Casa Loma Towers, 74 Spadina Road, 2022. Image by Vik Pahwa.
Sherwood Towers Apartments, toronto, circa 1950. Courtesy of the City of Toronto Archives.
Advertisement for the Casa Loma Towers, Globe and Mail, September 6, 1957. pg 10.
Casa Loma Towers
A new kind of apartment
Uno Prii was not the only architect to create apartments in the Annex. Built in 1957, The Casa Loma Towers were designed by Toronto-born architect Wilfred Shulman. Like Prii, Shulman graduated from the University of Toronto in 1943. Based out of his office at 99 Avenue Road, he and his team designed malls, hotels, housing developments, towers and churches during the 1960s.
Schulman envisioned the Casa Loma Towers as a co-op (short for cooperative), an idea brought home from his trips in Europe. Unlike in a condominium, residents owned a share of the corporation that owned the building instead of the individual unit they lived in. The building was advertised as 42 “homes” targeted at university professors and doctors.
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Casa Loma Towers
Shulman's Toronto
The façade of the Casa Loma Towers may be considered plain, but the pilotis (the pillars elevating the tower’s first floor) were decorated with Shulman’s signature mosaic designs in shades of khaki and mushroom. Shulman loved decorating with mosaics, being drawn to colours he called “muddy,” like burnt orange and olive green.
Shulman also designed two other Annex buildings: the Sherwood Towers at 206 St. George Street and a blue and white medical building that once stood at 99 Avenue Road (demolished in 2000). Both were designed with a Modernist touch, including large glass windows and more of Shulman’s signature mosaic designs.
