Starting your art collection? Start small. At OCAD's sixth annual Whodunit? Mystery Art Sale on Saturday, you'll have over 800 pieces to choose from—all 5½" x 7½", all $75.00. Buy your favourite, then turn it over to reveal the name of artist. Depending on your luck and sleuthing skill, you could end up with a big-name bargain: in addition to the usual Canadian artists and OCAD alumni, faculty and students, this year's special contributors......

We publish a lot of articles here on Torontoist, and sometimes it's hard to keep up with all of them. Populist is a weekly recap intended for the casual Torontoist reader, featuring some of the coolest, most interesting, most commented, and most recommended posts from the past week on Torontoist. Populist will appear every Sunday night. This week on Torontoist featured bleepin' boobs, Brass Rail burn-outs, coulrophobia, Guitar Girls, Giambrones, and Alsop architecture. Here are......

Last month, we reported on the mammoth new film studio development being installed in the portlands—plans which included a flagship building designed by renowned British architect Will Alsop at the entrance to the complex. Alsop's renderings were just unveiled, and while not as brash as his OCAD "tabletop" building, the new Filmport landmark will be tough to ignore.......

We've previously written about renowned architects designing furniture, but those creative design types also like to get their fingers dirty with paint on canvas. What could be more appropriate than an art exhibit from the guy who designed the OCAD tabletop building? Starting tomorrow, modernist British architect Will Alsop will be premiering Cultural Fog in Toronto—his first North American art exhibit. Alsop says he's been inspired by city neighbourhoods, which include Riverdale, Roncesvalles and......

Blame international architect Will Alsop for the latest Queen West trend. When his design for the Westside Lofts condo presentation centre was constructed near Queen and Gladstone, many regarded the multi-coloured swiss cheese structure as garish and ugly. At yet, the building's hideousness has proved the secret to the condo project's attention-getting strategy. Clearly, other Queen West businesses have taken a cue from Alsop's design. Art supply store Woolfitt's sits in the shadow of......

Everyone's been reporting on the Tim Horton's explosion/fire but the Sun gets at the most important question, just what will this do to Tim Horton's stockholders? The answer, probably not much. We're getting smacked around with another mild dose of winter weather. Don't take Torontoist's word for it, take the Weather Office's. The city is staging a five day blitz on idling drivers. They're targetting the busiest part of Front St. right around Union Station.......

Because this map makes it look like OCAD is being turned into a theme park. Well, that's probably only half-true. Tommorow, first year interaction students at the art school are turning the area underneath Will Alsop's tabletop into a giant showcase of their work which includes things like: • Interactive graffiti walls • communal music making • radio-controlled homage to Pimp My Ride • human statues • a food fight • a peepshow in......

Chinese architect Yongsang Ma has won the Mississauga competition to design the Absolute tower in Mississauga. The lithe looking glass tower was a heavy favourite to win the contest and he beat out six other finalists. Queen West residents group Active18 and bird-friendly condo development WestSide lofts trade press conferences and barbs tommorow (thanks Spacing Wire!). Active18 is showing the press the results of its recent Queen West community design charette and WestSide lofts is......

Someone please fire the marketing team at Landmark Building Group. The marketers at this developer's have come up with this painfully obnoxious video advertising their lofts. We've seen better acting and production from late night spots and these ads simply scream gentrification. The video touts the location of their project (right across from the Drake) and has one of the most asinine slogans we've seen in recent memories ("Are you on the list?"). It's a......

The City presented its annual Architecture and Urban Design awards at a gala dinner last week presided over by Mayor Miller and the city's poet laureate Giorgio di Ciccio (no, we weren't aware of this either). Of particular note: the coveted Building in Context Award of Excellence was presented to Will Alsop's OCAD Sharp Centre, praised by the judges for being 'cocky and attractively humorous, an element in the urban scene that holds its......

We were shaking our heads in disappointment when Mayor Miller announced that the city would support empowerment of the Toronto Waterfront Revitalization Corp. (TWRC), but only if he was placed on its board- a familiar story of bureaucratic stalemate. The recent announcement of the Waterfront Design Review Panel, however, is surely a sign of hope in repairing this city's post-war urban planning faux pas. The best part? Bruce Kuwabara, an eminently talented architect's architect,......

Well, we don't know what practicing artist and soon to be OCAD President Sara Diamond has on her OCAD to do list, but one of those line items will definitely include defending Will Alsop's tabletop from Pugly commendation (see below). In keeping with OCAD's tradition of hiring practicing artistes, Ms. Diamond is both video/installation artist and current director of research at the Banff Centre and artistic director of the Banff New Media Institute. She also......