I am still showing pics from the Munk School of Global Affairs and this pic gives us a view from one of the newly renovated classroom/meeting spaces out into the restored entrance hall of the building. Apparently before the restoration all of the wonderful arches (even the tops of the doors) were hidden by drop ceilings and it was a pleasant surprise for the architects to discover all of the wonderful brick arches intact as was the original tile floor.
Even though yesterday's Munk building is historically designated, the architects were able to get permission to punch a long window into the back facade of the tower allowing them to bring a lot of light into each floor of the tower. On this floor the round room is used for meeting space while the other floors have been fitted out as lounge areas with a difference!
I showed you the front entrance of this beautifully restored building in December (here) and luckily the building was part of the Doors Open Toronto event of a couple of weekends ago. This is the approach to the rear entrance of the building showing the tower which originally had a dome housing a telescope for the Meteorological Service of Canada but the dome was removed in 1934 and installed at another location on the U of Toronto campus. I'll show you some of the restored and modernized interior over the next few days.
Taking part in Signs, Signs. Click here for more signs.
P.S. I have fixed the link to the original shot.
This shot is a reverse of yesterday's, taken from the doorway of the studio and looking into the living room of the house and the kitchen beyond. If you look closely you can see all the people milling about inside. That Japanese Maple certainly looks happy with its nice protected location.
The Courtyard House from yesterday's Doors Open post was pretty crowded with people so it was difficult to get interior shots but at one point the courtyard emptied out and I caught this pic of the courtyard and a view into the "studio". The couple who own the house are architects (their firm is "Studio Junction") who work from home in this very cool space. Both the house and the studio have interiors of this lovely warm plywood. Tomorrow a reverse shot of the house taken from the studio.
Last weekend was Doors Open in Toronto when hundreds of buildings which are not usually open to the public are open. This year one of the opened buildings was a laneway house which I first showed you in 2010 (here) and which I was thrilled to see on the inside. We'll start with the lovely gate leading into one section of the house - beautiful isn't it? I'll show a couple of more pics over the next days.
Today is theme day for the City Daily Photo community and this month's theme is "the beauty of decay". This little house (probably was a Gothic Revival cottage) has sat empty for as long as I can remember and each year the roof seems to sag a little bit more but someone has chosen to decorate it with quite nice flowers that give some sense of beauty to the whole thing. I'm sure that one day something surprising will turn up in this spot.
Click here to see more shots for the theme.
