Queen West Coffee – Rsquared

We used to enjoy having an early morning coffee at Quaff at 668 Queen Street West, but now we enjoy it even more at Rsquared–which, though it is at the same location, has been extensively redesigned and culinarily reorganized by …

About the Neighbourhood – TYPE Books.

David Oleson on Art Condos Facade Design

For our previous two chats with Art Condos architect David Oleson, we discussed a few basic design issues pertaining to the new building. Topics covered include overall design decisions, the building’s use of glass, ideas about the look …

Mabel’s bakery finds a new home on Queen West

Mabel’s Bakery at 323 Roncesvalles Avenue has been an oasis of great baked goods and specialty foods for about four years now. About six weeks ago, owner Lorraine Hawley opened a second Mabel’s–at 1156 Queen street West. It will be …

Design we love: Lotte lamps at INabstracto

We dropped in to INabstracto a few days ago to chat with owner Kate Eisen, and it was only when we were leaving that we noticed the delicious still-life she had made from grouping five Lotte lamps together on a …

Design we love: Julie Jenkinson of Verso

Designer Julie Jenkinson has just opened her own small and charming design shop at the rear of Kate Eisen’s INabstracto. The place is wittily called Verso (as in “what is on the other side of the page?”). We spoke …

Design we love: Kate Eisen of INabstracto

Kate Eisen’s store, INabstracto: Mid Century Modern Furniture & Design, is as much a design museum and gallery as it is a retail outlet for historically significant design objects. We talked to her a few days ago about what INabstracto …

Art we love: Peak Gallery owner Zack Pospieszynski

We consider Zack Pospieszynski–owner-director of Peak Gallery–to be a man of discriminating taste and lucid opinions, and so we dropped by the gallery the other day to ask him about his current likes and dislikes in contemporary art. The …

Art we love: ceramics by Robert Archambeau

We’ve not always been big fans of ceramics–a lot of it seems artsy and sentimental– but we’ll always make an exception for the exquisite stoneware pieces of veteran ceramics artist Robert Archambeau. Archambeau, who won the Governor General’s Award in …

Art we love: the happy zones by Jose Ciria

For his third exhibition at the Christopher Cutts Gallery–Window Dreamer–New York based Spanish painter Jose Ciria has produced a suite of vast, chromatically explosive paintings which, while they may indeed invoke what the gallery calls the “sanguinity and terra …

Design we love: Freitag messenger bags

The Swiss design firm Freitag has been creating its unique, ecologically impeccable line of bags since 1993. They are made of recycled truck tarpaulins, unraveled seat belts, old bicycle inner tubes and recycled airbags. The company’s Top Cat bag is …

Christina Zeidler of The Gladstone Hotel

There are two venerable cultural landmarks–institutions, really– on Queen Street West. One is the self-consciously glamorous Drake Hotel (about which we’ll be posting material here shortly) and the other is the no less glamorous but possibly more culturally earnest …

The art of mate drinking

The graceful and sociable art of drinking Mate — the traditional South American infused tea made from steeped leaves and twigs of the yerba mate plant — is so complex, one really needs instruction of what is actually a whole …

WORLDFinger in four questions

We talked recently, at the Art Condos Testing Centre in Toronto, with Art Condos developer Gary Silverberg about his cutting-edge WORLDFinger media control system.

WORLDFinger—which is an elegant, highly sophisticated tool for managing all your media devices from one single …

Woolfitt’s: staffed by artists, for artists

Ben Woolfitt has been a painter for forty years and, for the same amount of time, has run his famous art supply store on Queen Street West. We talked to him recently about both his art and his business.

Woolfitt’s …

Art we love: Tidal Waves and Sea Bathers by Y.M. Whelan

By the time you read this, Y.M. Whelan’s sparkling exhibition at the Fran Hill Show Room–called Book of Dreams: New Paintings–will probably be officially over, but gallerist Fran …

Design we love: Is driftwood making a comeback?

We remember (admittedly, it was quite a long time ago) when driftwood was considered to be a really chic design accent–people were putting soft, sinuous hunks of it here and there (on mantlepieces, on bookshelves, in the corners of rooms). …

Are smart condos the next step?

Technology is increasingly prevalent in our day-to-day lives. To stay ahead of the curve and provide customers with added value, this is something many industries have to take into account. In our most recent interview with Gary Silverberg, we …

Design we love: Herman Miller meets Julie Jenkinson

Here’s a charming example of revitalization. For her sprightly reimagining of  classic Herman Miller seating designs from the 1970s (by Don Chadwick), Toronto-based designer Julie Jenkinson has reupholstered the chairs in her crisp Animaze fabric, silkscreening her drawings onto 100% …

The French Line at Lafayette Bistro

Great French food is not all that easy to find—nor is it easy to find a warm, comfortable, persuasively French provincial bistro that can provide it. Our answer is the snug little Lafayette Bistro in the Queen West village area, …

Design we love: Prairie tables

What might first appear as mere abstract detailing in the eccentric shapes of these sleek, white, interlocking tables turns out to have geographic meaning: the tables, which have MDF tops and solid ash legs, actually come in the shape of …

Art we love: Sacred and Profane Love (Self-Portrait II) by Harold Klunder

Harold Klunder is everywhere regarded as one of Canada’s most powerful painters.  His latest exhibition, Black Sun, now at the Clint Roenisch Gallery is a remarkable experience, both for the majestic trio of paintings making up the Black Sun …

Art We Love: Ominous Footpath by Susanna Heller

Veteran painter Susanna Heller–Canadian born, educated at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in Halifax and now living in New York City (where she has lived, in fact, for many years now)–is a maker of exceedingly vigorous, searching, …

Design we love: black cat lamp

We were both attracted and, at first, a bit put off by the funky directness of this little lamp. Its tasteful black shade is profoundly belied by the body of the map—which is a feral-looking black cat-made of fired clay!…

Design we love: Buddha machines

Maybe there ought to be a column in this blog called Design That Simply Catches Our Fancy—a place to explore objects that, while they may not kick the history of design ahead by much, are, nevertheless, attractive and pleasing.

Like …