GALLERY ENTRY

York Square

Located at the corner of Yorkville Avenue and Avenue Road, York Sqaure is a very early of adaptive reuse and smaller scale intervention during a time period where larger scale renewals were often favoured.

York Square is characterized by the mixture of existing Vicotrian Houses knitted together with a continuous modern facade at the street level complete with large round display windows.  Accessed via a number of small lane ways, the rear of the buildings frame an interior courtyard.  The development is representative of Yorkville’s character and its evolution.  It is representative of the ground breaking architectural work that Diamond Myers were undertaking at the time that highlighted the benefits of being more contextually responsive.

The site is slated for demolition as part of a large condominium development.  It’s pending demolition highlights the evolutionary challenges associated with successful infill and reuse.  Over time this project has contributed to the on-going evolution of Yorkville, for better or worse, and is an important and somewhat rare architectural work from this period.  At the very least it should be well documented to highlight its approach to knitting new with old.