3. Enwave (Mechanical Building) - 123 Simcoe Street

The Bauhaus influence is often subtle. This Enwave mechanical building is the kind of utilitarian structure found in lots of big and small cities, but the works are often hidden. With this one there’s a nod to transparency with the translucent windows, of letting the public see or know what’s within and understand it’s indeed a mechanical building rather than trying to hide that. In Toronto, so-called “hydro houses” can be found in neighbourhoods across the city, a mid-century effort to make transformer stations blend in with the local architecture. Instead, this is a more honest building with no illusions.

At the Bauhaus School they placed a functional radiator on a stairway landing where, if it were a house, a painting or mural might go. They let a radiator be a radiator and elevated it to an object to be admired in a prominent place. Much of what makes the city work is hidden underground, so here the Bauhaus ethos is at work.