In the heart of the Gay Village at Church Street and Wellesley Street East is Barbara Hall Park. Inside the park is the moving, thoughtful and lovingly curated Toronto Aids Memorial. And, like a Matryoshka nesting doll, within the memorial there is a stone with a plaque dedicated to Dr. Edward Kamski (1947-2006) who was \u201can early medical leader in the fight against HIV\/AIDS.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dr. Kamski left behind an architectural legacy as well \u2026 where there was once only a rose bush. <\/p>\n
In the early 1990s, architect Paul Reuber, who had done two renovations for the good doctor, was shown what must have been the smallest scrap of land in Toronto. Standing at the northeast corner of Seaton Street and Shuter Street, Dr. Kamski pointed to a triangular fragment beside No. 63 Seaton no wider than the sidewalk. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe asked, \u2018Can we build something here?\u2019\u201d remembers Mr. Reuber. \u201cI responded, \u2018Only if you let me cut down the rose bush!\u2019 Honestly, there hardly looked like there was enough room to plant a second one.\u201d <\/p>\n
But, as is often said, a great architect is one that transforms challenge into creativity: Frank Lloyd Wright\u2019s Fallingwater, or Albert Frey\u2019s Frey House II (Palm Springs, Calif.) come to mind. And, says Mr. Reuber, the design flowed from fingertips to drafting board \u201cquickly.\u201d But when Dr. Kamski turned his attention to another property, things were put on hold for \u201cseveral years.\u201d When work did begin, a vanishing contractor meant the foundations were wrapped up \u201cfor a few more years.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Architourist: New housing at a former 1940s bombing and gunnery school in Picton, Ont.<\/a><\/p>\n By the time \u201cTriangle House\u201d was done, it was a new millennium, and while Mr. Reuber would attend a few of Dr. Kamski\u2019s parties there, by 2003 the house had been sold.<\/p>\n That owner, Catherine Osborne, was once editor-in-chief of the architecture and design magazine Azure. Inviting this writer to have a look at the place she\u2019s called home for 23 years, she wrote: \u201clook for the lime green door!\u201d<\/p>\n Despite the bold colour, it\u2019s an easy door to miss, since, depending on how one approaches No. 61 Seaton, the house itself can look like an addition, or due to the change in grade one can miss the lime green door completely as it sits much lower than the red door of No. 63.<\/p>\n Yet, like Russian nesting dolls in reverse, what starts out very, very small turns into big, expressive postmodern architecture.<\/p>\n Despite a fa\u00e7ade not much wider than a door, step inside and one immediately senses an unravelling as the space opens up, visually. That\u2019s due to the view up the stair into the hallway that leads to the kitchen, the view down to the entrance to the separate basement apartment, and, most importantly, the view directly overhead to the second- and third-floor balconies. And the fact that one is in a space filled with photons raining down from massive windows assisted by tiny, square, \u2018surprise\u2019 windows.<\/p>\n