Alex Bozikovic
@alexbozikovic
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Architecture critic @globeandmail | Author | Instructor @uoftdaniels | Husband to @livmendelsohn and father of two city kids
Joined January 2010
Joined January 2010
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Hello! I've teamed up with Raymond Biesinger on a new book, 305 Lost Buildings of Canada, that tells brief stories about the death and life of our cities. Available now
@goose_lane
for preorder:
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The Ontario Science Centre (Raymond Moriyama, 1969) is a masterpiece and a deeply important building. The Doug Ford government is going to abandon and demolish it. That’s shameful.
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Six houses -> 170 apartments. Sometimes change is good, actually.
Street art silhouettes of people who used to live in houses slated for demolition for yet another condo project at St. Clair and Bathurst.
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Canada’s United Church will build 34,000 rental apartments - 30% below market - on church sites. My piece:
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Memo to those running for Toronto mayor: this building went up on a side street in 1931. It should be legal to build again.
Forget triplexes.
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No direct transit between the ninth and tenth biggest cities in Canada. Perhaps Ontario should fix this before building another expressway.
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Ontario has now passed its Bill 23 on housing and go. In time the most destructive element will be the removal of tenant protections. Allowing apartment buildings to become teardowns - with no compensation for existing tenants - is a disaster.
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It takes a special something to tell Indigenous nations that their real-estate development is out of character with the surrounding houses.
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Shops and cafes should be legal literally everywhere, almost without exception.
The
#CityOfTO
is looking at ways to make it easier to open small businesses in residential neighbourhoods. Share your input by attending a virtual consultation event tomorrow from 1 to 3 p.m.
Learn more:
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This is rightly being dunked on.
- 3700-square-foot house for two people
- plus a full basement!
- suburban, i.e. they drive everywhere
-“environmentalists”
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This was a store that a wealthy family kept open for sentimental reasons, then sold for $75-million. Now 1300 tenants will live there.
Over the last 20 years this city has just become one giant mass of malignant, rectangular-shaped tumours
Look what they tore down to build this featureless garbage, man.
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Raymond Moriyama 1929-2023. One of the most important architects in Canadian history passed away today.
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Every Southern Ontario child has sat on these benches.
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Two truths about Toronto property taxes: They have been much too low, and the homeowners facing big hikes can afford it.
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Tokyo urbanism: 4-metre streets, no setbacks, shops on every block, virtually no cars. Magnificent.
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In today’s
@globeandmail
I introduce University Park, a proposal to create a 90-acre park by repurposing streets in central Toronto. 1/
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New push on Ontario Place today from
@ThermeCanada
. PR headline is “more free park space.” But this space is privately managed, and some is on rooftops. That’s not a park.
It’s still a private attraction that destroys the entire existing island and has no place on this site
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Toronto: Proposal for a four-storey apartment building, 100m from a subway entrance on an arterial road, and the neighbours are furious. “Tower,” “neighbourhood character,” etc. 50 years of NIMBY local politics need to be undone.
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My column on the destruction of Ontario Place, the Science Centre and all our civic pride:
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Walking around the 13th in Paris. High density, plants everywhere, boûlangeries on every corner. Narrow streets and few cars. It’s fantastic.
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Toronto planning policy: Destroying everything good about the city.
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Paul Rudolph’s extraordinary Niagara Falls Public Library, 1974: one of the most fantastical of Brutalist buildings, troubled but very much still alive.
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Vancouver’s planning old guard, cannot contain its contempt for the new indigenous projects
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John Tory’s legacy is cemented today: the full rebuild of the Gardiner Expressway and senseless destruction at Ontario Place.
Billions of public dollars spent to make Toronto worse
This deal represents an extremely important first step in recognizing Toronto's unique status among cities in Ontario and Canada and beginning to address some of the challenges that go with that. My congratulations to Premier
@fordnation
and Mayor
@oliviachow
.
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This area in front of
@TorontoPolice
’s 52 Division is supposed to be a plaza; instead officers park their personal cars there. 1/
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It is deeply problematic when a Toronto politician uses an image like this to complain about density.
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Look how they massacred my boy
Bay and Bloor in the 1980s and recent. credit: City of Toronto Archives
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By the standards of a normal government, this would be a huge scandal. But here it’s just a dull process story that involves $500-million. Shrug!
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The second Indigenous-led development project in Vancouver gets an update and a big bump in density: 13,000 homes, 30 per cent BMR, on 90 acres
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The Toronto city staff report on
@OntarioPlace
is here. It is strongly and consistently negative about the
@ThermeCanada
proposal.
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Montreal: parking turned into lush gardens. Everywhere in the Plateau.
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If more people went to Ontario Place’s West Island and saw what is to be destroyed, this would be a major political issue.
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Tokyo is a trip. I want to live in a city where the side streets have nichey shops and rigorously stylish cafés
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Remarkable poll numbers: 20 per cent in Toronto support
@Penalosa_G
for mayor. A lot of people are unhappy with the state of the city.
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If people have to wear safety vests to walk the streets of your city, you have failed as a leader.
Wearing high visibility clothing or reflective gear is a key part of keeping everyone safe, including pedestrians, construction workers, cyclists, police officers and crossing guards. Let's make
@VisionZeroTO
work.
#Toronto
#TOpoli
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Next: It’s time to cancel the Ontario Place waterpark.
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An elementary school located in an apartment building, and the kids play in a public park. 1970s Toronto did some smart things!
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“Good urban design” in downtown Toronto. The continuous glazing and too-high ceiling are city policy all the way. The result is going to be unloved and commercially unsuccessful.
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The richest, whitest and least populated neighborhood in downtown Toronto is upset about a 10-storey building
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Much of Central Toronto is losing people. This is one reason why. Six apartments -> one mansion. No planning permission needed, no penalty for evicting the tenants.
#toronto
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City streets must be all asphalt so Sun columnists can roar through them, leaving a plume of exhaust on their way back to the suburbs
Because we don’t have enough whacky crap on the streets of Toronto…
Someone thought it was a good idea to put mini forests on the road.
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Would be a shame if Aurora, Ontario was a “sea of sameness”
This one size fits all Toronto centric approach won’t solve home ownership issues in other communities… What it will do is destroy communities across this province turning us all into a sea of sameness tower after tower, in town after town…
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Lesson from Tokyo urbanism: small-lot buildings make better streets
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Some people in Toronto expect to be able to drive quickly across downtown in rush hour. I have bad news for them: this is never going to be possible again. Ever.
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The street redesigns in the Plateau are beautiful. It is so green and so quiet there. Narrowing streets and lanes is magic.
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The new
@OntarioPlace
. A massive waterpark building 45m high, and a five-level parking garage for 2,118 cars. Disastrous.
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It is a joke that Toronto has not pedestrianized Yorkville.
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Vancouver opponents of density:
Even tho there's
@Canucks
hockey tonight there are a lot of people in Kits Neighbourhood House concerned about impacts of the Broadway Plan on Kits and surrounding neighbourhood. I'm here as a speaker b/c notwithstanding the hsg crisis, a tenfold increase in density is wrong! :(
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Toronto has ended exclusionary zoning. Four units minimum on every residential lot.
And it is done. Toronto has zoning for apartments of four units throughout all residential areas.
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If I were a car industry lobbyist complaining about traffic, I simply would not post a video of myself driving unobstructed through a yellow light
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The Ontario gov't has put out its business case for moving the Ontario Science Centre. It is blatantly dishonest. This will save $596-million over 50 years - if you wreck the existing heritage building, and don't count costs of the $500-million garage or renovations.
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Imagine l’m visiting Toronto. I want to cutch a train going east. Which way do I go?
@TTChelps
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Toronto is bigger and richer than it’s ever been, yet everything public is crumbling.
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In Toronto, a very fine 15-storey building by Canada’s most important 20c architecture firm (Parkin, 1972) is now a teardown. As a waste of emissions and destruction of quality architecture, this is obscene.
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Counterpoint: Many neighbourhoods should experience radical change
We believe no neighborhood should be exempt from change, but no neighborhood should be subjected to radical change. Incremental development is a major key to building better places.
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Once you claim your privately run, for-profit waterpark is “social infrastructure..” you’ve shown the world who you are.
@DiamondSchmitt
#topoli
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So, we’ve confirmed: Our whole family has COVID. We’re all vaccinated and adults are boosted. Get your shots, and be careful out there.
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Rob Ford was not a good mayor. He was a very poor leader who - just through his policy choices and political rhetoric - did huge damage to Toronto.
This should not be controversial.
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I love Toronto, but it neglects its public spaces and hates pedestrians. Newly repaired guardrail keeps cars from falling down the hill - but not from crushing passersby.
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Toronto is choosing not to build thousands of potential homes on public land for purely aesthetic reasons - because towers will “overwhelm” the views. Dangerous nonsense.
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Toronto right now, continuing to sprawl. This map is a disaster for the climate and for social mobility.
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John Tory staffer moves to
@ThermeCanada
, who are bigfooting Toronto city planning to build a waterpark on public land.
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Toronto in 20 years, with a million more people and very little new transit, is going to be a giant mess.
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This is the most important Toronto story of the weekend.
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How is Toronto better off after John Tory’s mayoralty? The city is cruel to its most vulnerable. Its services are crumbling.
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Shocking news. This building will never last 95 years. The public will be stuck with a white elephant that’s the size of a stadium.
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Most North Americans’ experience of a neighbourhood feeling “busy” or “full” has to do with cars. Cars are the problem.
While millions of people have moved to the Greater Toronto Area, many parts of the 416 are actually losing population — even if they feel more crowded, writes
@mattgurney
#topoli
#onpoli
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Bad news. One of the best 19c buildings in Toronto - 149 College, by Old City Hall architect E.J. Lennox, 1894 - is now a potential development site.
This means this structure could be reduced to a facade.
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It’s deeply disappointing to see the
@TorontoStar
put forward NIMBY complaints - many of them false - from some of the richest neighbourhoods in the country.
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The Ontario Place bill. Enviro, planning, heritage, even noise regulations explicitly do not apply. Ford is blowing up every normal process and procedure for a waterpark
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Frank Gehry at the groundbreaking of Forma, his Toronto tower. “I’m only 94, so I expect to be here when it’s done.”
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So many things in our society and city that need to change, and we’re led by people who want to destroy the best architectural expressions of social democracy.
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I kid about heritage, but there’s a real problem here. Toronto claims to value its retail main streets, but is pushing development onto them. Houses are untouchable. Landmark dive bars are expendable.
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On the Toronto strong mayor controversy: John Tory has not used all of his existing powers as mayor to deliver more housing. Not even close.
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Toronto got rid of parking minimums today. This is a lot bigger and more radical than it sounds. Great news
Toronto Council voted to join the club today eliminating parking minimums, one of the largest cities in North America to do so - Parking Mandates Map via
@Parking_Reform
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A reminder that ~75% of Toronto police don’t live in the city
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Former cabinet minister speaks on Ontario Place. “A competitive process” entirely in secret, then the winners get a $500-million handout when it’s done.
@BonnieforLeader
@OntarioPlace
First, it was a competitive process. Second, the process was lead by bureaucrats at Heritage and Infrastructure Ontario. Third, thanks for letting us know you would continue to let Ontario Place and Ontario Science Centre rot.
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Destroying hundreds of trees in a public park is too toxic for a tree-care company. But it's fine for design professionals
@BDPQuadrangle
@DiamondSchmitt
@UrbStrat
@Studiotla
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Hello from the alleged worst building in the history of the world
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The busiest transit station in Canada, central point for tourism and 500,000 jobs. This shows apathy and serious dysfunction.
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Super disappointing to see Bradford take this position.
Toronto's traffic congestion is already ridiculous. What we need is to finish the Gardiner rebuild - not have another dozen rounds of consultation, debate, and delay.
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“More folks in all our neighbourhoods.” Just astonishing to hear this from a sitting mayor.
Toronto is growing. We need new ways to house more folks in all our neighbourhoods with services like schools, parks and transit.
Part of that's allowing more "missing middle" housing on residential major streets.
Consultations are open until Dec. 14:
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A single-family lot turns into seven apartments. Off Marlee Road, Toronto.
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Toronto police using public resources to lobby for more money. And fearmongering at the same time. This is disturbing.
“22 minutes when people are scared in their homes from somebody who has broken into their home is not what Torontonians expect or deserve” says
@TPSMyronDemkiw
as he discusses police response times and hiring needs with
@CBCToronto
#SupportYourTPS
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Toronto has built a beautiful streetscape, so it’s time to tear it up and patch it with asphalt
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The West Island of
@OntarioPlace
. Little seems to be happening. Many thousands of us could have enjoyed this beautiful place this summer. The province didn’t want that to happen.
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These people are shameless. Just profoundly dishonest. We've seen this attitude on bigger files and here it is again.
Therme was a top contender to help redevelop Ontario Place even before our government was elected in 2018. The NDP need to stop playing politics: it’s time to rebuild Ontario Place for future generations.
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Potentially very big news for Toronto: large-scale upzoning that could match the BC changes
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This has been a hard time in many ways. But: our 7YO learned to bike this weekend.
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