 |
with a relief sculpture of the sword and shield
wielding saint.
 |
[Photos by KPA]
Here is a historical plaque on the hospital building:
St. Michael's Hospital opened on this site in 1892 in a Baptist church which had been converted into a women's boarding house by the Sisters of St. Joseph. The hospital opened with 26 beds, six doctors and five nurses. In 1893 the sisters opened the first Catholic nursing school in Canada and in 1910 the hospital became formally affiliated with the University of Toronto Faculty of Medicine. Many Canadian "Firsts" took place during the hospital's first century including the first blood transfusion (1917), the most successful Canadian heart transplant (1968), the first muscle transplant in North America (1973) and the world's first sciatic nerve transplant (1988). In addition, numerous medical procedures and technological innovations were developed at the hospital. By its centenary in 1992, St. Michael's Hospital, still owned by the Sisters of St. Joseph, had become a 500 bed tertiary care hospital.Nearby, there's a brand new addition to St. Michael's hospital, designed by Canadian architect Jack Diamond and built with donations from Hong Kong billionaire La Ki Shing. This new building stands as a legacy of our contemporary society, where the transcendental glory of God that forms a concrete society has been replaced by a spiritless worship of money from disconnected global sources. La Ki Shing's money comes from across the oceans, from a man who has no personal or historical ties to Canada. His only motive for his grandiose donation is to expediently own a piece of Canada, and to enlarge his global acquisitions. It is not surprising, therefore, that Jack Diamond is the architect. Diamond designed the latest version of Toronto's Opera house. I compare his unimaginative atrocity to Le Corbusier's vertically stacked structures. And I link Le Corbusier's buildings with the highrises that surround the French suburbs, and in which foments the anger of disconnected immigrant youth, who started the famous "banlieue" riots a few years ago.
 |
[Photo by KPA]
The photos above show St. Michael's Choir School for boys and the back entrance to St. Michael's hospital, both on Bond Street. St. Michael's Cathedral is not far down from the school. Fine carvings and filigree lattice work adorn these buildings. But, neither these beautifying elements nor St. Michael's sword and shield were enough to ward off the ugliness of Jack Diamond's revolt-inciting glass panes, or the disconnected alien presence of a Chinese (war)lord.
Art is a testament of God. The new hospital addition discards God through the bland, expressionless, spiritless flat glass panes. Since God is not important, then man takes on a different dimension, whose importance is gauged not by his spirituality and his goodness, but by his acquisitions and his power. And money is rootless, so it can come from the highest bidder, from any corner of the world. Shing won this time around, but it could have been anyone. Anyone, that is, who could come up with extra zeros on the donation check.
