About this Event
Before he gave Toronto High Park, John George Howard was one of the city's most ambitious architects, surveyors and civic figures. Arriving in York in 1832, Howard helped shape the growing city, and his work ranged from elegant homes and public buildings to his most extraordinary project: the Provincial Lunatic Asylum on Queen Street West.
Opened in 1850, the enormous institution was considered one of the most modern buildings in North America, complete with running water, heating, flush toilets and a massive central dome. But behind its impressive architecture was a very different story of how nineteenth-century Toronto understood, and treated mental illness.
On this fascinating walk, we step into the world of John George Howard, the man behind the architecture, and explore the remarkable story of the Provincial Lunatic Asylum and the people who passed through its doors. Why was an asylum needed in the first place? What happened to people considered "lunatics" before such an institution existed? Why did Howard design the building with wide corridors, natural light, fresh air, gardens and spaces for patients to gather? And how did an institution intended to represent a new, more humane approach to mental illness become surrounded by controversy and scandal? This is not simply an architectural story, it is a story about Victorian Toronto and the changing definition of what it meant to be "normal."
This tour covers approximately 2 km around the perimeter of the former asylum. Pay what you like.
Event venue & nearby stays
Trinity Bellwoods Park, 790 Queen Street West, Toronto, Canada
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