Toronto Transit Commission Unveils Station's New Extreme Makeover

The first in a string of new initiatives aimed at sprucing up Toronto's somewhat dreary transit system was unveiled today at the little-used Museum subway station.

The University Subway Station Renaissance Program is a joint initiative that is currently being undertaken by the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC). It involves renovations to the Museum, Osgoode & St. Patrick subway stations on the TTC’s Yonge/University line. The TTC agreed to work with the Toronto Community Foundation (TCF) in creating a visual identity for each of the subway stations that relates to the cultural centers located near the three stations. On their website, the TCF says that theirs is an organization that is dedicated to making Toronto the best place to live, work, learn and grow. The TCF was founded in 1981 and for the past 25 years, they have been matching individual and family philanthropist's with organizations whose objective it is to improve Toronto’s quality of life. From the TCF:

Our Mission: To connect philanthropy to community needs and opportunities.

Our Vision: To ensure the vitality of Toronto and to make it the best place to live, work, learn and grow through the power of giving.

They are currently involved in a project they call Arts on Track and today, they were underground, taking the black shrouds off the new support columns that were the major part of the initial phase of the program, a five million dollar face-lift of the Museum subway station. Funding for the project came from the following sources: $1 million from The Budd Sugarman Foundation; $2 million from the Government of Ontario; $1.5 million from the TTC and $1 million from private donors. The bright new MUSEUM sign on the walls has hieroglyphics in each of the letters that spell out the following quote:

I was loved by my father, honoured and praised by my mother. I gave them a proper burial — by royal decree because I was honoured by the king — so that they could praise the god forever. I was a good son from my childhood until their demise, never causing them anger. Moreover, my opinion was considered in every royal project.

Those words were taken from a limestone relief that can be found in a gallery at the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM), located just steps away from the Museum subway’s exit. The relief is from the tomb of Met-jet-jy, an ancient Egyptian nobleman and it dates back to somewhere around 2300 BC. The architects for this project, Diamond + Schmitt Architects Inc. have incorporated five different objects into the load-bearing columns in the station: a First Nations Bear House Post, Doric columns from Ancient Greece, a figure who represents the Egyptian God Osiris, replicas of Imperial Chinese columns from the Forbidden City, and a replica of a Toltec Warrior figurine housed at the Gardiner Ceramic Museum. The first four all have major permanent exhibits at the ROM. Not everyone is enamored of the idea of changing the subway stations. "Toy columns, the tackiest thing ever," proclaims Joe Clark, a self-described expert on TTC typography and a dedicated blogger on TTC style. Mr. Clark wrote a blog entitled “The desecration of Museum station” (not hard to figure out where he stands, is it?) where he further opines:

Our first victim? Museum station, a tidy, intact model of TTC subway design that will be tarted up with Egyptian caryatids…

The publisher of spacing magazine, Matthew Blackett, believes that making the Museum station "a little kitschy" is a good idea, but worries about vandalism to the new columns.

It's kind of fun; kids on trips use the Museum station a lot. ... That's the charm of (original) TTC stations – you can fix them.

However, Mr. Blackett is opposed to changes to the stations on a larger scale.

We can afford to lose one station. But if you did a whole chunk of

the Bloor-Danforth line, that would be a loss.

The TTC subway station decor is a passion of Mr. Blackett. He has, to date, sold over 100,000 buttons that depict the original colors and typeface styles of the tiles and signs in all the stations. Michael McClelland, a heritage architect, agrees with Blackett's assessment. He believes that the color co-ordinated Vitrolite glass tiles and signs in the Eglinton to Union stations on the Yonge Street line that originally opened in 1954, all shared a consistent architecture and had what he calls "iconic value". He says that the TTC has

lost their branding. In other cities, it's much easier to look at the subway and know which city you're in, and the TTC has lost that coherence.

People tend to look at things 40 or 50 years old as not having any historical value, and I think that's unfortunate. I think the TTC, and the city more generally, should look at things of that period very carefully. Just lately there's been a groundswell of really interesting things - the drive to preserve the Sam the Record Man signs, for instance, and that's a much more radical form of preservation.

The TTC should realize that the stations are a major part of public space. And change to a major part of public space is very different from interior decoration

Funding and timing has not been secured for the $5 million renovation for each of the other two subway stations but the initial plans from the architects site are as follows: St. Patrick Station: St. Patrick station is re-fashioned as a giant underground art gallery. The space is renovated to emphasize the vaulted shape, and the walls and ceilings of the vaults are resurfaced and illuminated to allow the presentation of public art in the spaces. Curators from the AGO and OCAD will program the space with changing exhibits to co-ordinate with events and exhibitions in the main institutions at street level. Osgoode Station: The renovation of Osgoode/Opera Station proposes the introduction of music and images from the current productions of both the Canadian Opera Company and the National Ballet of Canada into the space of the subway hall. Alternating between sequences from opera and ballet, the music will be accompanied by still image projections on the resurfaced walls and ceilings of the station. Activated by the arrival of a train in the station, the still images become moving sequences with (sic) sweep along the length of the subway tunnel.