A Special Place for Ugly Buildings

"Does the city need ugly buildings?" asks a column by Edward Keenan. "The shabby and unfashionable, the weirdo huts and half-abandoned malls and rundown plazas. Could it be they actually serve a valuable purpose in the life and evolution of the city?"

These seemingly counter-intuitive questions are raised by the "imminent demolition of a strip of stores near Yonge and Eglinton" in Toronto. The news of destruction of the strip mall has brought two strong reactions: those who believe the building is a blighted failure and those who relied on it for work or entertainment.

Keenan notes that Lloyd Alter has already written about the demise of the Yonge and Eglinton strip plaza, as has Amy Grief. Alter and Keenan concur that there is in fact a place for ugly buildings in cities, and for the eccentricity that tends to locate there, even while the rest of surrounding city gentrifies and takes on a corporate sheen.