Few buildings are as audacious as Robarts, and structures like it are a necessary antidote to the common complaint that the city suffers from dull architecture. Robarts and its fellow “Brutalist” brethren— City Hall, the CN Tower, and the Ontario Science Center, to name but a few—are some of the city’s most iconic structures. In comparison to these titans, the new Rotman building has about as much character as a desktop computer.
Robarts, on the other hand, certainly demands your attention. Frequently said to possess the outline of a peacock, the unadorned lines of the building are as likely to evoke the serrated wings of a spacecraft as they are the grandeur and permanence of a cathedral. Its exterior is at its most pleasing when late afternoon sunlight warms the concrete with an amber glow that harmonizes with a blue sky. Even in the least favourable light, through squinted eyes it may seem less like a building and more like a mountain range. Robarts can be sublime, ridiculous or subtle, depending on your vantage point.
The design of Robarts was meticulously planned to accommodate a diversity of uses. Among other facilities, Robarts houses three other self-contained libraries, a suite of offices, teaching labs, and a government office. Its triangle design was selected to provide unobstructed access to its endless rows of stacks, while concrete was for its affordable and malleable qualities. This allowed the architects to eschew the monotony of a box-like building rather easily.
Though large enough to hold over 4.5 million books, the building occupies only a modest one-third of its site, thereby accommodating ample green space around its base. Despite its concrete walls, the building remains soft at heart, with a hollow core designed to maximize study space. There is an extremely high level of foot traffic in the building, with over 300,000 visits this past November. Yet thanks to its careful design, students go about their business with little mind that Robarts is often more populated than many small towns.
If renowned Swiss architect Le Corbusier thought of buildings as “machines for living in,” then Robarts meets this definition. Is there any better place to churn out four essays in a single week? Recent renovations to Robarts bringing in more natural light and creating more student space have made it a more pleasant place to cram.
Designed and built during the lead-up to Canada’s centennial year in 1967, Robarts embodies this historical moment of national pride with confidence and daring. From above, Robarts resembles a maple leaf, our national symbol adopted for our flag just prior to its construction. Its futuristic design is like a snapshot of the hopes and dreams of a generation. More new Canadians meant more new students, who required a library befitting of a truly cosmopolitan university.
Robarts’ unusual form poses a challenge to us on a similar scale to that of democracy through diversity. In as much as “it’s ugly” is often the initial reaction to Robarts (as it has been since the very beginning), a deeper familiarity with it elicits a more sympathetic response. Like so much of Toronto’s multicultural identity, Robarts reveals its graces slowly and through openness and exposure.
Instead of deriding the library or accepting the pejorative judgments of uninformed, distant critics, U of T would do well to appreciate the careful planning, inclusive optimism, and expressive vigour of the building at the heart of our campus in the centre of our city.
