The Toronto Reference Library—the one that opened on Oct. 19, 1977 at Yonge and Asquith—wasn’t quite what architect Raymond Moriyama first had in mind. Four years earlier, as Mark Osbaldeston’s book Unbuilt Toronto 2 tells it, Moriyama proposed a five-storey, glass-walled show-off of a building to replace the aging central library built in 1909 at College and St. George. Spectacular as the design was, it did have some detractors: Mel Lastman, then North York’s mayor, balked at the $30-million price tag, while Karl Jaffray, an alderman, called the building “simply awful.”
By April 1974, Moriyama’s proposal had transformed, and so had his library. While the interior mostly stayed the same, it was no longer visible from the outside—the glass walls were largely replaced by recessed brick ones. But now, as part of a massive $34-million revitalization, the city’s biggest library has a new glass cube inspired by the Reference Library that never was. Its designer? Ajon Moriyama, Raymond’s son. Here’s what the Toronto Reference Library nearly looked like, and what it looks like today.
Click on the links below for a close-up view of the images and commentary.
The original 1973 design, by Raymond Moriyama
The new 2011 renovation, by Ajon Moriyama (photograph by Michael Chrisman)
LIBRARY STATS
434,841 sq. ft.: Size of the Toronto Reference Library
1,707: Total available seating at the Reference Library once the renovations are complete (an increase of 20 per cent)
20,627 sq. ft.: Size of the Bloor-Gladstone Library
168,022 sq. ft.: Size of the North York Central Library, the city’s second largest branch
554 sq. ft.: Size of the Todmorden Library in Pape Village, the city’s smallest branch
4: Total available seating in the Todmorden Library
Mark Osbaldeston will give a presentation on Unbuilt Toronto 2 at the Toronto Reference Library on Jan. 30 at 7 p.m. Free.
