North York Central Library a postmodern dreamland
It’s the library most likely to induce vertigo.
The confounding knot of terraced floors and precipitous nooks and crannies dangling out over a massive atrium make North York Central Library seem like, as one friend put it, the game Mousetrap.
Apart from the wild design, the branch has the busiest circulation numbers in the Toronto Public Library system, with 1.6 million items checked out each year, and 1.5 million visitors.
“There’s a great thirst to use public space in the city,” says Kim Huntley, manager of the Central branch. “There’s lots of socializing here, especially with newcomers. The adults get together while the kids play.”
It’s a busy place. It also might be Toronto’s greatest public monument to postmodernism. Designed by Toronto architect Raymond Moriyama, it’s the third in his triumvirate of massive atriums with zigzag staircases that include the Scarborough Civic Centre (1973) and the Toronto Reference Library (1977).
The North York Library opened in 1987 and was part of the “City Centre” development adjacent to what is now Mel Lastman Square in front of the former North York City Hall.
The library’s postmodernism is expressed with references to older styles of architecture, like the little peaked archways connecting the bookshelves that look like the rooflines of old Victorian houses.
Pastels, reds, oranges, blues and greens make for a busy palette. It’s high-1980s, yet doesn’t feel dated the way many buildings from the era do, perhaps because it remains such a vital public place.
Postmodernism isn’t yet old enough to be widely admired and there’s a kind of weirdness to it now: In architecture years, buildings like this are entering their awkward “teenage” phase.
For a structure that is nearing 30 years old and as well used as it is, North York Central is still in remarkably good condition.
Yet that’s the age that buildings need a bit of love so a $15-million renovation by Diamond and Schmitt Architects will begin soon.
“People came in and didn’t realize there were other floors,” says Huntley of a new grand staircase that will be created on the first floor up to the second.
There will also be new innovation spaces, a new children’s area and more public meeting rooms. “There will be a lot more seating, too, especially by the windows.”
On the top floor, a room dedicated to North York history will be opened, as will an outdoor roof deck.
The current building replaced an earlier 1959 lowrise modernist one on the site and the growth of the library here is a gauge of the explosive postwar growth of North York itself, from farmland and a collection of small communities, to a sprawling suburb that, by the 1980s, was creating an uptown “downtown” with its own skyline.
Incorporated into Moriyama’s 1987 atrium is a frieze from the facade of the 1959 building by artist Harold Town depicting six alphabetic sym- bols representing Runic, Roman, Cree, Chinese, Indian and Semitic symbols.
The new library was part of a land swap that saw the developer build the $20-million library and give it to the city free in exchange for building a hotel, office and mall complex on the site.
The library renovation will include new innovation spaces and more seating by the windows
Also a Moriyama design, they too are in a deconstructed, postmodern style, with a cone-shaped canopy over the library entrance that seems only partially finished and a threestorey carillon with 14 bells that appears to be sliced in half.
Dubbed “Mel’s Bells” at the time, the centre was part of Mel Lastman’s effort to create a centre for what was then the fifth-biggest city in Canada.
While the Moriyama’s soaring space and wild staircases will remain, some of the now-vintage details will be giving way to the renovation. Go visit them soon and be transported back to 1987 in style. Shawn Micallef writes every Friday about where and how we live in the GTA. Wander the streets with him on Twitter @shawnmicallef