Check out this dozen Toronto Deco photos!

A brief profile of the Art Deco Architecture in Toronto book has just been published in Canada's History magazine that features a dozen photos of Tim Morawetz's favourite Deco buildings in the city.

These are just some of the 70-odd buildings featured in the book.

Enjoy!

News from Miami Beach

As you'll see in the Miami Design Preservation League's February 2011 newsletter, the advocacy campaign to protect the historic district's vacant windows from being used for ad space was successful. Also, read about the various activities that made the city's Art Deco Weekend such a great event.

(Miami Beach is the birthplace of the International Congress of Art Deco Societies, the governing body that's responsible for overseeing the bi-annual World Congress on Art Deco® -- the ultimate experience for Deco aficionados. The next one is being held in Rio de Janiero in August 2011.)

Miami Beach, Florida and Napier, New Zealand are two communities that have very effectively leveraged their Art Deco heritage and created ongoing events that celebrate their cultural value while also fostering economic activity!

URGENT: Help stop the defacement of Miami Beach's Art Deco district!

The Miami Design Preservation League is encouraging Deco-lovers and others to make their voice heard and help persuade the Miami Beach City Commission NOT to liberalize its proven sign laws at a committee meeting on Monday, Jan. 31.

If the laws are weakened, Miami Beach could soon have full-sized advertising signage in empty store windows, and potentially allow for roof-top billboards – the scourge of so many other cities.

If you feel strongly about preserving the character of this unique historic district, please click here and send a email to the Mayor and Commissioners.

Thanks in advance for your support!

How Deco helped sell glamour and style

The weekend of January 14 to 16, 2011 is the annual Art Deco Weekend in Miami Beach, Florida, and the theme this year is Selling Glamour & Style.

As usual, the weekend includes a lecture series (highlighting the influences of the Art Deco era on the modern marketing machine),guided historical walking tours, a couture fashion show, furniture exhibit, film series, weekend drive parade and classic car fest.

Click here for details.

Thinking of a Deco home renovation?

Our friends in Melbourne Australia have recently updated their popular Guide to Renovating Art Deco. The new version, published by the Art Deco and Modernism Society, contains 35 articles collected from their Spirit of Progress newsletter and is richly illustrated with colour images. 

It's available in either a CD version, selling for $22 (Australian dollars) plus overseas shipping, and a hard copy version for $33 plus shipping. The mailing address to order is:

Art Deco and Modernism Society, PO Box 17, Camberwell, Victoria, 3124, Australia. 

A 'supreme' example of French-flavoured Deco

The Supreme Court of Canada building in Ottawa, designed by Montreal-based architect Ernest Cormier, is one of the most refined examples of Art Deco in the country.

The building elegantly combines Stripped Classical features such as fluted pilasters, coffered ceiling panels and a striking symmetrical marble staircase with geometric frosted panes of glass in the front facade windows and thoroughly modern chandeliers.

It is said that the Prime Minister of the day, William Lyon Mackenzie King, insisted that Cormier add the chateau-style copper roof to the building to make it blend in with its neighbouring buildings. Nonetheless, the building's Deco charm easily shines through!

Thanks to David Thompson's blog posting for this photo and for reminding me about the wonders of this building (which coincidentally, was the reason I got interested in Art Deco in the first place!).

Check out the 360-degree virtual tours of the building from the government's official website.

Feature attraction! gas, milk and a coffee

Allenby (later Roxy) cinema as Hollywood dinner theatre in the 1980s.

Toronto's Allenby cinema – located at 1215 Danforth Ave., just east of Greenwood Ave., later rebranded the Roxy – was designed by noted theatre architects Kaplan and Sprachman in 1936. (After its cinema days were over, it was known to a generation of mostly youthful Torontonians as the home of midnight showings of Rocky Horror Picture Show, and as then as the Hollywood Dinner Theatre before lying closed and derelict for more than a decade. 

About a year ago, things began happening when Imperial Oil (which owned the corner lot, formerly the site of a gas station), began transforming the tired but still intact yellow brick building with decorative stone details into a state-of-the-art On the Run convenience store.

Original canopy has been faithfully
rebuilt, including neon lettering.

With the building now essentially finished, Torontonians who once eagerly lined-up to watch the latest movie now line up in droves to get their daily fix of Tim Hortons coffee!

At end of August, the hoarding was still up.
The contemporary On the Run entrance
is to the far right of the photo, facing west.

 Kudos to Imperial Oil for their wisdom to preserve and restore so much of the building to create a unique 'c-store' experience, and to ERA Architects and Teksign for pulling it off!

Read the story about the building's transformation in articles by Dave Leblanc (The Globe and Mail) and Christopher Hume (The Toronto Star). 

Footnote: Other Deco-era cinemas in Toronto designed by Kaplan and Sprachman are the former Eglinton cinema (400 Eglinton Avenue West, 1934-36); the former Bayview (1605 Bayview Avenue, 1936), the former State (1610 Bloor Street West, 1937), the Metro (679 Bloor Street West, 1938) and the Paradise (1008 Bloor Street West, 1939). Two other Deco cinemas (the Pylon – 608-610 College Street, 1939, now the Royal; and the Kingsway – 3030 Bloor Street West, 1939-40) were designed by different architects. Source: Art Deco Architecture in Toronto by Tim Morawetz, 2009.