for more on this I want to bring in Brian Rudy he’s a partner at morama tashima Architects The Firm co-founded by the Science Center’s architect Raymond morama and he is joining us from Toronto Brian thanks so much for making time for us this afternoon my pleasure I I first just want to go back to last Friday when you first heard about this sudden closure of the science center what went through your mind well we were surprised uh by it uh by the announcement by the sudden closure for sure uh but I guess in retrospect we shouldn’t have been surprised because we know that the maintenance on the building has been deferred uh for considerable amount of time so there will be issues with the building that’s over 50 years old uh that doesn’t have regular maintenance um but uh the you know shutting it down seemed like a really heavy-handed uh approach yeah so you’ve also read through this engineering report and we were just hearing from our reporter there that it didn’t actually say that um the entire site needed to close immediately and that even heading into the the winter uh that risk of the heavy snow on the roof um you could have just cordoned off perhaps areas of the the science center versus shutting the whole thing down um when when you read through the report how did you interpret it yeah I mean you you’ve stated it quite well uh it’s uh the report very specifically doesn’t talk about shutting the center down but it talks about a series of incremental uh maintenance programs uh some of which are more urgent than others but as you stated it’s I think less than 3% of it that’s in sort of more urgent condition um interestingly looking at the report though you can find out that uh most of those panels that are in Urgent condition are not above public areas or exhibition spaces so uh in fact the vast majority of the exhibits are completely unaffected by this issue um it’s it’s it’s a general maintenance issue so there’s uh the the report is correct to say that they can coordin off certain areas and very safely uh replace these panels over uh in fact the next 10 years okay so over the longer term and and and you’ve actually your your firm has has written this letter and offered your services free of charge uh to help um with figuring out how to make this building work in its its current form well an improved version of it of its current form um what exactly do you see that entailing you know what what sort of role do you think you could help with well uh it’s it’s a a relatively um simple matter to to phase these Renovations uh piece at a time with a report being quite detailed uh so we’d be happy to help with that this is something that uh you know as far back as is last April when we knew uh that the government wanted to move the center to um to the uh to the Ontario play site um it was something that we we felt passionately about um you know preserving this building and in fact enhancing it as you say uh it has so much potential that building I think even Beyond its current state um everyone Teran I think knows and loves this building uh and has been on a bus uh trip in high school or or what have you to to to visit it um and the experience of you know Crossing The Ravines and going down into the Toronto Ravines uh that’s that’s uh something I think that is significant in people’s minds and should be it’s part of our cultural history I think as as a province as a country and like we mentioned a part of the history of of your firm as well um for people who uh live outside of Ontario and are are watching along with us um can you tell us a bit about what you see as making the sign Center building itself so unique and so um you know so good at at serving the role that it has played for these many decades now sure um well Raymond morama is is one of Canada’s seminal Architects he he’s passed away now only a few uh years ago um and in fact his wife passed away just this week sadly um but uh he’s well known across the country he started his life in Canada uh in as a Japanese Canadian um being interned during the war during the second world war which is a very dramatic story that uh you know uh and he was interned to these camps in in the interior of BC um and in those camps he he learned to kind of appreciate nature I think by building himself a treehouse and connecting himself directly to Nature and living in this treehouse so he talked about that story a lot and I think it impacted the way he saw architecture he saw architecture connecting people to uh the land and to Nature and that was in fact the concept for this building uh to really connect its visitors to Nature Nature is science science is nature so you experience it by descending down into Toronto Ravines uh and experiencing nature all around you as you uh as you look at science so Brian you your firm wrote this letter um and put out there that offer that you would do the work for free have you have you got a response from the provincial government about this yet no uh no I’ve gotten a lot of calls today but but none from uh none from Mr Ford no um unfortunately I’m I’m I’m still waiting optimistic that you’ll get a call Brian I’m I’m not really optimistic no but I mean I’m what I am optim optimistic about I think is there’s uh so many people have reached out and expressed that they too want to contribute either money or time or pro bono uh work so I you know I’m incredibly uh touched by that and I think uh it speaks to me about how impactful this building has been uh to the lives of ontarians and to Canada in really in a way well Brian thanks for taking our call today really appreciate your perspective on this my pleasure thank you that was Brian Rudy he’s a partner at morama tashima architects
Brian Rudy, a partner at the Moriyama Teshima architecture firm, which contributed to the inception of the Ontario Science Centre, says its closure was unnecessary, as less than three per cent of it requires urgent repair. Rudy has volunteered to help for free, adding that “nature is science, science is nature,” and that this building represents that.
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