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magazine / mj06
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May/June 2006 issue |
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FEATURE
SUSTAINABLE CITIES
Seasons of the city
Fitfully liveable and always surprising, Toronto is a study in contrasts.
A photographer’s 30-year take on Canada’s largest urban centre.
Excerpt of story with photography by Vincenzo Pietropaolo and story Patricia D’Souza
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In-depth:
Exploring sustainable cities
Check out the newest ideas for integrating urban and natural environments to promote sustainability,
see how pedestrianism may win over gridlock, and find out how to save a dying community.
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Vincenzo Pietropaolo began photographing Toronto in the early 1970s, around the same time
he began working as a community organizer for the city, a career path that led to a 15-year
stint as an urban planner. In essence, he was learning to capture the city on film at almost
the same time he was drafting its future.
"There was a lot of optimism," he says of his work in the Italian neighbourhood
at Dufferin Street and Davenport Road, just west of the downtown core. "It was a time
of experimentation, even boldness." In one part of Toronto, author Jane Jacobs was fighting
to stop the Spadina Expressway from blazing through neighbourhoods in the middle of the city,
including her own. In his small corner, Pietropaolo was building parks on derelict lands
and battling industrial polluters.
In those early years, his photography, too, was about experimentation. After more than
30 years behind the lens, Pietropaolo has created a legacy of Toronto's evolution.
Over time, his job with the city, like Toronto itself, began to change. Pietropaolo was
transferred from his small office in the Dufferin and Davenport community to the "great
ivory tower" of city hall. "You begin to lose touch with the people on a local
level," he says, "and you become more bureaucratic because you're living in a bureaucratic
world."
Though the photos in these pages chronicle the changing times, they are themselves timeless,
capturing the character of the city and the reasons so many people call it home. "Cities
are about people — they're not about structures," says Pietropaolo. "Often,
professionals in the planning field forget that."
Pietropaolo is now a photographer of international renown, having left urban planning in
1991. That same year, an exhibition of his images of Toronto were used to mark the 30th anniversary
of Jacobs' seminal work, The Death and Life of Great American Cities. "The city has
become my raw material," he says. "It's where I find everything I need for photography." And
every day, the city rewards him with new insights on what makes Toronto a liveable city,
even a great one.
For the rest of this story, visit your local newsstand or go to our store to buy this issue.
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