Construction of the Edward Johnson Building

The following is a guest blog post contributed by Eric Yang, a fourth-year student at the University of Toronto Faculty of Music, featuring archival research completed at the University of Toronto Archives and Music Library. Read more in part two, which covers the design of the Edward Johnson Building.

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The year 1960 was a chaotic one for the Faculty of Music. Everything fell into place, just a little too quickly. The University gave the green light for the construction of the new building, and with funding secure from selling the old school on College Street, and a $1 million grant from the Canada Council, the only thing left to do was design the actual building.¹ This task fell into the hands of the building committee, and the two Deans—Boyd Neel (RCM) and Arnold Walter (Faculty of Music). Since the School of Music (RCM) was to be moved to McMaster Hall in Bissell’s plan, only the Faculty of Music was to be housed in the new building. The new facilities were approved in April 1959, but the real push to make a concrete action plan only started in late 1959. Considering that construction started in the fall of 1960, and the cornerstone ceremony was held in the spring of 1961, this must have been truly one of the most hectic times at the Faculty of Music.

Of course, this is not to say that no work was done on the building before late 1959. In the summer of 1959, Gordon S. Adamson, the architect, began work on designing the new music building; he had previously designed the E.J. Pratt Library, originally known as the Victoria College Library, around the same time as the construction of the new music building.² Discussions seemed to begin around July 1959 with the architect; however, Adamson was hired, or at least contacted as early as summer 1957, when the plot of land in which the new building was to be built was decided upon.³

The building committee consisted of Dean Boyd Neel, and Professors Harvey Olnick, Robert Rosevear, and Ezra Schabas. Not on the official building committee but involved with talks surrounding the planning of the new building included Arnold Walter, as Dean of the Faculty of Music, along with Ettore Mazzoleni and Herman Geiger Torel. The building committee was tasked with identifying the Faculty's needs from a building of this magnitude. It was quickly obvious what they desired and more importantly, what Neel desired after many years of complaints. His original 1954 complaint included desperately needing an opera theater and a concert hall. Thus, those two spaces became central in planning the new building. In December of 1959, Bissell reported that the new building would include a new opera theater, concert hall, two rehearsal halls, an electronic music department, a library, studios, and offices.⁴

Building committee meetings held around the end of the year in 1959 also show how deeply committed these men were in making sure that the new Faculty of Music building would stand out globally against other music schools. In a meeting on December 2, 1959, it was decided that faculty members would travel to twenty other music schools in the States, to see their music buildings, talk to faculty, and see how they designed them.⁵  A huge commitment to accomplish. It probably seemed like a little too much to cover, since during the next building committee meeting on December 16, 1959, they decided that they would visit fourteen music schools instead.⁶  A far more manageable number. Furthermore, they also decided to hire the consulting help of the Julliard School and Dr. Herbert Graf, the stage director of the Metropolitan Opera. To put this mammoth task into perspective, only three faculty members went to go visit schools: Walter visited six schools in California, Schabas three, and Rosevear four, all in the Midwest.

Walter completed his tour of these schools the very next month.⁷ However, what the tour did not provide much insight in planning the new opera theater, as he writes in a letter to Graf in March 1960:

The schools I visited in January were rather disappointing as far as facilities for operatic production are concerned. Herz Hall in Berkeley and Schoenberg Hall in UCLA are in my opinion simply queer… whatever you can do there isn’t opera. The Californian state colleges are much more realistic.⁸

In another letter sent to Graf from Walter in June 1960, we see that the architects wanted a lot of information on planning the new building in January 1960, but then lulled in productivity until a few weeks before June, in which some of the basic problems were finally solved.⁹ Walter’s correspondences with Graf are all about the design of the new opera theater, and it is here that we see that there was a lot of back and forth with the architects. We can assume then, that the lull in productivity was in the architects providing an adequate plan on how the theater was to be designed. However, by June 1960, there was a final plan of the opera house, for Walter sends what the architects gave to him directly to Graf. Graf had been on tour in Europe since March 1960, and sends no response—at least what is preserved in the archives—to Walter. We can only assume that Walter went with this design from the architects, since what is detailed in his letter quite accurately lines up with what exists presently.

Nearing the start of construction in fall 1960, the plans were completed, but there was just one thing left to do: what to name the new Faculty of Music building? In September of 1960, Bissell wrote to the board of governors suggesting that the building be named after the late Edward Johnson, who passed the year prior.¹⁰ Schabas makes the argument that the building was named too hastily, and in the aftermath of Johnson’s passing, the honour of the building title was awarded to him. However, after the opera theater was named MacMillan, it became all too obvious that the building should have been named after MacMillan, and the opera theater been named after the opera administrator, Johnson.¹¹

Preparations were made to lay the cornerstone of the new Edward Johnson Building. Over a thousand people were invited and over seven hundred attended.¹² On April 20, 1961, seven months into the construction of the new Edward Johnson Building, the cornerstone was laid in a ceremony by Mrs. George (Fiorenza) Drew, Johnson’s daughter.

The ceremony started at the Royal Ontario Museum, in which the honoured guests, Mrs. Drew, her husband, and the academic staff at the University, processed to the under-construction Edward Johnson Building. From a speech given by Neel the ceremony, there is a general air of pride towards the new building, towards the late Edward Johnson, and to music in Canada as a whole. He says:

Edward Johnson had not one but three careers during his lifetime. He was a world-famous singer; he directed the greatest opera house in the Americas; he served, finally, as an elder statesman in the field of music, as counsellor, advisor, educator. Today he starts his fourth career: as patron saint of music in this country.
…we of the Faculty of Music stand here as recipients of a magnificent new home… it is his [Johnson’s] building because the Governors of the University named it so, and most appropriately; it is his because he only could have made its rise possible. It is his because every part of it, from the electronic laboratories in the basement to a splendid library on to top floor, will carry his message, and will help to make Canada a singing nation.¹³

The cornerstone of the Edward Johnson Building also serves as the building’s time capsule; it is hollow. In which, twelve items were kept. The cornerstone contains:

1. Photograph of Dr. Edward Johnson
2. Tapes of his recordings presented by Dr. Johnson to the Faculty Library (Andrea Chenier, The Flower Song from “Carmen”)
3. The Canadian Music Journal, Summer, 1959, with [Johnson’s] memorial article by Dr. Walter
4. Booklet on the History of the Conservatory, 1886-1938, compiled by Dr. Horwood
5. Brochure on the re-organization, 1952
6. Booklet (1955) on the Faculty of Music, Royal Conservatory
7. Calendar of the Faculty of Music 1961-62
8. “Music in Canada” ed. Sir Ernest MacMillan
9. “A History of Music in Canada, 1534-1914” by Helmut Kallman
10. A Canadian one-dollar piece, 1961; A Canadian 50 cent piece, 1960
11. Various scores by Willan, Ridout, Adaskin, Weinzweig, Morawetz, Somers, Pepin, and Pentland
12. The Toronto “Globe and Mail” Thursday, April 20, 1961.¹⁴

It would take another year for the Edward Johnson Building to be ready for classes. In the summer of 1962, the entire Faculty of Music moved from the school on College Street to the new building built specifically for music, the first of its kind in Canada. For the fall semester of 1962, activities were held at the Edward Johnson Building, however, the MacMillan Theater was not completed in time (and within budget) of the 1962 opening, and thus the official opening was delayed until 1964.

Notes

1. Schabas, There’s Music in These Walls, 155. [return]

2. University of Toronto Archives, University of Toronto. Faculty of Music, The Design of the Edward Johnson Building (January 25, 1962), UTA 0106-A1975-0015/003; Larry Wayne Richards, University of Toronto: The campus guide: An architectural tour (Princeton: Princeton Architectural Press, 2009), 39; University of Toronto Archives, University of Toronto. Faculty of Music, Building committee discussion (December 2, 1959), UTA 0106-A1975-0015/001. [return]

3. University of Toronto Archives, "The Design of the Edward Johnson Building," UTA 0106-A1975-0015/003. [return]

4. Schabas, There’s Music in These Walls, 157. [return]

5. University of Toronto Archives, University of Toronto. Faculty of Music, Building committee discussion (December 2, 1959),UTA 0106-A1975-0015/001. [return]

6. University of Toronto Archives, University of Toronto. Faculty of Music, Building committee discussion (December 16, 1959),UTA 0106-A1975-0015/001. [return]

7. University of Toronto Archives, University of Toronto. Faculty of Music, Letter to Arnold Walter (January 4, 1960), UTA 0106-A1975-0015/001. [return]

8. University of Toronto Archives, University of Toronto. Faculty of Music, Letter to Herbert Graf from Arnold Walter (March 18, 1960), UTA 0106-A1975-0015/001. [return]

9. University of Toronto Archives, University of Toronto. Faculty of Music, Letter to Herbert Graf from Arnold Walter (June 21, 1960), UTA 0106-A1975-0015/001. [return]

10. Schabas, There’s Music in These Walls, 159. [return]

11. Schabas, There’s Music in These Walls, 160. [return]

12. University of Toronto Archives, University of Toronto. Faculty of Music, Cornerstone ceremony mailing list, UTA 0106-A1975-0015/003. [return]

13. University of Toronto Archives, University of Toronto. Faculty of Music, Untitled speech (April 20, 1961), UTA 0106-A1975-0015/003. I have assumed that Neel gave this speech from the context and the programme of the cornerstone ceremony included in the same box. There is a chance however, that Walter gave this speech instead. [return]

14. University of Toronto Archives, University of Toronto. Faculty of Music, Cornerstone contents listing (April 20, 1961), UTA 0106-A1975-0015/003. [return]