Eaton Center
The Eaton Center is a four-storey shopping mall in the city center of the Canadian city of Toronto . It is named after the former department store chain Eaton's or after the Irish immigrant Timothy Eaton , who opened a general store here in 1869. With 230 shops, restaurants and service providers, the Eaton Center is the largest shopping center in the province of Ontario and the third largest in Canada. The opening of the first construction phase took place in 1977, the architect was Eberhard Zeidler .
The shopping center is bounded to the east by Yonge Street , to the south by Queen Street West, to the north by Dundas Street West and to the west by buildings on the east side of Bay Street . The paths inside form part of PATH , an extensive underground network of pedestrian and shopping arcades. The Dundas and Queen stations of the Toronto Subway are located at the north and south ends of the Eaton Center . The building complex also includes three office towers and the Ted Rogers School of Management of Ryerson University . In addition, the Eaton Center is connected to a 17-story Marriott hotel and Canada's largest department store, the main Hudson's Bay store .
history
planning
Timothy Eaton took over an existing general store on Yonge Street in 1869. From this small shop, Canada's largest department store chain developed within a few decades. The company Eaton's had most of the land between the streets Yonge, Queen, Bay and Dundas, with the exception of Old City Hall (Altes Rathaus) and the Church of the Holy Trinity (Trinity Church). The main branch (Main Store) , an auxiliary building (Eaton Annex) and several buildings of affiliated mail order and manufacturing companies were located in this block of houses .
When the logistics operations were relocated to the suburbs in the 1960s, Eaton's wanted to make better use of the valuable land in the city center. The company planned a new prestigious main branch to replace the main store at the intersection of Yonge Street and Queen Street and the department store on nearby College Street. The original plans in the mid-1960s called for the demolition of the old town hall and the Holy Trinity Church as well as the closure of smaller streets within the aforementioned building block. After bitter resistance from civic associations and monument conservationists, Eaton's withdrew its plans in 1967. In 1971 there were new plans that provided for the preservation of the old town hall, but also for the demolition of the Holy Trinity Church. The parish fiercely opposed the demolition of the church and Eaton's was forced to revise its plans again.
Construction work
Eaton's worked with construction company Cadillac Fairview and Toronto-Dominion Bank to build the mall . Eberhard Zeidler , who comes from Germany, and the architectural office Bregman + Hamann Architects designed a multi-storey gallery with a vaulted glass roof, which is based on the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II in Milan . At the time, the design of the Eaton Center was considered revolutionary and influenced the architecture of shopping centers across North America .
The Eaton Center was one of the first shopping centers in the center of a major North American city. The first construction phase with the nine-story Eaton main branch (floor area 100,000 m²) opened in 1977. The temporary south wall was completely covered with mirrors to give an impression of what the mall might look like after its completion. In 1979, the southern half of the Eaton Center was opened after the old main branch was demolished. In the same year Cineplex was opened, with 18 screens the largest multiplex cinema in the world at the time.
Many city planners and architects criticized the design of the exterior facade. The building complex was oriented inwards, with a few shops, windows or even entrances to the streets. Most of the facade on Yonge Street, once the city's main shopping street, was dominated by a faceless parking garage . The regional administration also insisted that the building complex be set back a few meters from Yonge Street in order to be able to add another lane in the future.
The office buildings belonging to the shopping center were built in three stages:
- One Dundas West (29 floors) in 1977, designed by Bregman + Hamann Architects and Eberhard Zeidler
- Cadillac Fairview Tower (36 floors) in 1982, designed by Bregman + Hamann Architects and Eberhard Zeidler
- 250 Yonge Street (formerly Eaton Tower; 35 floors) in 1992, designed by Eberhard Zeidler and Crang & Boake.
Further development
Despite all the criticism, the shopping center proved to be a great success from the start. In fact, the profits were so great that the troubled department store group Eaton's held out for another two decades before it finally passed into other hands in 1999. Today the Eaton Center is one of North America's premier shopping centers and one of Toronto's most popular tourist attractions with one million visitors a week.
Among the most striking features of the shopping center is part of a group of Canada geese from glass fibers that hang from the ceiling. This sculpture, named Flight Stop , was designed by Michael Snow . It has also been the subject of major intellectual property rights litigation . In 1981 the management of the Eaton Center had decorated the sculpture with red ribbons before Christmas without asking the artist's permission. Snow argued that the tapes would make his naturalistic work look "ridiculous" and jeopardize his reputation as an artist. He sued management and a court ruled that while the mall owned the sculpture, the red ribbon infringed Snow's copyright. The court ordered the ligaments to be removed.
In the 1990s and early 2000s, some renovations were made, combined with an increase in the retail space. The north-east corner was completely rebuilt to make room for the new main H&M branch . Since Eaton's bankruptcy, Sears Canada is the new user of the department store at the north end of the mall. Although the top two floors are empty, this Sears store is the largest in the world. The statue of Timothy Eaton has been relocated from the entrance on Dundas Street to the Royal Ontario Museum .
On July 1, 2010, renovations began at the Eaton Center. In addition to painting, new floors are being laid, the washrooms renovated and converted, new escalators and elevators installed and the retail space enlarged. The work is scheduled for two years and will cost the operator Sears Canada around 120 million Canadian dollars .
Incidents
On June 2, 2012, two people were killed in a gang shootout in the center's catering area and six other people were seriously injured.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Man shoots 25-year-old in a Canadian shopping center. In: SPIEGEL ONLINE. June 30, 2012, accessed April 22, 2014 .
Web links
- Website of the Eaton Center (Engl.)
Coordinates: 43 ° 39 ′ 15 " N , 79 ° 22 ′ 49.5" W.