20160412. Under Pittsburgh’s Interstate 579, a younger and cleaner elevated expressway than Toronto’s Gardiner.
20160411. A man puts a highway overpass into scale (showing just how much space fast moving vehicles need).
20160410. The unusual Bergeron Centre for Engineering Excellence at York University’s Keele Campus.
20160409. The Portal Bridge to Pittsburgh’s Point State Park.
20160408. A pyramidal view of Pittsburgh’s United Steelworkers Building. Curtis & Davis, 1963.
The exterior diamond lattice of steel provides form and function. With such a load-bearing exoskeleton and a solid central core, no interior columns are needed providing large open interior spaces.
20160407. A platform with a view.
20160406. Sadly, one of the most expressive Modernist buildings in Toronto, Davisville Junior Public School, is at grave risk of being demolished.
Architect Peter Pennington, 1962.
20160405. Crossing Pittsburgh’s Monongahela River on a Port Authority of Allegheny County LRV.
20160404. East elevation of Toronto’s once Consumers Gas Co. Purifying House No. 2 and now the Canadian Opera Company’s Opera Theatre.
Architects Strictland and Symens, 1888, Renaissance Revival.
The building was designed in the style of an early Christian basilica with a clerestory roof. It may have been built as a self-supporting structure and simply placed on top of the building so that any explosion would raise it without destroying the walls (from the COC’s website).
20160403. Reception and Transmission above downtown Toronto.
20160402. The Three Sisters of Pittsburgh.
These three self-anchored suspension bridges span the Allegheny River in downtown Pittsburgh. From front to back they are the Roberto Clemente Bridge, the Andy Warhol Bridge and the Rachel Carson Bridge.
Built from 1924 to 1928, they are the only trio of nearly identical bridges, as well as the first self-anchored suspension spans, built in the United States.
20160401. Sun shines off the silver steel skin of Pittsburgh’s One Gateway Center (Eggers and Higgins, 1952).
20160331. Sunset reflections dapple Toronto’s Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery.
The building that is The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery was built in 1926 as the powerhouse that housed the heating and refrigeration equipment for the Toronto Terminal Warehouse, now the Queen’s Quay Terminal. The building was renovated and reopened in 1987.
20160330. The United Steelworkers building facade matrix. Curtis & Davis, 1963, Pittsburgh.
20160330. Brick Brutalist Baptist Building.
Northminster Baptist Church, Jane-Finch neighbourhood, North York, Toronto.
20160329. Pittsburgh’s Postmodern Glass Gothic PPG Place.
20160328. Remembering the Art Deco Loblaw Groceterias Warehouse (Lakeshore and Bathurst, Toronto) before demolition.
Sparling, Morton and Forbes, c.1928.
20160327. Looking up Pittsburgh’s 1959-built Wyndham Grand Hotel, an example of the city’s marvelous mid-century modernism.
20160326. Reserved for reflections of fenestrated sunlight.
20160325. Symmetry in the shadow of a setting sun.
20160324. Columns in plastic wrap and rows of lights march forward. Inside a warehouse demolition II.
20160323. In a staring contest with Toronto’s Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery.
The building that is The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery was built in 1926 as the powerhouse that housed the heating and refrigeration equipment for the Toronto Terminal Warehouse, now the Queen’s Quay Terminal (reflected in the glass). The building was renovated and reopened in 1987.