Village Green: 40 and 50 Alexander Street,
55 Maitland Street
Architect, John Daniels
Completed 1967

Two years after the 1952 completion of Le Corbusier’s Unité d’habitation in Marseilles, High Modern residential architecture arrived in Toronto in the form of the City Park Apartments at 484 Church Street, just north of Maple Leaf Gardens. This, the first post-war apartment complex in Toronto, replaced the Victorian houses on its site with three 14-storey slab blocks containing 774 rental apartments.

“Espace, soleil, verdure” is provided for all residents, thanks to the east-west orientation of apartment units and generous spacing between buildings. Apartments are large, balconies private, and waiting lists are long. Following conversion to a non-profit housing co-operative in the early 1990s, City Park underwent renovations, including the application of vertical metal cladding on the north and south end walls of each block.

Thirteen years after City Park was built, the 700-rental-unit Village Green project was constructed across the street to the north. The three buildings – two 19-storey slabs (with two-storey penthouse units on top) and a cylindrical 28-storey point tower – are clad in white and blue glazed brick. Village Green provides lots of espace and verdure, but north-facing units lose out on soleil.

Both City Park and Village Green are examples of high-rise, high-density site planning at its best. An interesting comparison can be made with the two most recent developments in the immediate vicinity. The Alexus, at the northwest corner of Church and Alexander, is a condominium apartment building built to the property line that steps up from one to eleven storeys. It has a false front on Church Street (the cornice line of which unfortunately doesn’t match its older neighbour to the north). At 42–52 Maitland Street an infill development of 20 condominium townhouse units is packed so tightly on its site that rear windows are almost non-existent due to building-code restrictions. The high density of these and many other residential buildings in the area supports the busy Church Street commercial district, a neighbourhood shopping area, and GHQ for Greater Toronto’s gay community.

Douglas Young