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Toronto Through My Lens

Tag: QueensQuayE

Water’s Edge Promenade

July 22, 2025 / / 1 Comment

The Water’s Edge Promenade stretches from Sugar Beach near the foot of Jarvis Street, past Sherbourne Common, ending at the foot of Parliament Street – for now. There are future plans to keep extending Water’s Edge Promenade further along the eastern waterfront.

On the way to Water’s Edge Promenade: Passing the Redpath Sugar Factory at 95 Queen’s Quay East
Sugar Beach, at the western end of the Water’s Edge Promenade

The Water’s Edge Promenade was a Waterfront Toronto initiative, envisioned by West 8 (an award-winning international office for urban design and landscape architecture) and DTAH (a landscape architecture and urban design company) as the “Green Foot” of the city at the edge of Lake Ontario.

Silva cells provide adequate soil volume for healthy tree growth of the double row of fall colouring maple cultivars, and rainwater is captured to water the trees as a passive irrigation system. The trees were selected a year ahead of planting, and were hand-picked individually at various local nurseries, as a cautionary measure due to the high profile nature of the project, and the significant quantity of trees required for the area (including for the adjacent Sugar Beach).

The granite cobblestone “maple leaf” promenade was constructed with skilled Irish stonemasons who were brought over to teach local contractors this special technique. The project is also part of the East Bayfront District’s comprehensive stormwater management plan, which includes a future wood boardwalk over a forebay system to treat stormwater runoff as part of the ‘treatment train’ approach employed.1

Condos… lots of ’em

Almost as noticeable as Lake Ontario are the condo developments on, and near, the Water’s Edge Promenade:

Looking north from Water’s Edge Promenade: a sea of construction cranes

I must say that the most striking building I observed on this walk was the Aqualuna Condos, located at 155 Merchants’ Wharf. This building was absolutely stunning and I was fascinated by its colour, form and architecture. Its opulent design was created by Danish architects 3XN, and apparently the building features first class amenities. I shudder to think what a unit here would cost.

The Water’s Edge Promenade is considered one of Canada’s Best Landscape Architecture Projects. It’s so nice to see our long-neglected waterfront coming to life and becoming a welcoming destination within the city.

1 Sprucelab

The Sculptures at Pier 27 Condos

August 26, 2024 / / 1 Comment

Outside the Pier 27 Condos, located at 29 Queen’s Quay East, there are two intriguing installations, both the work of Alice Aycock.

A Series of Whirlpool Field Manoeuvres for Pier 27

This was Phase 1 of the project, completed in 2017. The Toronto Twister is made of structural steel with aluminum powder coated white. It is 25 feet tall at its highest point:

Unweaving The Rainbow

The second phase of the project was installed in 2021 outside the Pier 27 Condos:

“Between The Eyes”

March 13, 2023 / / 1 Comment

Ah yes, the famous egg beaters…

Located at the very foot of Yonge Street at Queen’s Quay East/Lake Ontario sits a curious sculpture entitled Between The Eyes. Established in 1990 by the artist Richard Deacon, this enormous piece resembles a mangled egg beater on steroids. Its gentle curves and angles make for an inspired photoshoot; the structure looks interesting from any direction.

The sculpture is called Between the Eyes. The idea for it developed after my preliminary site visit at which point the site was just an empty lot. I don’t know if they even started breaking ground yet. And there were a couple of things that kind of struck me kind of forcefully at the time. The one was the location at either the beginning or the terminus of the longest street in Canada – Yonge Street – which goes for two thousand miles as an old fur trading route. And, also across from the square is the departure point for the ferries going out to the Islands. So, the site had an implicit kind of focus to it. And the title of the sculpture, Between the Eyes, is somehow reflected ideas about centrality, about distance travel as you came down Yonge Street with your sled load of beaver furs ready to raise trade.

Richard Deacon, Sculptor

The sculpture’s huge but I hadn’t wanted to make a huge lump. So that’s why it’s a skeletal structure, to lighten it, to make it something you can look through rather than it always being something you look at. And the seed of the idea was probably as much to do with just some idea about walking as anything else. The sculpture was intended to look itinerant on the site – that it had arrived and could depart or was going somewhere or had just arrived from somewhere. And that seemed to be the essence of the place, that it was a point of arrival and departure.

Richard Deacon

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