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The Daily Photoist: CathedralTown

By Marc Lostracco

Every weekday, we pick an image from the Torontoist Flickr Pool and feature it here on the site. It’s our way to give the many excellent photographers in our pool the attention they deserve!
DailyPhotoist_1August07.jpg
That God…the showoff always has to have the largest house on the block! We like the obvious humour in this shot by Flickr pool contributor tango and cassius of Markham’s Cathedral of the Transfiguration—a baroque Slovak Catholic church constructed in the early 1980s on a barren pasture just off the 404. Still incomplete, the basilica is now being enveloped by the CathedralTown development, where the streets will be named after the prize Holsteins raised by the cathedral’s late builder, businessman and mining entrepreneur Stephen Roman—further proof that the suburbs sometimes breed some of the oddest sights.

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  • guest

    Ist-resting. I used to live not far from this church, it always seemed an anomaly. Now they’re building supposedly “livable” sprawl around it.
    The proposed architecture looks kinda cool, although time will tell. They mention condominiums on the site, but there are no visible plans for any.
    http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20060818.wreal-mays0818/BNStory

  • Marc Lostracco

    The CathedralTown is hopefully going to be an example of a planned suburb “town” that doesn’t fall into the insular traps of so many suburbs. I believe it’s going to be laid-out with some elements of a town, like walkable strees, corner stores and mixed-use buildings, all surrounding the cathedral’s central square. Interestingly, the aesthetic design work has been assisted by Dr. Donald Buttress, who was once the official architect of Westminster Abbey.
    We’ll see about that, though. Too many developers like to brag how their cookie-cutter communities are “inspired” by the real thing—actual naturally-developed communities—but we end up with a paved wasteland that looks like a movie set, surrounded by box stores. The renderings (link in article) look promising, however.

  • guest

    While this seems like a good idea on paper, we have to beware of what it will mean to the rest of the GTA as a whole. Much like the new Hindu Temple at Finch and Hwy 427, this cathedral will not only serve the resident population, but a migrant flock wishing to participate in service.
    Being that Markham is, in all intensive purposes, a suburban community, many of the flock will have to drive by car to the cathedral. This sets up a bunch of inclusion/exclusionary factors here. Will only the privileged with access to a car have the opportunity to utilize the cathedral? Do we really want to build “cathedraltowns” that only act as gated communities and block certain populations of the GTA?

  • David Elliott

    I understand that the Church is closed because of some jurisdictional dispute. Stephen Roman was always an over-the-top person and this Church demonstrates this. Unfortunately, there was for the longest time no context for it and now comes a hideous subdivision. The subdivision and Church do not complement one another. Frankly, each deserves the other and suburbia is the right place for the both of them.

  • Marc Lostracco

    The cathedral has actually been there since 1983 with a whole lotta nothing around it, so though there are about to be a whole bunch of people moving in around it, the people that already go there are already driving.
    I agree that gated or planned communities can be a disturbing concept because of their exclusivity. Healthy neighbourhoods not only thrive when people get out and walk around, but also when different demographics, income levels, cultures, etc. populate them together—a concept that is surprisingly offensive to many.

  • paigesix

    My grandparents lived just north of the Cathedral and when I was younger I always thought it was a castle. Possibly the Disney castle. heh.

  • guest

    Being that Markham is, in all intensive purposes, a suburban community, many of the flock will have to drive by car to the cathedral. This sets up a bunch of inclusion/exclusionary factors here. Will only the privileged with access to a car have the opportunity to utilize the cathedral? Do we really want to build “cathedraltowns” that only act as gated communities and block certain populations of the GTA?
    So anything built that has to be accessed by car is for the privileged and excludes the oppressed masses? That’s one of the most ridiculous things i’ve heard. The logical extensions to this argument boggle the mind.