What’s next

Many Toronto schools of the postwar period are under threat. One problem is funding. Most of the city’s school buildings are controlled by the Toronto District School Board, which has long been engaged in a dispute with Ontario’s Ministry of Education over facilities funding. As of May 2021, the TDSB had a repair “backlog” of $3.7-billion. Many schools have seen decades of deferred maintenance. The COVID-19 pandemic revealed problems with school ventilation systems and procedures.

In this context of austerity and new challenges, heritage conservation is sometimes framed as a luxury. Since school boards no longer have strong in-house architectural staffs, there are few internal advocates for conservation or for thoughtful design of new buildings.

Another issue is a lack of understanding. The postwar era – and particularly its architecture – is still overlooked by elected officials and sometimes by heritage professionals. Accordingly, small maintenance decisions, such as changes to windows and furniture, are often made without an understanding of the original architecture. Such changes can have a major impact on the integrity of Modernist buildings, including these schools.

Changing pedagogical practices, such as larger class sizes and consolidation of elementary schools, are an issue. And educators’ ideas about optimal classroom conditions have (not for the first time) changed. The current trend is toward larger windows; this has resulted in the replacement of glass block with clear windows and also, in part, in the demolition of the Pennington-designed Davisville P.S., whose windows were said to be too small

Toronto faces major demographic, economic and social changes in the years to come. Public schools will remain important – especially if they are used, as many midcentury educators and architects intended, as multi-purpose community spaces.

The postwar Toronto schools still have not been comprehensively studied for their social and architectural value. This despite the fact that Government of Ontario policy requires such study for any provincial government building. The Architectural Conservancy of Ontario began such a study in 2017-2018; neither the Ministry of Education nor the City of Toronto have acted upon it.

Ultimately, conservationists, heritage professionals and educators will need to arrive at a common understanding of which buildings to value, and of what forms of conservation are necessary.

A 2018 study by the architecture firm Giaimo points the way. Giaimo studied the existing Davisville P.S. building and developed a plan to conserve significant heritage attributes while remaking the interior to fit school board and ministry requirements, all at a lower cost than the eventual teardown and reconstruction.

Such thoughtful work by experienced architects - and rigorous review of school board and ministry decision-making - will be important in the years to come.

The best of the postwar schools are serious public architecture that deserves such attention and sets an example for future building.