Uno Prii (February 28, 1924 – November 27, 2000) was an
Estonia
Estonia, formally the Republic of Estonia, is a country by the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, a ...
n-born
Canadian
Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...
architect. He designed approximately 250 buildings, many in
Toronto
Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...
, but also around southern
Ontario
Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...
and the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
.
Some of his best-known works are apartment buildings in
The Annex
The Annex is a neighbourhood in Downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The traditional boundaries of the neighbourhood are north to Dupont Street, south to Bloor Street, west to Bathurst Street and east to Avenue Road. The City of Toronto recognizes ...
neighbourhood of Toronto, featuring outlines that make sweeping curves. These include The Vincennes at 35 Walmer Road (built 1966), Prince Arthur Towers at 20 Prince Arthur Avenue (1968), Brazil Towers at 485 Huron Street, and 44 Walmer Road (1969).
Early years
Uno Prii grew up in
Estonia
Estonia, formally the Republic of Estonia, is a country by the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, a ...
, where his father was an architect and builder. In 1943, Prii left for
Finland
Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...
, and in 1944, he moved to
Stockholm
Stockholm () is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, largest city of Sweden as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in Scandinavia. Approximately 980,000 people liv ...
,
Sweden
Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic country located on ...
. He trained and worked as a civil engineer in Stockholm but left for Canada in 1950.
He came to Toronto so that he could study architecture, and in 1955 he graduated cum laude from the
University of Toronto School of Architecture, where he had studied under
Eric Arthur
Eric Ross Arthur, (1 July 1898 – 1 November 1982) was a Canadian architect, writer and educator.
Born in Dunedin, New Zealand and educated in England, he served in World War I with the New Zealand Rifle Brigade. He emigrated to Canada in ...
.
Every summer he worked with Eric Arthur's Fleury & Arthur firm until graduation.
Career
Prii created his own architectural firm in 1957. Having his own firm allowed him to explore his architectural vision, which diverged from the straight lines and simple forms emphasized by
Modernism
Modernism is both a philosophy, philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western world, Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new fo ...
, the dominant style at the time. In the 1960s, apartment living was quickly growing in popularity as thousands of immigrants arrived in Toronto.
Baby boomer
Baby boomers, often shortened to boomers, are the Western demographic cohort following the Silent Generation and preceding Generation X. The generation is often defined as people born from 1946 to 1964, during the mid-20th century baby boom. T ...
s also entered the work force and sought convenient living spaces.
1960s exuberance
The 1960s was Prii's most exuberant era, when he saw the completion of many buildings with the sculptural curves and artful details that he became known for. In this era, Prii took advantage of new slip-form concrete moulds which slid up buildings as concrete was being poured. The architect pushed his sculptural design ideas with passion. Some potential clients were alienated and walked away.
Toronto builder Harry Hiller, a
Polish
Polish may refer to:
* Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe
* Polish language
* Poles
Poles,, ; singular masculine: ''Polak'', singular feminine: ''Polka'' or Polish people, are a West Slavic nation and ethnic group, w ...
-born carpenter by trade, was one client who was open to Prii's vision, and it was for him that Prii developed some of his most well-known apartment buildings, including 35 and 44 Walmer Road, and 20 Prince Arthur Avenue.
The Vincennes
![35 Walmer Road by Uno Prii (1966) in 2011, Toronto](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b1/35_Walmer_Road_by_Uno_Prii_%281966%29_in_2011%2C_Toronto.jpg)
Uno Prii's design for The Vincennes at 35 Walmer Road was among his boldest works yet. Prii's lightly curved façade features a dramatic yet elegant flare at the fifth floor, allowing for deeper balconies. The façade is white, a characteristic shared by several of his most distinctive towers from the 1960s. Fins shoot towards the sky. Prii designed the wide apartment tower with a large curved canopy over its entrance, perforated with a series of small holes at the edge. Harry Hiller completed the tower in 1966.
Prince Arthur Towers
It was at 20 Prince Arthur Avenue where the collaboration of Prii and Hiller produced what is arguably Prii's most expressive design ever to be realized. The single 23-storey high-rise apartment tower completed in 1968 emphasizes its vertical form with a bold, upwards-sweeping concrete façade. What appear to be
flying buttress
The flying buttress (''arc-boutant'', arch buttress) is a specific form of buttress composed of an arch that extends from the upper portion of a wall to a pier of great mass, in order to convey lateral forces to the ground that are necessary to pu ...
es create a massive flared base projecting outwards from the main façade. These elements not only became the distinguishing feature of the tower, but reduced the need for wind bracing.
The 'flyers' merge with the façade, continuing upwards beyond the roofline, crowning the tower.
The sides are blank concrete walls with a smooth texture and white finish, save for a black vertical stripe running the length of the walls, opening up to a massive arch at ground level. A rectangular section of the façade behind the arch is painted black for contrast. The white walls are contrasted with opaque blue balcony railings on the main façade facing the street, as well as on the opposite side of the building. The minimalism of the side walls furthers the sculptural aesthetic of the tower.
In 1969, Uno Prii would also see the completion of the Jane-Exbury Towers in suburban
North York
North York is one of the six administrative districts of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is located directly north of York, Old Toronto and East York, between Etobicoke to the west and Scarborough to the east. As of the 2016 Census, it had a popu ...
, a series of five towers staggered one after the other. These white towers share a similar sculptural design that references both The Vincennes and the Prince Arthur Towers. The roofline and side walls with an arch at ground level recall the Prince Arthur Towers, and an outward flare in the façade just above the lowest floors is similar to the Vincennes. The staggered arrangement of the towers on a large suburban site, surrounded by open green spaces, gives the towers an impressive presence, taking advantage of the more open suburban context.
44 Walmer Road
![44 Walmer Road by Uno Prii (1969), Toronto](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6c/44_Walmer_Road_by_Uno_Prii_%281969%29%2C_Toronto.jpg)
Prii worked with Hiller again, and in 1969, his design for 44 Walmer Road was completed. The white façade is light and thoroughly rounded. The 12-storey apartment building is characterized by circular and linear motifs, with a semi-circular canopy over the driveway in front, perforated with large holes around the edges. Prii also designed a complementary fountain located in front of the building with two intersecting
parabolic arches over a circular pool, connecting with the canopy. The water sprays upwards out of a large, concrete element shaped like a
champagne glass
A champagne glass is stemware designed for champagne and other sparkling wines. The two most common forms are the flute and coupe, both stemmed; holding the glass by the stem prevents warming the drink. Champagne can also be drunk from a normal ...
, and spills out into a pool.
The building featured curvilinear, circle-patterned balcony railings designed in an artful pattern as its most distinctive feature.
They were removed for balcony repairs to be made, but then owner Gaetano D'Addario decided not to reinstall them, choosing unremarkable clear glass railings in July 2001 as the replacement, in spite of protests from tenants, neighbours, the architect's family, and individuals in the architecture community like Larry Richards of the
University of Toronto Faculty of Architecture.
Transition in the 1970s and retirement
By the early 1970s, Uno Prii began to use more rectilinear forms. He adapted ancient imagery for decorative motifs, creating
post and lintel
In architecture, post and lintel (also called prop and lintel or a trabeated system) is a building system where strong horizontal elements are held up by strong vertical elements with large spaces between them. This is usually used to hold up ...
allusions with concrete slabs, and stylized faces inspired by
Moai
Moai or moʻai ( ; es, moái; rap, moʻai, , statue) are monolithic human figures carved by the Rapa Nui people on Easter Island, Rapa Nui in eastern Polynesia between the years 1250 and 1500. Nearly half are still at Rano Raraku, the main mo ...
and rectilinear human figures.
In this period, he transitioned from glazed white brick to more organic hues like brown and natural
terracotta
Terracotta, terra cotta, or terra-cotta (; ; ), in its material sense as an earthenware substrate, is a clay-based ceramic glaze, unglazed or glazed ceramic where the pottery firing, fired body is porous.
In applied art, craft, construction, a ...
, and from smooth white concrete to textured, grey concrete surfaces.
In the early 1980s, Prii retired and closed his design firm.
Style and recognition
Prii was concerned that big apartment buildings tended to be seen as anonymous human filing cabinets, that unadorned rectangular towers did not offer tenants an identity.
Apartment buildings with unusual and interesting exteriors could encourage a collective identity among tenants. Clients who wanted something unique from the repetitious geometry of the
International style came to him.
His best-known buildings were built in the 1960s—distinctive and original towers with a sculptural quality. Prii’s apartment buildings suggest an unsubtle protest against severe, autocratic, and humourless Modernism. In his free time he painted and sculpted, activities which he claimed to have influenced his compositions.
Critics considered the buildings strange. Like
Morris Lapidus
Morris Lapidus (November 25, 1902 – January 18, 2001) was an architect, primarily known for his Neo-baroque "Miami Modern" hotels constructed in the 1950s and 60s, which have since come to define that era's resort-hotel style, synonymous w ...
in the United States, Uno Prii found himself popular, but not acclaimed, receiving no awards or recognition from his fellow architects.
He noted in a 1999 interview in ''
Taddle Creek
Taddle Creek is a buried stream in Toronto, Ontario, Canada that flowed a southeasterly course about six kilometres long, from St. Clair Avenue west of Bathurst Street through the present site of Wychwood Park, through the University of Toronto ...
'' that “they thought my work just looked funny...they didn’t like me...they didn’t like my work at all", though he remained proud of his original compositions, observing that "originality is the hardest thing to come by."
However, by the late 1980s and early 1990s, a new generation of architects and architectural enthusiasts had rediscovered the work of Uno Prii. Architects such as Michael McClelland of E.R.A. Architects, John Shnier of Kohn Shnier Architects, the University of Toronto's Larry Richards, past chairman of the Toronto Society of Architects Joe Lobko, and heritage architect Catherine Nasmith, have spoken of the importance of his work.
As of 2007, 16 buildings designed by Prii have been listed in Toronto's Inventory of Heritage Properties.
Works
![Jane-Exbury Towers by Uno Prii - Toronto, Ontario, Canada](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/81/Jane-Exbury_Towers_by_Uno_Prii_-_Toronto%2C_Ontario%2C_Canada.jpg)
* 11 Walmer Road,
Toronto
Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...
, 1963
* Americana, 141 Erskine Avenue, Toronto, 1963
* 300 Eglinton East, Toronto, 1964
* 425 Avenue Road, Toronto, 1965
* The Vincennes, 35 Walmer Road, Toronto, 1966
* 90 Warren Road, Toronto, 1968
* Brazil Towers, 485 Huron Street, Toronto, 1968
* Gallery Towers, 50 Stephanie Street, Toronto, 1968
* Prince Arthur Towers, 20 Price Arthur Avenue, Toronto, 1968
* 44 Walmer Road, Toronto, 1969
* Jane-Exbury Towers, Toronto, 1969
* 100 Spadina Road, Toronto, 1969
* Spadina Towers, 666 Spadina Avenue, Toronto, 1972
* Weston Towers, 3400 Weston Road, Toronto, 1972
* Alan Brown Building, 77 Elm Street, Toronto, 1983
* 22 Walmer Road (now substantially renovated)
References
External links
22 completed buildings designed by Uno Prii
{{DEFAULTSORT:Prii, Uno
1924 births
2000 deaths
Estonian emigrants to Canada
20th-century Canadian architects
Modernist architecture in Canada
People from Toronto
University of Toronto alumni
Architects from Tallinn
20th-century Estonian architects
Estonian World War II refugees