1963 Album 0003 1963 Colborne 0039
at Sasaki Strong Landscape Architects on downtown Colborne Street
1963
Toronto Architects Office Today
50 years later the drawing boards have disappeared!

"worlds apart"
Gerald Robinson 1964
Gerald Robinson in front of his Colonnade Building
Collonade Building
Colonnade Building

I worked for Gerald Robinson in his architects office (marked by a blue square)
GeraldGoof pp portrait greyscale
Gerald Robinson today

when asked why so many buildings on fashionable Bloor Street have disappeared,
but not HIS !

because I built it "developer-proof" !
Peterborough Diamond Myers4
3 days after I officially arrived in Toronto as "landed immigrant" in 1971 these two generous architects offered me my first employment

Both Jack Diamond and Barton Myers became famous architects and successful in their own right after they split up in 1975.

Jack Diamond

Barton Myers

Barton Myers' WOLF HOUSE, Toronto



EbZeidler 2
After Diamond & Myers I joined

Eberhard Zeidler's firm
Craig, Zeidler and Strong
(after 1975: Zeidler Partnership Architects)

I worked on details of Ontario Place, a waterfront Park on Lake Ontario in Toronto

Toronto's Eaton Center is part of Zeidler's fame

born in 1926, he still goes to the opera

Ontario Place WZMH-Architects-History-1961
from Craig, Zeidler, Strong on Queen Street East in downtown Toronto I moved on to WZMH Webb Zerafa Menkes Housden on St. Clair Avenue (mid-town Toronto)

Some of the architects that would become WZMH: Boris Zerafa (holding glasses), Peter Webb, Jack Korbee and Brian Brooks. 1961

Brian Brooks was the one who interviewed and hired me.
Boris Zerafa
from Craig, Zeidler, Strong on Queen Street East in downtown Toronto I moved on to WZMH Webb Zerafa Menkes Housden on St. Clair Avenue (mid-town Toronto)

Boris Zerafa at his desk
HazeltonLanes 01
I was in the design team of HAZELTON LANES, a multi-purpose luxury apartment complex in Toronto's posh mid-town Yorkville district

by WZMH Webb Zerafa Menkes Housden Architects


In the right foreground with the round windows: YORK SQUARE, by Diamond & Myers, Architects, who I also worked for
HazeltonLanesBirdsEyeModel
architectural model of HAZELTON LANES

the central courtyard is surrounded by luxury retail stores and featured a reflecting pool next to a restaurant (and served as a skating rink in winter)

PARC LEMONT GALLERY was a gallery featuring Harold Altman original lithographs of urban parks in Paris and New York, organised by me and run by Ingrid, the mother of my two wonderful children Richard and Lilly.
Granite Place 00 61-63ClairAvenueWest Granite Place Condos Exterior-2000
Granite Place an apartment complex I worked on at WZMH

My design was for many terraces and a lower building, but the developer went for a high-rise, unfortunately
RoyalBankPlaza 01
ROYAL BANK PLAZA

WZMH Webb Zerafa Menkes Housden Architects

I was a member of the design team
2011216-potd
ROYAL BANK PLAZA (WZMH Architects)

the detailing of the ragged glass top was part of my chores
1973 RReininger
My first architecture client

Richard Reininger
Chairman of R. Reininger & Sons Ltd
Leader in Canadian automotive cold metal stamping
1240 Twinney Dr, Newmarket, Ontario L3Y 5N1, Canada



RReininger Plant 01
Office part of R. Reininger & Son

white aluminum cladding

green sheet glass imported from Pilkington UK
RReininger Plant 03
Entrance detail

green sheet glass supported by green glass mullions

(no visible metal frame)
RReininger Plant 05
R Reininger & Son

Office Entrance
RR01


view from Hwy 404 towards the 3 executive offices with their terraces

on the right side the factory building was half hidden by an earth berm such that only the vertical metal clad upper half of the building height was visible, behind which ran the visitors' gallery
Reininger Plan
roof plan
the 3 executive office on the right hand side have a terrace each

the large rectangle housed an array of metal stamping machinery movable on a grid of rails
surrounded by a visitors' gallery
the top left rectangle housed the paint shop which was off limits to visitors because of its patented processes

RReiningerPlant2011 768
windows of upper level executive office
RReininger Plant 02a
side view

facing the offices
RR Image1a
view towards to entrance

on the left side the grassy slope of the earth berm hides the lower part of the building creating a floating appearance of the upper part