I stumbled across a weblog called Spacing Toronto today that had a very recent and very interesting post about the Prairie School and Toronto (and also other parts of Canada). Prairie Houses in the Great White North?
Apparently, the philosophies of the Prairie School did filter north--though not as many examples of Prairie houses can be found in Toronto itself. As the post states:
There is, however, one lone example of the style in Toronto (that I’ve found), and it’s worth noting. Situated within a sea of neo-Tudor and Colonial Revival houses in Deer Park, the McNamara House at 50 Heath Street West is in a league all its own. Built around 1920, the house is unusual: it has a flat roof, deep eaves, and is painted solid white. Emphasis is placed on geometry and the massing of rectangles and squares. It does not rely on historical references.
The article goes on to point out the Ottawa work of Francis Sullivan (who was heavily influenced by Frank Lloyd Wright) as well. Wright himself did design a few projects for our neighbors to the north. Here's a link detailing some of them.
The original 1906 house commission for C. Thaxter Shaw of Montreal saw some beautiful renderings produced out of Wright's office, like the one shown below.
The home proved too expensive to build, so Shaw opted to have Wright remodel his town house instead. Sadly, it was demolished in the 1980s. You can read an excerpt about the Shaw townhouse from Dr. William Allin Storrer's The Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright: A Complete Catalog on line by following this link.
Check out the Spacing Toronto post for yourself and if you're up north sometime soon, check out some of the American Modernism exports.
McNamara House photo copyright Shannon Kyles. Drawing copyright the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, Scottsdale, AZ.
Sometimes we drive to Buffalo to see the FLW stuff. And other Buffalo stuff.
Posted by: Shawn Micallef | Feb 09, 2008 at 02:39 AM