By: Daniel Wong

Toronto is a city in perpetual conflict, constantly striving to redesign itself while also attempting to preserve its essence. The ongoing process involves demolishing old, obsolete, or decayed buildings to make way for gleaming new condos and office towers. Occasionally, a building is fortunate enough to undergo an aesthetic judgment that allows certain facades to remain. Braces, crutches, or armatures are then employed to support the existing facade during the removal or renovation of its interior, preserving its exterior.

These structural non-structures exemplify the city’s struggle to maintain its heritage, yet they also reveal a transient condition. The building finds itself caught between the realms of architecture and ruin, process and product, old and new. These props make no claims of form beyond their blunt, neutral, and unselfconscious purpose; their directness expresses a true functionality.

The role of the armature is to preserve specific spatial relationships—a suspension in time and a guardian against gravitational threats. The structure refrains from making any assertions about itself or the piece it supports, displaying a tectonic honesty. The armature fulfills their purpose by remaining devoid of self-expression, it is distinguishable yet subordinate, existing independently of the fragments it supports, The armatures possess an alluring ephemerality, like the parasitic scaffolding that clads a building—quickly propped up and swiftly dismantled once it has nothing left to give.