, a feat they accomplished in a record five months 12 days." Patricia McHugh, Toronto Architectue: A City Guide,1989
"People have tried to sanforize the urban fabric. Everything is a Condo or an office building. All others--the University Theatre is another--are slowly and inevitably being mowed down. A least the Gardens has some kind of character beyond the usual speculative building." Ruth Cawker, architect
"All these new ones (arenas) have no character " Derek Holmes, Toronto Maple Leafs player
"Maple Leaf Gardens, hulking and non-descript from the outside dominates the corner of Church and Carlton in downtown Toronto." Brent Bambury, Midday, CBC, 1999
"Brent Bambury, hulking and non-descript from the outside dominates the corner of Church and Carlton in downtown Toronto."
"I don't think there is any architectural significance. It has much more cultural heritage to me. Face it: It's a very brutal concrete, unrefined building--it's what a hockey rink is." Ned Baldwin, architect , 1999
"Sad, nostalgic days for Toronto. On Fegruary 13th, its Maple Leafs ice hockey team will play for the last time at their 68-year-old home, the downdown Maple Leaf Gardens. Hockey apart, the venerable building-it still lacks air-conditioning-in its time has played host to showbiz stars from Duke Ellington through Elvis Presley to Maria Callas and Rudolf Nureyev, Jimi Hendrix and many more. But hockey was its glory: the Maple Leafs played (and lost) there on its opening night, in November 1931. The building will survive, as a venue for minor shows; and it has been given heritage status, so its 1930's modern exterior cannot be altered. But something is gone: the Maple Leafs, to a glossy 1999 arena, it too downtown, but five subway stops and seven decades of sentiment away." The Economist, 1999
Maple Leaf Gardens: save the rink!
"Maple Leaf Gardens is a historic building that should not be converted from a bona fide Canadian institution into a yet another retail superstore. Loblaws plans to leave the facades and roof-line unchanged. Not enough. A building is more than just four walls, a floor and ceiling. It is just as much the space enclosed by this fabric. The interior space is where the history happened. The building's purpose, and the source of the Gardens' heritage value, is the rink. Please, Loblaws and MLSE, keep the rink somehow. Without it the Gardens will be an empty shell, filled not with the roar of the crowd but the dull chimes of the check-out. The spectacle of shopping will never match the spectacle of overtime in Game 7". Justin McGrail, Victoria, BC, 2004.
URBANISM
Urbanism is dedicated to Canadian Modern Architecture & Design, and to the Preservation of Architecture across the Dominion of Canada. Urbanism was launched in mid-1998 in a campaign to save Toronto's CNE Grandstand Stadium from demolition. Urbanism is a resourse for the public to utilise and act if they so choose. These will include demolition alerts, new construction, databases on Modern Architecture, General Canadian Architecture, Architects, Industry, and Canadian Industrial Design.
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