What is that?: This confirms it, Toronto is for the birds
Posted June 2, 2016 12:20 pm.
Last Updated June 2, 2016 2:15 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
What is that?: Toronto sculptures explained is a new series looking at a different sculpture in the city every week. Have you seen a piece of public art in your daily commute and wondered what it was about? Me too … so I’ve decided that I’d learn a little bit more about my own city and share it with you.
Bird House Sculpture | Spadina Quay Wetland, Lower Spadina Avenue and Queen’s Quay West
This is not your everyday birdhouse.
Located in the Spadina Quay Wetland near the waterfront, the Bird House Sculpture, created in 1999, stands on its tall legs surrounded by trees. Bending down to get through the foliage, I get closer.
The legs hold up a platform 70 centimetres high off the ground.
The miniature buildings on top of the platform are meant to form a city block on Toronto’s waterfront, according to the book “Creating Memory: A Guide to Outdoor Public Sculpture in Toronto.”
A plaque nearby says:
“Imagine the Toronto lakeshore at the beginning of the 20th Century with its miles of beaches and bustling inland harbour clustered with buildings of commerce and pleasure strung together by the railways. Lake Ontario was an ever-changing natural backdrop to this human activity of weekly work punctuated by the pleasure of weekends and holidays spent on the beaches of the Toronto Islands and Parkdale.
The Bird House Sculpture, designed by Anne Roberts of Feir Mill Design Inc., recalled these human activities with the werehouses of the Toronto Electrical Company, the ubiquitous corner bank dressed in its classical facade, the Italiante bathing palace of Sunnyside and the cluster of ice cream parlours, bathing stations and boathouses attracting Toronto residents to the lure of the water.”
Despite its name, I’ve seen the sculpture several times but never with many birds in or on it. Maybe that’s why regular birdhouses hang from trees in the neighbouring Toronto Music Garden, perhaps as an effort to feed the birds since the Bird House Sculpture doesn’t.
I joined in on the effort to feed the birds back in February, creating my own birdfeeder that still hangs at the Music Garden.
I hope the birds are happy.
