Mo' From TO: Architecture Corner

Whenever Karen and I go back east, we always notice one thing: bricks. Northern California had its fair share of brick buildings until April 18, 1906, when they all fell down. Architects didn't need to learn that lesson twice, so structures made of brick (and stone) are quite rare here, and the few you find are often 19th Century survivors of the Great Quake. Oh, you'll see fake bricks used in facades, but they don't look like the real thing or fool anybody. When we travel, spotting our first brick building is the cue that we're not in the Bay Area anymore.

So we were in Toronto gaping at bricks and stones like rubes when we noticed something we hadn't really seen anywhere else: great old buildings with modern steel-and-glass additions butted right up against them. Totally integrated, no gap between them at all, with no attempt made to match their architectural styles. Some of the new work envelopes the old like a gnarled tree trunk grown up around a boulder.

I suppose it has something to do with the weather--avoiding the elements while walking from one building to another--but it's an aesthetic decision as well, and an interesting one. Do people protest that the additions clash with or ruin the character of the classics? Or does nobody mind as long as the historic building remains intact? I can imagine locales, including mine, where this approach wouldn't fly at all.

Once we noticed it we couldn't stop noticing it, and I started taking pictures because I found it fascinating. I kind of like it. There's an integrity in not trying to trick anybody into thinking the new structure belongs with the old one. Reminds me of how restorers of "The Last Supper" fresco fill in missing paint with watercolor that nobody looking closely would mistake for Leonardo's original work.

Herewith, a gallery of "Old and New Buildings Crammed Together in Toronto." If you lived with me, this is what you'd have to put up with. Karen is a saint.