Critic’s Review

383 ELLIS PARK RD.: It was expectedly controversial when first announced in what now seems a different era, but just years later, it’s clear that this condo complex stands among the best additions to the neighbourhood in recent history. Occupying a steeply sloped site on the northwest corner of High Park, at the southeast corner of Ellis Park and Bloor, it is a mere six storeys on Bloor, nine or so on the other (south) side. As terraced condos go, this one has everything, most dramatically, views of the park.

At the same time, however, it must function as a wholly urban structure; it faces onto a main street and has retail at grade, including a café on the Ellis Park corner. In this way, it feels fully integrated into the street life of the neighbourhood.

Architecturally, the tone here is one of restraint. The main entrance, which sits just south of Bloor on Ellis Park, has been set back slightly. The big gesture is the “prow,” a pointed corner that faces west down Bloor. It supports a cascading row of balconies that reaches four floors high. By contrast, the eastern half of the facade, clad in masonry, is more opaque than transparent. But from a civic point of view, the use of these materials brings the condo closer to its context.

On the other (south) side, where the building faces the park, it has been fitted into an awkward site with greatest of ease. Fears that it would encroach on park property were exaggerated; if anything, the condo brings definition to the park edge as well as the street. The contrast with an earlier – and much less urban – residential heap across the road on Bloor couldn’t be sharper.

Have we finally arrived at the point where developers have figured out that the condos they erect should be part of the city, not apart from it? In this sense, contemporary architects have caught up with the days when anyone who could afford to live on a main street did so.

GRADE: A