The pedestrian-oriented urban courtyard created for the Four Seasons Hotel and Residences in Toronto is a response to the dual realities of Yorkville - a traditional pedestrian neighbourhood of Victorian row houses, and a mixed-use district of large-scale modern high-rises.
The landscape reconciles the contradiction between these two architectural scales and styles, creating a coherent unity where the taste and style of the former era is amplified to the habits and perceptions of the present.
Three fundamental components, drawn from their Victorian precedents, organize the landscape: a Grand Cast Fountain four stories high; an Urban Carpet with a knot density of 100 cobbles per square meter; and a roseless Rose Garden where the swirl of petals becomes pathways and shrub beds.
Each of the these three classic features, experienced both on the ground as well as from the towers above, perform a critical landscape function to unify the past and present, and organize this highly public experience within a relatively confined space.
Establishing an outstanding addition to the Toronto repertoire of elegant urban experiences and elevating the prestige of the Four Seasons collection of hotels, the scale and imagination of the landscape combine to become a potent icon that profoundly transforms this underutilized shortcut through Yorkville into one of the city’s premiere destinations.
