The cabinet of civic wonders (some assembly required)

Globe and Mail

10-05-2025

In a thick-walled warehouse in Liberty Village, tokens of Toronto's history rested on a heavy table. An arrowhead thousands of years old, plucked by a child from the earth; a British soldier's crossplate from Fort York, dented perhaps by shrapnel in the explosions of 1813. William Lyon Mackenzie's pocket watch; a flyer for Mahalia Jackson's 1956 Massey Hall concert, presented by the local Grant AME Church.
These items had been plucked from Toronto's municipal collection of 1.3 million objects and artifacts to prove a point. 'Some people think that Toronto isn't about anything – that it has no past,' said Karen Carter, the city's director of museums and heritage services. 'We need a place to display these things and show people that there is so much to learn.'
Soon her wish may come true, completing a 60-year quest for Toronto to have a dedicated city museum. It would find a home in Old City Hall, a national historic site at Queen and Bay streets. Finished in 1899, E.J. Lennox's rambling Richardsonian-Romanesque pile is now vacant, and the city is working to reimagine its future.
The institution and the place are an ideal match. Putting them together will be among the most important things the city has ever done. The question is whether Toronto – its government, its citizens and philanthropists – can accomplish this necessary task.
Ms. Carter, who now leads the city's network of 12 museums and historic sites, has a strong, unorthodox vision for the city museum: It should bring together existing community groups and community museums into an association with the city government. They could then share ideas, collections and resources. 'You can't tell a story from just one perspective,' she said. 'So many people from so many places make Toronto work … and artifacts only have meaning if they're connected to people.'
They might come together at Old City Hall. The building was finished in 1899, after more than a decade of controversy over its size and lavish construction. (The Globe complained about overspending.) The hall dominated the skyline for half a century: Local architect E.J. Lennox had created a showy, four-sided palace with a bell tower at the head of Bay Street. Its sandstone walls were carved with intricate floral and geometric patterns. Today, its gargoyles still depict a rogue's gallery of local figures, including Lennox himself.
By mid-century the building was crowded and seen as obsolete. When Viljo Revell's new, modernist City Hall opened across the street in 1965, there were calls to tear down the old one. Instead, in 1972, provincial courts moved in, and occupied the building until this year. High security generally kept people out.
'I look forward to the day that this is open to the public in a way that you don't have to commit a crime to see it,' Toronto City Councillor Josh Matlow told me recently. Mr. Matlow was leading me through Old City Hall along with local councillor Chris Moise and city staffers including Ms. Carter.
This is a place with a complex history. Its basement was a jail; half a century of suffering is baked into it. Upstairs, the former city council chamber and mayor's office were cluttered up with office furniture by the courts. But their bones are still intact, including murals by Gustav Hahn.
In the lobby, a stained-glass mural by Robert McCausland, The Union of Commerce and Industry, shows an allegory of the city in 1899. Shipyard workers and builders stand proudly in one corner, representatives of the world's continents in the other. One is an African in a loincloth, holding an elephant tusk. Across the way, murals by George Reid depict scenes from the city's history alongside the names of local notables. In a panel title Staking the Pioneer Farm, a surveyor prepares his instruments to measure out the colonization of the land. Above it is the name of the Shawnee leader Tecumseh.
Ms. Carter and her curators would surely love to get to work interpreting all this for today's Toronto.
The time is right. Old City Hall's future is in question. In January, Toronto City Council allotted $18-million over 10 years for upkeep and future planning. The goal is to find interim uses, such as retail or temporary cultural events, and a longer-term plan, which could include a city museum.
However, there's a danger that this opportunity could be swamped by paperwork. Two city departments, Corporate Real Estate Management and the development agency CreateTO, are working on it.
But this place is not 'Real Estate.' It is a civic building of great symbolic importance. Toronto's government has spent 15 years studying it, getting nowhere and making bad assumptions. (The most recent proposal would have moved the nearby public library branch from Revell's City Hall, sucking people and energy out of that building. Why not open a second branch?)
Old City Hall demands a small, dedicated project team, reporting to the top of City Hall, with dedicated funding and clear, short-term goals.
The city's chief planner, Jason Thorne, has launched a 'Beautiful City' initiative. Here is a chance to turn that theme into a physical reality.
Mr. Matlow, wisely, is pushing Toronto to move fast and think big. The future of Old City Hall 'has been lost in process for years,' he said. 'The first thing is for work to begin on refurbishing it and, to the greatest extent possible, open its doors to the public.'
The building, admittedly, presents a big woolly challenge. It is large – more than 400,000 square feet in total – and it is old. Six years ago, city staff estimated that a full upgrade would cost $225-million in 2020 dollars.
But that is absurd. Courts operated here until very recently. The building isn't museum-quality space right now, but it could hold something. There is a way to, as Mr. Matlow suggests, open the doors and let the public in.
I recently asked heritage architect Michael McClelland of ERA for suggestions. His response: What about the large open-air courtyard in the middle of the building? Open the gates, bring some chairs and tables and planters, and set up a coffee kiosk. Do it this summer. Show that the city can actually get things done.
From there, it is imperative that the city use the right process to think about the future. This is one of the most important buildings in Canada. You cannot allow anonymous real-estate managers to decide what exactly it should be. The architecture and the use must be considered at the same time. In the short term, any construction must begin with a design competition. How could architects and landscape architects – local ones, even – use quick and cheap moves to bring this place to life?
For long-term changes, the only proper path is an open, international design competition, just like the one that produced the new City Hall.
What kind of place should this be, finally? A model is the Castelvecchio museum in Verona, where modernist exhibition designs by the great Carlo Scarpa bring sprezzatura to a 14th-century palace. But there are many others. So-called 'experimental preservation' is in the air these days, being advanced by local practices such as Giaimo. The Barcelona architects Flores & Prats renovated a falling-down social club into a theatre complex, Sala Beckett, and the result is being celebrated around the world.
The fusty 1880s designs of Old City Hall would provide an incredible counterpoint to a forward-looking, contemporary vision.
And, speaking of vision: Old City Hall should become part of a larger civic precinct. Today, its stretch of Queen Street is closed to vehicles for the building of the Ontario Line. This should remain a continuous car-free zone that links the Eaton Centre to City Hall and then the nascent University Park. This would transform the ceremonial and political heart of Toronto, with the museum in the middle.
Is all this a lot to ask? Maybe. 'In Toronto, I think we've had politicians focus on the bottom line as opposed to a vision for the city,' Ms. Carter reflects. 'But for a place like this, you have to be in visionary mode. You have to dream.'