A Cultural Study of the CN Tower and its place in Toronto

David Bourke

Submitted in partial fulnliment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts

Daihousie University Halifax, Nova Scotia August, 1997

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...... Table of Contents ...... iv

...... Abstract ...... v

Figure 2.1 : Downtown Toronto ...... 34

Figure 2.2. nie Area Surroundhg King and Bay Streets ...... 35

Chapter 1 : The Modem Myth ...... 1

1.1 Introduction ...... 1 1.2 LiteratweReview...... 6 1.3 Methods...... 20 1.4 Reader's Guide ...... 23

Chapter 2: The Changing Urban Fabric ...... 25 2.1 An Urbanization. Paradigm ...... 25 2.2 TorontoUrbani;ration...... ,...... 28 2.3 Surrounding the Tower ...... *...... 50

Chapter 3 : Elevated to Ambivalence ...... 68

3.1 A Towering Conception ...... 68 3.2 TheDeathofIconography ...... 82

Chapter 4: A Tourist Attraction/Entertainment Centre ...... 88

4.1 The Carnivalesque Façade ...... 89 4.2 The Future of Entertainment ...... 93 4.3 The Service Sector ...... 1 04 4.4 The Consumer ...... 107

Conclusion ...... 124

References Cited ...... 126 Abstract

People have corne to depend on other people's productions for leisure and entertainment. These productions are created for the accumulation of profit. They underlie culture. This study is an exposition of culture and the social networks with culture, in reference to the CN Tower in Toronto, Ontario. When the CN Tower was cornpleted in 1976, it represented the fitute of communications. Today, it is promoted as the future of the tourisrn/entertainment industry. It is a spectacle of consumerism.

Supported by an analysis of the industries of leisure and entertainment, this research is an examination of the paths that Iead to the CN Tower's present statw as a consumer product. Acknow ledpents

1 would like to acknowledge the CN Tower staff who actively participated in my study; rny appreciation goes out to them for taking time out of their busy days to talk with me. Thank you to Marian Binkley for taking the time to chair my cornmittee while on sabbatical. Her extensive knowledge in academia as well as in the politics of academia was of great help. Also, thank you to the other two members on my cornmittee, Richard

Apode and Herb Gamberg for sharing their theoretical knowledge with me. AU three membes respected my choice of research and oEered full support. They aiso sacrificed their fiee time to read over my work. Thank you to Donna and Mary in the fiont office who were more than patient and helpful with my Dalhousie and Halifax concerns. 1 would also like to thank Jennifer Jarman and the students of the graduate seminar for keeping me intact with contemporary issues in Sociology and Anthropology.

Mom, thank you for your support and faith. Knowing that you believed in me was a real incentive. To Wayne and the rest of my family 1 appreciate your inquiries into my study, it made me feel like was doing something of value. Thank you to the Premdas family for giving me a place to stay and the best food to eat, 1 really enjoyed my time in

Scarborough. And of course Cindy, you showed me that spending my life living in a ditch off the 401, wearing underwear made fiom pieces of rubber fiom blown out car tires and attempting supply nutrients to my body by licking oii stains off the road is not the meaning of life. From you 1 see, my feet planted in ground my head above clouds to peer al1 around, but 1do more than see, you've shown to be. Chapter 1: The Modern Myth

1.1 Introduction

The buiit environment is a concretization of culture. e a built structure is made to be more or less convenient as a shelter, waiting are% dhhg room, or passage- way, or even as a work of art, it is also a projection of a dream. Whether it is through the construction of a Gothic style church, a city hail, a house, a railway station, or a shopping centre, the builder idealizes reason to materialize hidher fûture prospects. It includes conscious as well as taken-for-granted ideals of how space should be organized.

Parallehg movements in culture, social interaction with the buiit environment is continudy redefined. However, ifanalyzed in context, the built environment is a physical sign of social networking, an actuai display of how reaiity is constnicted by culture.

Barthes (1979, 5) describes the myth of modernity as the belief that something must have an empirical use for a valid existence. That is, things are rationalized and valued under the scientîfic (or Cartesian) notion of utility. Something that lies outside the bound category of the arts and serves no 'fûnction' is useless by common sense of the modem rationde. The aesthetic reah of the arts has been defhed to include visual art, novels and music, to name a few, but things that do not fit into these generics are placed under the category of uselessness. It is "not in the spint of a penod commonly dedicated to rationality and to the empiricism of great bourgeois enterprises to endure the notion of a useless object" (Barthes 1979, 5). A useless object is a focus of cynicism and criticism in common discourse. A thing's presence is displaced by its defined utility. When people see something new, expecting its use to be evident by its definition they ask 'What is it?'

If its use is still not evïdent the next question is 'What is it for?'

Completed in 1976, the CN Tower in Toronto, Ontario, was promoted as a tourist attraction and a communications device. Communications supplieci only meen percent of its home (Fulford 1995, 31) but promoters exaggerated the importance of its role in transmitting broadcashg waves to the pater Metropolitan Toronto area. In an effort to avoid public condemnation, promoters confonned to the modern myth of utility by expounding the scientific fiuctions of the Tower. However, critics and Torontonians doubted that its extreme height, giving it status as the tailest fiee-standing structure in the world, was necessary for the transmission of radio and television waves. They knew that when it was completed in 1976, its giass-faced elevators, souvenir shops selling its image, its shape, form, location, organization of space, and materials that were used, were not necessary for communications. The CN Tower has commoniy been Iabeled a tourist trap and condemned as a 'vulgar' attempt to make money.

However, it is the empirical notion of utility that is the modem rnyth. Function is defieci by culture; nothing has a purpose until it is given one, or more precisely, until it is limited to one. In the midst of a fully constructed reality, the guiding notion is cause and effect and scientifk empiricism legitimizing machinery, measuring devices and electronic goods. CN Tower promoters failed to estabiish the Tower as a necessary mechanical device. Explicating no universal reason, it remains in the human realm, for the imaginations of children who draw pictures of it, of companies who use it in their advertisements, of text book psychologists who cdit a phallic syrnbol and of tourists who choose to visit it. It is not a modem structure senhg a scientific purpose but an ambivalent entity disposed to dreamuig. The CN Tower holds varying positions in discowe and exposes the modem notion of utility as a myth (Barthes 1979).

Accordingly, it is always open to the short-tem projections of culture. It is a locus of conglomeration, where people nationdy and internationally gather. Its movements correspond to culture to apped to popular imagination. Occupying a distinct space, it represents contemplation, speculation and the ideologies of the leisure industry.

This study is a research thesis on how the CN Tower is constnicted and promoted as a tourist attraction and, since 1992, an entertainment centre. 1 did not separate the

Tower nom its surroundings, rather 1 viewed it in context to commoniy held spatial categories, such as downtown, the city, the country and the world. Its significance is not in itseif but as an object in a mesh or a rnatrix of discoune. It is part of reaIity. The CN

Tower's movement is related to the process of urbanization. This is not to Say that its development is a cause, effect or result of urbanization; instead, management finds, creates and expands a niche in culture and directs the Tower in connection to urbanization. Its structure, attractions and organization of space communkate ideologies. Management follows a form or an ideal of existing tourkt and entertainment attractions but they intertwine their own creativity.' In short, this research examined how the various communicative signs of the CN Tower are created.

Presentfy, in an age of simulation, people are absorbed by the TV flashing images of miles of space and centuries of the at once, or they drift into fantasy while walking through a shopping mall imagining the thgs they can buy to complete their image. The

This distinction is misleading because an individual's ideal form of a tourist attraction and bis/ her creativity are not absolutely separate. Individual cfeatMty is dtawn hmthe mesh or netwoi-k of reality that include generic for ideals. noise of the commercial aspects of consumerism clutter people's dreams. Images which were once representative of reaiïty lose connection to their ongin. That is, the primordial interactions of hurnans to nature as the source of imagination and rnediation have been replaced by assemblages. While these assemblages are reproduced in physical or electronic form, spread across space and fiozen in tune, they are the objects of contemplation. In short, the foqor more spddy,the image is now reality.

Today, the CN Tower is constnicted as a spectacle consisting of a conglomeration of ephemeral and fkagmentary attractions. It is a product of combined images and multiple realities. Idedy, like a Bakhtinian carnival (Zavala 1990; Rutland 1990), it challenges routine discourse and allows people to step outside their stnictured lives. However, deterring its disposition to the imagination, it now occupies a definition as a tourist attradonlentertainment centre. The liminality of the Tower is prevalent only as a façade; in actuality it is structured around the strict ideologies of profit. Culture makes its mark on the Tower through the circulation of production and consurnption. In a consumer society, the modes of production and consumption are closely tied. That is, the ways in which commodities are produced are directly linked to the ways in which they are purchased. On the one hand, the mode of production expands the diversity of consumption choices; on the other hand, the mode of consumption leaves openings for diversity in production. The CN Tower encompasses a variety of facets of consumerism in management's attempt to provide its Msitors with a temporal, self-contained space.

Upon enteMg the Tower, visitors are temporarily relieved of thinking and preparation.

For the duration of theù stay, their needs of food, entertainment and leisure are provided.

It is a centre not of products but of productions and contemporary images. Also signincant, is CN Tower management's progression away nom the modem

myth. Their promotion of it as an image of modem communications has diminished since

the 1970s. Wlth new technologies and satellites, it no longer represents the fùture of

communications. And its physique no longer symbofizes Toronto's placement on the map

as a Young, developing city. In fact, it is labeled a hentage buildiig in Toronto City Hail.

Promoters refbrbish its future hage within the realm of tourism and entertainment. Their

presentation of the CN Tower is now sequential to mode*; it is postmodern because promoters have centralued a utility, which is beyond the bounds of the modem myth.

To surn up, this thesis provides a two fold exposition of cuhre, in reference to the

CN Tower as a built stmcture, that is to Say, as a medium of social interaction. The first fold is an explication of the modem notion of utility as a myth. The Tower has never been

Limiteci to its scientific fbnction; its tourism facilities is the most obvious example. The second illustrates the changes in culture that left openings for CN Tower management's changing mandate. This research is significant to academia because it reveals how the CN

Tower is formed and rearranged within the movements of culture. Culture is an organic mesh of reality, of fterconnecting points with a variety of factors influencing its dEerent movements. Various proposed definitions are included in the genealogy of this study. For example, when it is labeled a phallic symbol 1 do not agree or disagree because it is a concept that has proliferated through discourse and become for many, true of the CN

Tower. The phallic dennition is not subjective or relative but, as an actual concept in language, holds legitimacy in the intemal dialogues of many people. As already said, the

CN Tower does not signify an aü-encompassing definition. As an ambivalent structure 1 looked at it as both culturally centrai and marginal. This research is a fiagmented illustration of some of the unclear aspects of culture. 1 situate the reader within the different areas of discourse conceming the CN Tower and retrace some of the pathways that lead to its contemporary condition. With an awareness of some of the cultural and social networks that have manifested the CN Tower, the reader's understanding of the present social condition, including the economies of tourism, leisure and cuitwal productions, is broaden.

1.2 Literature Review

The following review of literature provides an overview of the paradigms that were considered while conducting this study. It includes a description of the condition of contemporary cuhre as well as the background of my research. 1 begin with an account of the rise of the spectacle and how it is used in a consumer society to sell products. 1 then lay the foundation for a broader and more detailed definition of culture by explainhg the rneanings behind serniotics and spatial formations. Finally, the conditions of modemity and postmodemity are presented. This review is important for understanding the current direction of CN Tower management as well as for an understanding of this thesis.

Consumer Society

In the present stage of capitalism, the mode ofconsumption is a dornineering force of social organization. Capitalism thrives on a consensus to buy. Debord (1995) cds it a spectacle society. The spectacle is a surfaced appearance, abstracted &oom its substance and reduced to a visual image. From the rise of monopoly capitalism, and the over- production of commodities in the mid twentieth century, capitalists attached images to their products to induce in people a need or a desire to consume them. The spectacle becomes significant when an image attached to a product is its appealing elernent. Moreover, the spectacle is where the appeal of a commodity is not contingent to the product or when its appeal is distorted. For example, when people buy Pepsi Cola they buy 'the choie of a new generation,' the drink of Michael Jackson, Tina Turner, Ray

Charles, Paula Abdul, and Elton John.

According to Debord, "wmmunity and aitical awareness have ceased to be"

(1995, 21). The spectacle subsumes people in its surfaced displays leaving them unconscious to their own conditions. It rnasks class divisions. Capitalism since Marx's day, displaces a products' use value for exchange value; today, the spectacle manipulates exchange value by re=g a fabricated use value. The spectacle "is the locus of illusion and fdse consciousness" (Debord 1994, 12), where the practice of consuming images is imposed as the path to happiness. Human creativity, whkh was in Marx's time reduced to having, has been fbrther reduced to absorbing appearances (Debord 1994, 16). The spectacle detracts people fiom concrete relations with things, self and each other.

"Understood on its own tenns, the spectacle proclaims the predominance of appearances and asserts that al1 human life, which is to say al1 social We, is mere appearance" (Debord

1994, 14).

The bureaucratuation that foUowed the rationale of capitalism, stepped outside the bounds of work and into the realm of leisure. Leisure has been institutionalized, cornmodifieci and rationdy organized around mass consumption for the acquisition of profit. It produces a cultural hegemony by induchg "individuals to consume a worid fabricated by others rather than producing their own" @est 1989, 29). Today

"commodities are now al1 that there is to see; the world we see is the world of the commodity" (Debord 1994, 29). Images have been connected to every aspect of reality and sold on the market. Every constituent oflife has been bureaucratized, and provided to the public by the economy of images. The spectacle bctions autonomously over and above humanity; hurnanity submits itself to the spectacle. It is the final stage of capitalkm because it "belongs to the redm of dispossession7' (Debord 1994, 30). In other words, it sek what can never be fully possessed: an image.

Semiotics: A Broader View

Debord offers insight into the effects of the spectacle. However, as Best (1989,

32) notes, he lacks a semiotic analysis. He does not account for the conceptual fabrication of communicative signs and how these constmite human mentality. A semiotic analysis is an attempt to understand the practice of comecting meaning and things to symbolic signs of communication. Semioticians explore the enigma of the object and how the subject relates to it. MacCannell says, Debord "presupposes a Cartesian subject. How else could he imagine a social relation not mediated by images?' (1992, 234). Debord's version of the spectacle is mistaken because he assumes subjects are distinct fiom it, a basis for definhg false consciousness, as if there is a tme consciousness to be discovered. This mistake extends from his distinction between subjectivity and objectivity, where the two exist independentiy, and the subject is to understand objectivity in absolute. The notions of objectivity and subjectivity are a myth. Shields notes, "there is tremendous compiicity between the body [subject] and environment [object] .. . and the two interpenetrate each other" (1991b, 14). Human knowledge is mechanized through a continual semiosis with the chanfig environment. Subjects and objects do not exkt independently. Rather, reality, awareness and understanding are conceived through an interaction between the two. In other words, reaIity is continualiy broken down and reconstructed through people's interactions with the changhg environment. The extemal world may exkt

independent of humanity, but people constmct knowledge from the extemal wodd on a

need-t&know basis. Knowledge is acquired by the ways in which the world is utilized for

people's needs. Heidegger (1977) said technology precedes science. Technology is

diected and driven by human need. Science is guided by human need, and human need is

satisfied through technology. In short, people do not know the objective world; they

know the world they have utilized from their interactions with it. Knowledge is the result

of a semiosis perpetuated by people's interactions with their environment.

Communication fùnctions by the representation of things and ideas through words

and phrases. Signs of everyday communication are used to represent reality. However,

"signs are not only words, or images; they can also be foms of social behaviour, political

acts, aaincial landscapes" (Eco 1983, Preface). An abstraction is taken from a single object to be the essence of the object. The abstraction then becomes its category or genenc. Other objects interpreted as having this essence are plared under the same generic. For example, the qualities of the genenc, table, may consist of legs, a surface and a purpose. Things consisting of these qualities will then fit under the category of table.

Specific tables will then be created based on these qualities. The generic is the sign or representation of the object. The presentation of a sign signifies a message (a signified).

It is what Benjamin called naming. Accordingly, naming, that is labeling, identifjing and ordering, is the mental being of humaniw, it is the medium for mentality. The presence of a table signifies a structure used for placing things on. The sign or genenc provides the discourse to which things are defined, understood and created in everyday Me. It simultaneously enables and lits interpretations of reality. Mentality is created and limiteci to the concepts of language (Benjamin 1986, 3 16). In short, gerierics are the signs and blueprints of reaüty.

The Oxford EngZish MiDicfiomuy defines 'table' as a 'Fiece of fiimiture with a flat top supported on one or more legs" (Kawkins 1994, 537). The acnial definition of a table may Vary among différent people. What is signifie4 is nom the receiver's point of view. It is hisher interpretation of the sign. In other words, there is no permanent or wncrete connection between the sign and the signined. For example, a TV advertisement of a farnous country singer drinking a Pepsi enables the governor of Alabama, a California hippie, a Greenwich Vïliage radical, a Nova Scotia fishennan and a Toronto bureaucrat to interpret hisher own meaning fiom the clip (Eco 1983). There is no fhality to syrnbolic communication, words do not have complete and absolute definitions. Rather, the meanhg of words, things, space and other signs result from a process, a process both guiding and resulting from people's interactions with the changing environment.

Spatial Formations

Things are usualiy made to serve some kind of function; and their presence signify their fiinction. For example, a spoon signifies a particular way of eating, as opposed to, for example, eating with one's hands (Eco 1986, 59). Eco distinguishes between primary, denotative fùnctions and secondary, connotative fiinctions. Codes, the meaning attached to signs, are denotative and connotative. A house in America built around the 1950s denotes a place of shelter but connotes in its physicai structure the ideology of the nuclear family living arrangement. Tt is divided into rooms, each with a distinct function. Upstairs there is a master bedroom often containing a washroom and a closet large enough for a married couple to keep their clothes. There are one to four other rooms of smder size for the children. Denotative functions are not more important then connotative finctions just pnor (Eco 1986).

However, signs are sent and received through a variety ofchannels. According to

Eco (1986), developers must first act as sociologists or semioticians before creating a design. They must have an idea of what their products will si- and how people will respond to these signincations. For developers to adequately communkate their intended messages, they create their structures fiom a network of already codined signs. That is, their structures signify "codincations of alrerrdy workedbut solutions, codiications yielding standipdized messages" (Eco 1986, 74). A staircase or a ramp denotes going up/down before the function is estabiished by social noms. But an elevator denotes going up/down only for modems (Eco 1986, 62). In distinguishing between the sign and its finction (code) the numbered elevator buttons are the signs, and going up/down is their fiinction (Eco 1986, 61). What the elevator denotes would not be obvious to the

'primitive' because it is a construction based on a modem network of signs. The code or meaning of a sign is the method for reading and creating similar signs. As described earlier, symbolic communication is not stagnant but is changing. There is no definite connection between the sign and its fiinction.

Developers' creativity is kted because they must ensure that receivers of their structures interpret them as intended. Eco uses the example of a throne, which denotes sitting, but connotes sitting with dignity. It distorts the primary fiinction of sitting, which is relaxhg (1986, 64), and connotes an inherent ideology and an implicit fom of normative behaviour. When the spectacle is applied to a sign that already denotes a fiinction (already codined), the sign is distorted. For example, if someone buiids a chair that is too artistic to be identifiable as a chair, it no longer signifies (communicates) the hction of a chair. It lies outside codification, and cannot be articulated by convention.

The creation of a new code, or a distortion of an aIready existing code, is necessary for definition. The difnculty for developers is there is no guarantee that their structures will be interpreted and followed as intended. The signs of a physical or spatial formation cm add up to a particular way of seeing the space, but it always relies on the receiver.

Modemity

Heidegger proposed that "metaphysics grounds an age, in that through a specinc interpretation of what is and through a specinc comprehension of truth it gives to that age the basis upon which it is essentidy formed" (1969, 115). The process of philosophical thought is not teleological; rather, it exists in epochs. Each epoch in history has an ontoiogical conception of truth and reality that manifests people's thoughts, beliefs, and actions. For example, in ancient Greece it was believed humanity had to fit within the cosmological ordering of the universe (Aristotle 1941). Descartes represents the birth of modemity through his scientinc method. '1 think therefore 1 am' is the paradigrnatic root of modem human reason. From this initial premiss, Descartes developed a theory attempting to prove the existence of God and the extemai world. His work is representative of a new epoch because he sought understanding by human reason instead of cosmological or religious deity. Similarly, Harvey (1989) notes the change in cartography in medievai times. Instead of people ïiiustrating their space based on personal experiences their maps became standardized and 'objective.' Constnicted by abstract notions of measurement, anyone knowledgeable of these notions could read and understand a map. The extemal world lost its sublime, mysterious and religious essence.

Rationaily objectïfied, it became an entity for human utility.

Bauman (1992) describes rnodernity as a process of legislation, that is, 'purghg ambivalence' by imposing distinct separations between w hat is 'objectively ' tme and false.

From the rise of reason, Descartes, Spinoza and Kant were able to transform the role of

Plato's 'Philosopher King' to legislate reality and societal rules based on 'objective' reason. Bauman explains the divorce of hegemony nom religion and its marriage to reason. The modem dialectic of reason is what Bauman refers to as legislation "Modem mlers and modern philosophers were fmt and foremost ZegzsZaforrs, they found chaos, and set out to tame it and replace with ordef' (1992, 119). Everything is separated and abstracted to inside or outside, 'excluding the rniddle,' and 'purging ambivalence.'

Modemity's fetish is to order and define everything. This "means de-legitimizing ali grounds of knowledge philosophically uncontrolled or uncontrollable" (Bauman 1992,

120). It is an eEect of the conceived separation between the subject and object where tmth exists independent of humanity, and is to be known as universal and complete. It is achieved through bharies of truth and falsehood, us and them, and subjectivity and objectivity. It is a process of categoruing reafity into poles of opposition in attempts to weed out contradictions and ambiguity, and to purge ambivalence @auman 1992).

Bauddard (1988) notes that from the nse of industriaiization, a duplicate of an original product is not conceived as a counterfeit, but as a reproduction. For example, the crafts person who makes tables tiom scratch to sell on the market has largely been replaced by the mass production of tables under the technology that makes them perceptuaiiy identical. The conception of counterfeit is subsumed by mass production. The buying and selling of mass assembleci products based on a prototype of an on- is \ an accepted and expected phenornenon of the industrial revolution. It dinuses the line between the original and the reproduction and emancipates a new ontological outlook for the construction of reality. The original and the reproduction are equdy real; the reproduction rids the original of its unique existence. As a result, products are increasingly seen through the generics to which they belong. Similady, duplications of reality are just as valid as reality. An individual's phenomenological and concrete interactions with a product is displaced by the individual's discourse, an abstraction or a category.

According to Lash and Urry, "The modem period was one of vertical and horizontal differentiation, the development of many separate institutionai, normative and aesthetic spheres, each with their specific conventions and modes of evaluation and with multiple separations of high and low culture, science and Me, aurotic art and popular pleasures and so on7' (1994, 272). Similar to Bauman's (1992) paradigm of modem legislation, reality is compartmentalized into qualitatively distinct categories. Modernity is the process of differentiation or segmentation where everything is separated into vertical fields with horizontal 'conventions and modes of vduation' (Wrry 1990, 84). A generic, blueprùit or prototype of any produa is a set of abstracted qualities of an original. That is, the qualities that can be quantitatively altered without changing the 'essence' or definition of the object are aspects that remain under its generic definition. A reproduction or a produa acquires originality through a series of quantitative changes to its various qualities, but it remains under the domain of the generic. For example, the social science department of the modem university separates, for instance, sociology, politid science, economics, and anthropology into qualitatively distinct disciplines. Each discipline, supposedly, has a unique and linear school of thought.

Even more cornplex, however, is Latour's explanation of hybrids (1993). A hybrid category is a grouping that remains within the domain of a generic but contains qualities that are distinct nom other aspects of the generic. Just as the discipiines within the department of social science are hybrids of social science, the department of social science belongs to a group of hybnds that Uiclude humanities, the naturai sciences, engineering and business, under the generic of academia. Through the process of modemity and increased legislation and compartrnentali7ation, hybndization advances. Realiw is compartmentalized, bureaucratized and clearly defined. It inhibits the CO-existence of rdties, necessitating the destruction of old realities for the construction of new realities as society proceeds.

Discenùng the meanings and the significations of words, concepts, categones and generics is the goal of a semiotician. Each quality or category belongs to an inter- contextual mesh or matrix of communication, a network of signs. A concept is both a product of a series of hybnds and produces a senes of qualitatively distinct hybrids under its definition. However, modenùty is not teleoIogÎcal. Modems contuiuaily shape and re- shape, legislate and re-legislate reaiity. People's interactions with each other and the environment continudy change, and their spatial awareness is continually transfoned.

As descnbed above, the connections between sips and their meanings, or their fiinctions, are not absolute. The ambiguity between the network of signs and what they represent are openings for new, different and alternative hterpretations of Mie and of reaiity. In modernity, capitalism is the generator of redefinition and hybrïdization. With reality and the extemal world defined under the human domah, the conquering of space and the compression of tirne became feasl'ble for the acquisition of profit. Shupemter

(Hkvey 1989, 17) describes capitalism as a process of creative destruction and destructive creation. The capitalist must create a product ador seMce that will induce people to reallocate theû money fhm existing products to hidher products. The need for originality inspires the invention of new and supposedly better ones than those avaiiable at the tirne.

Thus, the capitalist must create new products that damage (destroy), and must succeed because of the darnage of existing products (Hawey 1989). The market is never at a complete standstill, nor does it foliow concrete cycles or patterns. Consumers are constantly drawn by newer products. Moreover, the cornpetitive nature of capitaiism necessitates the destruction and reshaping of space to best fit the demands of profit. As capitalism manifests itself across the globalizing world and cornpetition intensifies, businesses expand or travel to hda profitable market. Technology develops and the world shrinks. Advancements in transportation and communications technologies Uicrease the availability of products, such as telephones, fax machines, televisions, cornputers, boats, trains, cars and airplanes, enabling a localization of the world. As a result, the environment is in continuai change. Postmodernity

In the condition of postmodernity the legislated categories, the hybrids, implode.

There are too many hybnds and too many distinct categones. The binaries used to corutruet reality lose containment of their definition. Concepts clash and contradict, the codification of signs lose stability. The connections between signs and their significations, words and their meanings, concepts and their definitions become weak. Any deep connection between a sign and its meaning is likely to fade into contradiction. The bounds of legislation diftUse and reality bewmes lost in the abyss of arnbiguity: a haze of a volatile, surfaced existence. Baudriliard (1 988; 1995) cails it hyperreality? where the network of signs is dissociated fiom reality so that establishing depth is categorically impossible; the signs refer only to other signs. Wth oniy su~acedreality? the acceptance and rejection of connections and interpretations between signs and reality are overactive.

Lash and Urry (1987) explain the condition of postmodernity as an element of disorganized capitalism. In agreement with Bauman (1992), they assert that a present condition of consumerism resulted from the rise and drive of capitalism. And simïiar to

Debord (1995), it creates a consumer class. As technology advances and the signincance of travel distances diminish, physical mobilization becomes increasingly accessible (Urry and Lash 1994). The compression of space and the brings the otW within an arms reach of anyone (at least anyone who has a TV). Simulation is eveqwhere; instead of

The other is that which Lies outside binaxy legislation. It is what constitutes ambivalence. It does not fit within existing mnceptions or des. It is a sign that has not been codined and the existing codes are inapplicable to define it. consumuig visuals through the fiame of a hotel window, bus or train tour, people consume the same visuals through the electronic media (Urry and Lash 1994, 259). It entails a new spatiaiization of things. The vast availability of various foms of the other in a compressed space has lefk people open to other co~ections,realities and rationalïzations. It enables an appreciation and a tolerance of the other in their everyday lives, a tolerance which was weaker in modemity @auman 1992), and a tolermce negating the need to legislate.

However, the compression of space and tirne strips the oiher of its roots, reduces it to a surfhced appearance, and displaces it to fit withùi existing Western semantics. As a result, the network of signs wi no longer contain its quasi-constructions of truth, and can no longer suppress ambiguity. Simulations pass as authentic because they are based on the same codifications (or codified signs) which define them in reality. For example, businesses offer simulated fiendships to promote consumption. Satum Corporation

(automotive company) performs a rituai celebration with, and in honour of; their customers after each car purchase. They offer the nirf8ced appearances of fkiendship but are not actual fXends. The condition of postmodernity is a result of an implosion of signs.

Bauman (1992) explains ambivalence through an andogy of the manger who moves into a perceived cornmunity. The stranger slips between the us-them dichotomy, fùnctions and gets dong with the people in the community, but is not fbUy accepted as an 'insider.'

Everything is the other, reaiity is ambiguous and everyone is ambivalent. The world is a spectacle world consisting of fiagmentary and ephememl images, or more specifically, of simulations of reality referrhg only to codified signs.

The pure spectacle does not connote a message. It is a cultural product which signifies its own existence. Its signs are over-active and over-collaboratory. If there is an intended message, it goes over people's heads. It is like a circus where any attraction can

be hcluded and there is no central theme or conriedon between attractions. The tourist

spectacle is an attraction of demerentiation, as it is a resort to using dvdesque, anti-

cognitive, attractions. nie spectacafi;ration of the world is the death of modemity.

Everything is presented to everyone equaiiy, masking class divisions and destroying

hierarchies of taste and fashion. For example, TV shows pomay façades of many different

Lifestyles which enable people to transgress their economic boundaries and embody a variety of distinct Iifestyle tastes. The spectacle creates a class of consumers where people who do not succeed in the business world are held responsible for not being able to partake in its production. Idedy, the spectacle broadens discourse by presenting the new and the unorthodox (Zavala 1990). But in contrast, it is the drive of consumerkm where ephemerd images and simulacra are provided to sati* what people have learned to expect.

The change £kom modernity to postmodernity is the result of an escalating antagonism between the increased availability of the o~herand the modem drive to purge ambivalence. They are two opposing forces that have diluted into each other. While legislation has become volatile and ephemerai the other has become image-based. The title, postrnodemity, is misleadhg because as a condition its only characteristic is its indefinability (Ilter 1994). Moreover, it is not a distinguishable era separate fiom modernity. Culture did not abruptly change fiom modemity to postmodernity; rather, the two continue to coexist.

In summary, the literature under semiotics and spatial formations provided the analytical outlook for this study; and the paradigm concerning the transition from the conditions of modernity to postmodenùty was the context for analyzhg the CN Tower

and its surroundings. The methods of research required a pragmatic approach which

necessitated being close to the Tower. Three distinct fonns of research are described in

the methods section below; however, the insight of this thesis developed from the overail

mosaic of my experience in Toronto.

1.3 Methods

The methods of research consisted of an analysis of primary and secondary data,

participant observation and semi-structured interviews. Most of the current and histoncal

uiformation used are accounts made by Torontonians: architects, media writers, students,

citizens and myself. The means of obtaining information included inte~ewsand

documents, such as books, reports, TV shows, and newspaper and magazine articles. I do not propose the histoncal data Uustrated in this thesis to be 'objective' fact. Even with

supposedly diuect facts such as dates and rneasurements, dierent newspapers did not always concur. There is not a distinction between knowledge and the outside world; rather, the two corroborate to produce reality. Accordingiy, the information is used to reflect culture.

The primary and secondary data used, concemed the CN Tower, its surroundhg area, and Toronto's process of urbanization. 1 also researched sorne of the dBerent people and parties who have helped weave the Tower to its present condition. 1 Iooked at recent books, journal articles, reviews and media documents offering histoncai perspectives of Toronto and the CN Tower. Sources written by Torontonians ftom their own experiences provided materiai- almost archeologicd- accounts of the city. Also taken fiom different years in the past, were City Councii planning reports, studies and proposais for Toronto, the CN Tower, and the area surroundhg the CN Tower. Fimally, 1 looked at promotional publications released by CN Tower promoters, such as posters, brochures, films, and books to decipher how management chooses to present and wnstnict the public image of the Tower.

Participant observation was part of my three month stay in Toronto. Through a living experience of the city and its dierent aspects 1 situated myself in the context of my study. By attending community events and experiencing the vastness of the city, as different districts containhg dserent spatial arrangements and modes of social conduct mesh into each other to form a mosaic, 1 came to know Toronto. 1 read newspapers, watched local news and TV programs and listened to the city's radio stations for a feel for the daily local, national and international information that was circulating through the local media. 1 saw the CN Tower f?om dEerent angles of the city, witnessed it drift in and out of the media, and questioned both tourists and locals about their impressions of it.

1 also visited the Tower fiequently. As an ethnographer and like a tourist, 1 gave my attention to the attractions and the employees who ran them. Tourists were grouped together for the elevator rides and addressed by employees as a class of hornogenous citizens; and they were grouped together for the attractions, to cooperate and interact while playing the garnes. Menvards, these same people may recognize each other while strolling the observation decks or looking for souvenirs. 1 allowed myself to be a tourist, another face among the crowds of people that experience the CN Tower.

At times, 1 also disthguished myself as a researcher. With clip board in hand, standing back taking notes on the view, or on an occurring event, I was not always a participant but an observer. The he-upq people's confusion conceming where to buy tickets or where to go next, the aesthetic displays used to induce wnsumption and the overd organization of space was recorded. Participant obsewation also included the comprehension of employrnent. Employees presentations of the attractions and the CN

Tower by giving rehearsed speeches, pefiomiing skits, organizing the visitors, helping them with their gear, or coaching them on how to play a game, revealed the nature of their roles. And finaily, by wallcing around the area that surrounded the (=N Tower, through

Planet Hoflywood, around the SkyDome, or through the Skywalk into Union Station and onto the subway, 1 absorbeci the fusion of the city's urban space in comection with the

CN Tower and its entertainment district.

While 1did not formaiiy interview visitors and non-management employees of the

CN Tower, 1 asked them questions in passing and when openings came up. The questions reflected the situations CO-participatedby the respondents and rnyself. Outside the Tower

1 questioned people walkuig on their way to other places, such as the SkyDome. 1 also asked workers at hot dog and ice-cream stands questions concerning the Tower.

Four members of senior management were formaily interviewed. 1 conducted semi-structured inte~ewsat their convenience. Each interview lasted approximately one hour. My interests were in learning about their mandate with respect to attractions, services, the physical construction of the interior of the Tower, and the structure of employment. The questions were an inque into their views on the promotional mandate both on and off the site and how the mandate is actualiied, the employee mandate (job descriptions), the mandate of the kinds of services and entertainment attractions offered, and the physical structure of the Tower. The purpose was to ascertain their views, rasons and purposes for their intended direction for the CN Tower. Ethical Considerations

A one page consent fom describing the swpe of the research was drawn up as a muaial contract ensuring interviewees anonymity, confidentiality, and the nght to withdraw fiom the research at any tirne as weii as the right to have the information provided by them removed from the record and omitted nom the final draft of the thesis.

Respondents were made aware that identifiable characteristics would not be included with the information they supplied and possibly non-crucial information would be actively distorted and Uicluded in the thesis to ensure their anonymity. 1 offered a two page summary of the ha1thesis to each respondent upon completion in the fdof 1997.

Participant observation was of both people and the physical structure of the space.

Members of senior management knew of my study and supported it by offering me fkee passes. Tourists and employees below senior management were not interviewed.

However, because the CN Tower is a public place, 1 engaged in discussions with them. 1 did not formally reveal myself as a researcher but 1 did disclose my identity to the employees and tourists 1 questioned. Ali interactions between myseif and the visitors or the employees remain codidential and anonymous.

1.4 Reader's Guide

Foliowing this introduction, there are three subsequent chapters and a conclusion to this thesis. Begllullng with a description of Toronto, chapter two is an emphasis on the

CN Tower's location and its connedon to the &y's process of urbanization. It is a discussion of the built environment of Toronto and the changing politics that gave rise to, and stili today surround, the CN Tower. Chapter three is a genealogy of the communications towerltourist attraction concept, explicating the CN Tower form and its iconic image. As the tailest eee-standing structure in the world and a public monument, with an ambivalent utility, companies mold its image to enhance their own productions.

Its form is used to create images for consdsm. Chapter four is a focus on the interior of the CN Tower in context to conternporary dture. The Tower is now promoted as a tourist attractiodentertainment centre, which meshes within the fabric of the city. The distinct districts of Toronto are dïsing into a single, urban conglomerate; Iikewise, the

CN Tower contains a series of distinct consumer outlets for visitors of diverse tastes.

Consumer responses to the (SN Tower and its ditferent aspects Vary, but its label as a tourist attractiodentertainment centre has become central to its definition. Its image as a communications device has diminished. Chapter 2: The Changing Urban Fabric

Beginning with a description of the urbanization of Toronto, 1 select specifïc

aspects of the city's physical structure and histoncal development to illustrate the

background of the Tower. Toronto's quick and haphazard growth was both in fiont of as

weH as behind the public eye. Similarly, the CN Tower, as a monument that Torontonians

must look at every time they gaze upon their city, was originally a constituent of a much

larger urban development plan that was to centralize, in masses, the citizens of

Metropolitan Toronto. The CN Tower was to be a symbolic centre, repositioning the

centre of Toronto. But the plan never materiaiized. The discussion then focuses on the

role of the politics that gave birth to the Tower and went on to influence its promotion.

Finally, the changing mode of consumption, in relation to mode of production, is described to reveal the Tower' s aitering position within the network of the city.

2.1 An Urbanization Paradigm

The 'classic city' of the medieval era was organized around a central market

(Gottdiener 1986). If modernity can be described as the segmentation of reality then the

classic city was premodem. Many social realities existed in a single space. Usually

sigmfied by a towering structure and an open plot of land, the town square was the centre for business, politics and religion. It was both a market and a meeting place, where the church or cathedra1 and civic buildings could be found. As a public space, the town square of the classic city was where people conglomerated to shop, work, play, pray and socialize. Industriaikation augmenteci the distinction between work and non-work.

Extendkg back to when the medievai mercharits structureci time hmes for businesses to operate, people's conceptions of tirne altered hma religious base to a business base (Harvey

1989, part 3). The Elirabethan State inaeased the length of a working day for the workers.

The became a wmmodity hgmented to the counfing of minutes, with each unit aii~cafedto a specific actMty. By the twentieth century the industriai world was divided into time and place hgments. People fhctioned their lives around mealtimes worlg leisure, house work and vacations. Clichés surfaced, such as 'there is a tirne and a place for eveqdhg,' 'don't mk business with pleasure,' and 'time is money.'

Also, with increased industnahtion in the eighteenth century, the places of produaion and consumption diverged. Companies increased in size and the wage labourer replaced the artisan. The mode of production was the dominant social force and people moved to the cities to work in factones and warehouses. They worked long hours and received Little pay. Performing what had become known distinctively as work, people's time hesfor other activities diminished, turning the city into a distinct place of work. Critics and writers expressed distaste for cities as far back as the sixteenth century

(Seweii 1993, 5; Fulford 1995, 7 1). By the seventeenth century, cities were cnticized as bad places to raise a famiiy (SeweU 1993, 16).

From the 1920s, unions earned some power and capitalists realized that most people were too busy working for surplus labour to have the time and money to purchase commodities. As a result, work hours were reduced, vacation periods were guaranteed and wages were increased. A new middle class emerged fkom the 1940s' where people had money to spend and more leisure time to spend it. In the 1950~~utilinng the advances in communications and transportation technologies, the middle and upper classes moved to the suburbs to live in private houses and commute to the cities. Accompanyhg the middle class was a deconcentration and dispersal of commercial, political, financial and recreational fhcilities (Gottdiener 1986, 289). Meanwhie, the cities were left to the working class and immigrants who came to North Amenca with Mernoney.

During the 1960s, dies were still places of work, but office jobs were expanding.

The cornpetition for space between office developers and industries intensified. Industries went bankmpt, or were forced to the peripheries or the suburbs. In some cases, larger industries maintaineci their space, causing cities such as Hamilton and Detroit to remain industrial sites. Other industries moved their plants to third world countries for cheap labour. As cities de-hdustrialized, the circulation of production and consurnption diversined; and once again, the cities became cultural centres, and desired places for both work and play.

As the middle class retumed to the cities, the preservation of inner-city neighbourhoods and outdated industriai facilities became romantic aspects of the past that they wanted to preserve in the 1970s. Even in Bntain, Uny notes that old raiiway stations that were once seen as environmental poliutants are now heritage sites visited by tourists

(Urry 1990, 83). Elsewhere, Uq (1995) does a case study on Lancashire, England, descrïbing its transition fiom a 'slag heap fiom a coal mine' to an industrial town attracting no one other than relatives of the locais, to a popular historical and cultural tourist site. Similady, in her book, Lofl Living, Zukin describes a trend of the middle class mohg to what had become in the 1970s. the aestheticdy pleasing, renovated manufactu~gbuildings of SOHO,New York (Zukin 1989). Admittedy, this is vague illustration of the development of North American cities.

However, as a padigm, it does show similar patterns and comparable developments in cities across Canada and America Moving into the 1980s and 1990s, where the mode of consumption is determined by the production of images or, more generdy, by the production of commercials, credit cards and electronic banking increase the accessibility of consumption. With the heterogeneity of cornmodity choices and lifeqles, cities now represent centres of lirninaiity. People walk the streets in anonymity; they can reject and adopt self-images in a day or combine several images for a more ambivalent statement.

While Toronto's development is unique, it reveals similarities to this paradigm. The processes of industriatization, suburbanization, de-industrialization and consumerism have all occurred.

2.2 Toronto: Urbanization

The signincance and reality of existing architecture, the meaning of new architecture and the organization of urban space is continudy redehed. Urban planning is a difncult task because the city is a moving, or ever-changing, organism with no teleologicd end. Urbanization will never be complete. As transportation and communications technologies dow people to diminish time over space, and 'proper' and fashionable Lifestyles increase in ephemerality; people replace old spatial arrangements with new. In effiect, they construct new semantics for their city and a new reality in which they live. For example, take the physical layout of a city. On the one hand, the structures remain fiozen in tirne, but take on new purposes. Manufachiring lofts become people's homes, old villages become tounst sites, and abandoned warehouses become night clubs or entertainment centres. On the other hand, structures are often destroyed and replaced by what becarne more econornical ones. A city's landscape is the physical content of a society's niche' but how people define, interpret and utilue their landscape wiii never be absolute.

Toronto's urban growth has been fiagrnented and quick. It went f?om a port and an entrance of a trail leading to Indian trading posts to a cosmopolitan city in less then two hundred years. Sirnilm to many North Arnerican cities, it did not evolve fiom feudalism, but developed under a capitalist order. ParaIIelhg the speed of industriakition, Toronto was built fiom a natural landscape, unabIe to utilize a historical foundation. Today,

Toronto has only a few heritage structures because many of its buildings were destroyed and replaced in the process of urbanization (Dendy 1978). With capitalism underway,

Toronto's growth lacked concem for a public conscience; instead, people were concemed with utilizing its space.

The British purchased the land for Toronto, then called York, in 1788. In 1793,

John Simcoe believed that its remote location fiom the Arnerican border, and its positionhg on the coast of Lake Ontario made it an ideal site for a military town.

Following a military rationale, he organized the town with an iron-grid streetscape of ten square blocks to create what have now become the areas around King and Shelborne

Streets. According to McHugh, the iron-grid streetscape became popular in European cities foilowing the Roman era. It is a geometrically rational arrangement of space because the right angle corners of the street intersections fit well with the right angle cubed buildiigs (McHugh 1995). Toronto did not become the military town Simcoe had anticipated; however, he did establish the foundation for it to advance as a commercial and trade centre. Up to the 18309, the city was closely tied to the harbodont. Wah a public mal1

dong the shore, and large tracks of undeveloped land north of Queen Street, city

organizers saw no need to ailocate parkland in the town. In the mid to late 1800~~

Toronto prospered as a major trade centre and a place of commerce. Developments to the

St. Lawrence canals contributed to the expansion of the city's waterfkont as a major port,

and the construction of railways fiom Toronto to CPR's trans-Canada railway increased

its importance as a transportation centre. In addition, there were a number of self-made

merchants and bankers who sustained the city's flow of capital. Toronto was second only

to Montreal as a commercial centre in British North America As the city's lots were

purchased and developed pnvately, it grew without a central zoning plan to retain civic

and public space. The city blocks were of large sizes, where only sections on the perimeters were developed. The interior of the blocks were left empty or became tane ways or places for misceilaneous services.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, Toronto City Council had not yet followed the A&can trend of elevating the city's horizon hewith the construction of slqsaapers. Toronto maintaineci its European appearance; that is, a European appearance juxtaposed to an American. In the first decade of the 1900~~both Paris and London limited the height of their buildings to six stories while New York had one hundred and seventy-five structures exceeding fifteen stones. The issue of constructing tall buildings in

Toronto raised controversy about sanitation, safety, trafic and aesthetics. Mer many debates within City Council, a fifteen-story office building, the Traders Bank of Canada, was approved and built on Yonge Street in 1905 by New York architects, Carrère and

Hastings. Because it was a radical move for Toronto, the top three fioors were pushed inwards to diminish the appearance of its height (Seweil 1993). But as the city's fht skyscraper, it marked new openings for developers and new directions for architecture and urban design. Toronto City Council decided to foiiow the New World order and not limit the height of the city's buildings.

As a result, vacant spaces were bought for the construction of skyscrapers, wMe older buildings were demolished for what were at the particular time feasible enterprises, such as parking lots. By the 19609, the downtown core was a surveyor's grid of narrow streets interspersed with bulky slqacrapers, parking lots and srnail, older buildings. The

1963 City of Toronto, Planning Board recognized the &y's lack of linearity and said it had a 'tooth-gapped' façade (1963, 24).

Cosmopolitan Influence

Cities do not grow independently but as part of the globalizing phenornenon. The contradictory result is, on the one hand, that North American cities conform to a single generic type. For example, Toronto's rectangular, functional, sbscrapers can be found in cities across North Arnerica. They were a cultural fashion referred to as the 'international' style. Producers of movies, TV shows, and even advertisements wi portray anonymous urban landscapes in their presentations by Ieaving out distinguishable landmarks, such as the CN Tower. They can even present an urban landscape of one city but Say it is another.

For example, The "X-files" TV show, is nImed in Vancouver, Canada, but the plots usuaiiy 'take-place' in American toms and cities.

On the other hand, developers have the resources and knowledge to individualize theù space. Toronto's new City Hall, completed in 1965, was designed by the Finnish architect, Vilgo Revell, ami stands as a distinguishing landmark of the city. Origlliaüy, in North American cities the binary between a unique landscape and the generic landscape was largely dependent on the natural environment. With the increased heterogeneity of

Iife in the city and the proMeration of choices in architectural materials and styles, the binary is now largely directed by the built environment. The natucal and built aspects of a city mesh hto each other, they sustain peculiarity when developers deviate fiom, but remah within radius of the cosmopolitan. In other words, developers deviate in reference to the synchronizeci progression to assert, what sounds like an oxyrnoron, a cosmopolitan distinctiveness. In short, a city is infiuenced by globaiizing trends but maintains room for individuaiity.

The Beautifhl City Movement swept across North America around the 19 10s.

According to SeweII, the movement was initiated in Chicago, by Daniel Burnham's 1909 urban plan to "restore to the city a lost visuai and aesthetic harmony, thereby creating the physical prerequisite for the emergence of a harmonious social order" (Sewell c.f Hall,

1993, 10). Under the ideology that irnprovements to the physical landscape of a city will improve the living conditions of its dweliers (Sewell 1993), Bumham's plan included a new civic centre and upscale boulevards to clear away the slums.

In 191 1, John M. Lyle, a Toronto architect, ilIustrated with the city's Civic

Irnprovements Cornmittee, and Toronto adopted the Beautifil City Movement in a plan to build a "statement of civic Grandeur" (Fulford 1995, 3). It included plans to develop the block on the north side of Queen Street just west of (old) City Hd- what is now Nathan

Phillips Square and home of new City Hd- into a city chic centre (see figure 2.1 about here). Lyle's plan was never realized; however, similar plans were drawn up in the 1920s.

For example, Alfred Chapman, the architect who designed the Princes' Gates at the Canadian National Exhibition in Toronto, drew up another plan for the same area. AU plans were shelved during the great depression of the 1930s.

Under the label of the Beautifiil City Movement, there seems to be a distinction between the movement and the nahual flow ofurbanization. However, the hegemony of the ideology exceeded its label. Around this rime, Toronto was the leading centre in

Ontario for politics transportation and culture. And it began to adopt the urban façade of

Western cities. Civic monuments, includiig the Provincial Parliament Building (1892), the

(old) City Hall (1899), the Royal Ontario Museum (1914), the Art Gallery of Toronto

(Ontario) (1918), and Union Station (1920) gave Toronto a cultured appearance.

Because these were not part of a plan to beauti@ the city as a whole, they remain discursively outside of the movement.

The Financiai District

Advances in technology enabled the development of massive architectural designs by the late 1950s. By the 1960s, Canadian nation banks were demolishing city blocks to rebuild 'super-block' complexes on the lots. As aiready mentioned, the CN Tower was oiiginally part of a 1960s large-sale urban development plan that never passed the planning stages. But the urban ideology which influenced the structure of the financial district was fundamentai to the plan. Skysaapers are IUnctional office buildings enabling many to be employed on a srnall space of land. Likewise, the financial district occupies a smail section of land but the elevated space makes it a centre to a large number of people Figure 2.1: Downtown Toronto

I 1 I 1 I 1 i 1 BLOOR ST. W. BLOOR ST. W.

I 1 COLLEGE ST. W. COLLEGE ST. W.

1 DUNDAS ST. W. DUNDAS ST. W.

QUEEN ST. W. F QUEEN ST. W.

LAKE ONTARIO N Figure 23: The Area Surrounding King and Bay Streets - Dundas St. W.

nQueen St. W.

l-l uRichmond St. W.

110Adelaide St. W.

First Canadian Place Bank of Roya MontreaI / Scotia Bank King St, W. T-D Bank Toronto Dominion Centre Commerce Court Wellington St. W.

Royal

- Front St. W. -

Railway Terminal throughout the greater Metropolitan Toronto area. With the city expanding, the urban ideology was to build development projects large enough to accommodate everyone under one systern.

Moreover, Toronto surpassed Montreal as the leading cosmopolitan centre of

Canada. Money flowed into its financial, commercial and communications industries. The ideal of refbshioning the city by large-sale projects swept across Toronto in the efforts to sustain its Mage as a young city that looks towards the fiiture. Maintainhg its cosmopolitan appearance, private corporations continued to purchase lots and level buildings to be replaced with siqscrapers of the international style. Toronto's hancial district, and the site of Canada's national bank complexes, extend fiom the intersection of

King and Bay Streets (see figure 2.2 about here). Each complex is stnictured with office space above ground level and a shopping plaza below. In 1945, there were 6 million square feet of office space in downtown Toronto; 10 million Ui 1960; 14 million in 1964, and 25 million in 1973 (Seweii 1993, 115). The downtown core de-industrialized and office jobs became the main source of employment.

Banks present their image in the symbolic heart of the city through the medium of towering slqscrapers to portray the façade of progress and fiancial superiority. The blocky structures appearing massive in height and resolution are the tanks of the financial world sponsored by 'larger than Me' organizations that make outsiders feel üice 'comrnon people.' The aggressive presentation of buildings wvered in glass, steel and concrete blocks a meter high provide a serious, professional atrnosphere for visitors and the people who work there. Currently, at seventy-six stories and completed in 1975, the Bank of

Montreal is the taiiest skyscraper in the British Commonwealth. It is a suigle tower outlined in concrete that stretches in an Umnterrupted, rhythmic pattern into the sky. in fÙil knowledge of the significance of theü statu, the company formed an agreement with the city stipulating that no other skyscraper wilI exceed its height. Banks benefit by an image of financial security, their skyscrapers sipi.@ power and stability.

Tracing the development of the district back to the 1920s' the Canadian Bank of

Commerce building (1929), near Yonge Street on King Street West, was the largest structure in Toronto for thirty years. At a height of thirty-four stories McHugh says it "is still the best bank building md the best office tower in the financial district" (1984, 96).

Each precediig bank cornplex developed privately and independently but the area was subsurned as the place for banks to express their presence. In 1958, the location was chdenged with the completion of the Wüüam Lyon Mackenzie Building, on Adelaide

Street, one block east of Yonge Street. It was Toronto's largea commercial development of 570,000 square feet of office space. Seweil labeled it the "first signi6icant example of new urban planning" in the city (Sewell 1993, 1 17). However, he also notes that it was not infiuential enough to expand or move the financial district fiom its established location. Movement towards the east side of Yonge Street did occur but not until the

1980s, when developers sought afEordabIe space that was at least near the area around the intersection of King and Bay Streets. Other ofnce buildings contributhg to the hancial district's 'new' urban design in the late 1950~~were the Prudentid Life Building on King and Yonge Streets, the Canada Trust building on Yonge and Adelaide Streets, and the

Credit Foncier building (demoiïshed in 1989) on Bay and Wellington Streets.

Following the merger between and Bank of Toronto and Dominion Bank in 1955, the new company, Toronto Dominion Bank, built its head office on the city block between King and Wehgton Streets, and Bay and York Streets. The German architect, Mies van

der Rohe, dong with local archîtects, John B. Parkin Associates, and the Bergman and

Hamm firm, designed a 'super block' cornplex consisting of three black office towers

above ground and a shopping plaza, of a simüar design to suburban shopping mails,

below. The three towers marked what McHugh beiieves is the "histoncal beginning of

what became an omnipresent form in this city" (1985, 97). According to Sewell, "The

Toronto-Dominion Centre was quickly seen as state-of-the-art planning. The idea of

clearance and new construction was viewed as the most desirable way to plan the city's hture, particdarly if a plaza could accompany new tdbuildings. Torontonians felt that with the Toronto Dominion Centre, they had agah [referring to (new) City HA] shown their inclination to be a city of the futureyy(SewelI 1993, 122).

Similarly, under the sarne ideal, the Canadian Bank of Commerce merged with the

Imperia1 Bank of Commerce and built Commerce Court on the block east of the T-D

Centre, between Bay and King Streets and Yonge and Wellington Streets. Again it had office towers above grade and a shopping mail below. McHugh says "contrast and contradiction are the name of the game at Commerce Court: old and new, hi& and low, steel and Stone, void and solid, axïs and cross-axis" (1985, 96). Seweli criticizes it for its lack of smooth flow saying the new CIBC silver tower "seems to regard the older building of Commerce with disdain in regard to sitting, entrantes, and design elements" (Seweii

1993, 145).

Along-side the 'city of the fuhire, ' and 'super block' design ideology, protesters increased in numbers and influence. A new spatial ideology that emphasized a smooth linear flow with a mosaic of civic and private spaces, and a city centre surfiiced in City Council. And the city enforceci new demands on its developers. "The key change was

that architects began to recognize that new planning principles could not be implemented

holus-bolus in downtown Toronto. Schemes espousing only those principles would not

secure civic approval" (Sewell1993, 146). In contra$ architects had to satisQ the banlcs'

desires by designhg structures that, at the tirne, expressed financial stability. Thus, the

Royal Bank Plaza, completed 1977, is comparatively a smaller structure and is not a

superblock complex.

Today, Toronto's financial district is the geographic and symbolic centre of the

city (McHugh 1985, 82). Labeled as the financiai district, comprised of buildings of

similar structure and purpose, and fled with people in similar ouffits perfonning similar tasks, it is, fiom within, a distinctive space. However, it has vague boundaries. The whole of the district is a serni-enclosed, multi-layered complex that dfises the lines between inside and outside, and private and public space. At street level, only the bases of the buildings are seen. They flow into each other to form a solid passageway to be shared by pedestrians and cars. People cm oniy go forward or backtrack until they reach an intersection. At the intersections pedestrians are presented with three new paths, each equdy appeaiing and as anonymous as the others. Descriptive of the modem era, the streets do not comprise a place but are artenes to get from one place to another. They remain a transient space, marginal to what lies behind the glas doors of the buildings.

There is a dehite distinction between the interior and exterior of the buildings. But dong the walled-in haliways of the streets, heat is retained and the concrete on the walls and the ground blend hto a singie fabric producing the façade of an indoor structure- an indoor transient space. Pedestrians are physically and visuaiiy blocked fiom the outside world. The space opens up high in the sky where minimum sun Light is permitted. Rather than entering the buildings from outside, one is somewhere between inside and outsidey partidiy enclosed in the overd space of the financial district.

Moreover, strataying the levels of the financial district is PATH, Toronto's underground pedesûian passage network In the Iate 1950s and early 1960~~planning commissioner Matthew Lawson, promoted his idea of an underground city to provide space for commercial shops in corporate areas. It would also shelter pedestrians fiom bad weather and solve the problems of overcrowded sidewalks. Saying that he would direct customers to the- Lawson encouraged T-D and other banks to constnict shopping mails below ground level in their complexes. Today, PATH has evolved beyond the bounds of the financial district to an over twenty-kilometer network of twenty-nine tunnels and three bridges, containing eleven hundred stores and sewices. Among its comecting parts are five subway stations* thousands of indoor parking spaces, forty-eight office towers. six hotels, the inter-city bus terminal, the Eaton Centre, the five national bank complexesy City Hall, Union Station, and the Skywalk shopping concourse leading to the

CN Tower. Scattered throughout the city are open stairwells leading to PATH fiom the streets and f?om the lobbies of buildings. On its own, it is a chaotic network resulting fiom partial planning and developersyindividual ds. It lacks the simple iron-grid of the above streetscape and the tunnels diger in shape, width, height, colour and angle, leavuig pedestrians disoriented. Fufford calls it the 'urban equivalent of a trackless wasteland,' inaccessible to those who have not learned the system (1995,43). While traveiing through

PATE, users know their familiar space but lose themselves upon venturing into new temtory. Similar to the streetscape of the financial district, people are robbed of an extensive view. They cannot intuitively Iocate themeIves by macro landmarks but must memorize specinc associations between place and appearance. PATH aot ody enlarges

Toronto, it eniarges its fiçade of a big city by creating anonymiity.

Against the city's distinct districts and neighbourhoods, is a tendency to include a broad section of civilized land under one definition, to include everyone under the illusion of a single space. In 1953, Tory Premier Leslie Frost, formed Metropolitan Toronto, a new level of goveniment, under Frederick Gardiner's leadership, which hclude, what are now cded, the dies of Toronto, York, North York, East York, Scarborough and

Etobicoke. Similady, within the chaotic structure of PATH, Toronto's districts are indistinguishable. And the bank towers reach ultirnate heights for banks to extend their presence across the large span of land that the city of Toronto now occupies. En the 1950s and 1960s, dong with the consmiction of the underground passage networks and super- block complexes, the construction expressways, such as the Frederick Gardiner expressway and the much debated but never approved plan for the Spadina expressway, assumed a union between the large number of people in the greater Metropolitan Toronto area. Large-scale development was a characterktic modemity. The CN Tower was to not only be a centre of its corresponding development project, but a symbol, reminding everyone in Metropolitan Toronto, that the southem core of Toronto is the centre for conglorneration.

Reform

As already pointed out, the late 1960s spawned a change of attitude in City

Council. New dialogue relating to the 'human' element commenced, and Councü recognized the city' s lack of open spaces, public spaces, squares, fountains, plazas, statues and points of interest. For example, the 1963 City of Toronto, Planning Board noted harsh contrasts between individual private spaces and between pnvate and public spaces.

City blocks lacked continuity and there was no evidence of a city centre. Toronto appeared not as a unified or complete whole, but a hgmented space created randomly by unconnected, individual wills.

Margaret Atwood, in her novel Life Before Màn, describes Toronto as a 'faceless' city "devoid of ernpathy or meaning" (Sewell 1993, 7). Ignoring their city, Toronto's group of seven (artists) paînted the wilderness of northem Canada. In the introduction of his book, Accidental City, Fulford quotes Northrop Fry, who once said Toronto is a

"good place to mind your own business" (1995, 1). In 1977, MacDonald renected in his mernories saying., "Only ten years ago, Toronto was considered one of the dullest, most lifeless places imaginable" Paine and McMurray 1977, 10); side-walk cdes were Uegd and festivals were non-existent. Stein (1993) recds 1950 as a triumphant year, the year the city allowed Sunday sports. And Gzowski (1977) says he can remember when it was iliegal to sell liquor fkom a giassy to go to a moMe on Sundays and for men to sun-bathe topless in the park. Moreover, the mayor made 'an outraged speech' because the

University of Toronto displayed art work that exposed a woman's breasts. The city's

"grandest boulevard, University Avenue (was) a double row of faceless tombstones"

(Fulford 1995, 1) and Bloor Street was under absorption of the 'characterless' buildings of insurance companies.

The (new) City Hall was to be Toronto's saviour. The stoiy extends back to the

19409, when City Council purchased the block of land on the north side of Queen Street, west of the (old) City Hall, for a chic development project. In 195 1, they decided to build a new City Hali with a design with an unoffending, passive structure. Because it is not in

Council's interests to compete with the banks, the structure was to be a tarner version of the bank tower form. Functional and low-key were safe words for a new City Hall.

However, students and professors at the School of Architecture, University of Toronto, protested the original blocky design (Sewell 1993, 117). Then, in September 1957, the city announced a competition open to architects around the world for a City Hall development project to be built on the land. The design by the Finnish architect, Vilgo

Reveli, was chosen, and City Hali was completed in 1965. The structure was built on the north side of Nathan Phillips Square facing south. There are two curved towers, with

815,000 square feet of office space, circling a flying saucer shaped council chambers. The remainder of the square is a paved plaza with a refiecting pool. At the perimeter of the square is a "walkway a dozen feet above grade, enclosing the whole plaza and providing strong definition to the sitey7(Seweii 1993, 117).

City Hd was accompanied with optimistic views concerning Toronto's fuhire as a public city. Pnor to its construction, the 1963, City of Toronto, Planning Board said, "for the f%st the downtown will have an irnpressive public centre... an extensive open area, attractively landscaped, for public use" (1963, 32). Donald D. Sumerville, then mayor of Toronto, wrote "Our new City HaU and Square will be a proud symbol ... it wiii be a constant reminder to the world that the people of Toronto believe in its fiiture and are detemiined to retain and enhance its reputation as the 'Queen City of Canada"' (City of

Toronto, Planning Board 1963, 5). Fulford believes that the creation of aestheticdy pleasing public spaces in Toronto emerged fiom the construction of City Hali. The result was the "creation of a civic mood that both welcomes newcomers and nourishes the lives of people bom in Toronto" (Fulford 1995, 14). Up to date, Nathan Phillips Square holds a public ice skating rink in the winters, a yearly public New Years' eve celebration, outdoor movie presentations public speeches and concerts. It is also a centre for protests and community gatherings. It is the first of many public spaces to transfonn the image of

Toronto fiom a city ofindividuals with private iives to a façade of a community.

Reveii preferred form over fùnction in his design. Breaking away fkom the geometrically ordered structures that dominated rnuch of Toronto's landscape before the

1960s (Fulford 1995), he invested aesthetic appeai into the public building. The offices are not as fiinctionai as standard modem buildings, and the ciradation of warm and cool air is poor. Yet, it is a distinct eye-catching structure among Toronto's mundane buildings. Choosing Revel's design was a radical jump for Toronto because, as a City

Council building, it pushed the bounds of Council's role. It is non consenrative, un- neutral, flamboyant and extreme, an expression more characteristic of pnvate corporations that produce a spectacle to eam capital. But its form, in combination with the city promoting it as Toronto's public space, resulted in an officiai dichotomy between it and the existing built environment. In Sewell's view, "the New City Hall was to be linked to the fiiture not the pst" (1993, 119); TXevell's project was a landmark for both architecture and planning in Toronto" (1993, 117). Fulford calls City Hd revolutionaxy because it 'kracked open the city's prejudices about how buildings look' (1995, 7). But, more accurately, City Hall represents Toronto's direction towards the cosmopolitan.

Sirnila. to cities around the world in the 1960s, the desire for the simple 'international' style of building proiiierated and developers tapped into other sources of expression.

Through the use of dierent rnaterials, shapes and façades, they diversified their tastes. Expansions to Ontario Place, the Metropolitan Reference Library, the Eaton Centre, the

Bay-Adelaide Park, the atrium in BCE Place, the St. Lawrence Neighbourhood, and the public squares of Scarborough and Mississauga (cities diiectly to the east and west of

Toronto respectively) have since compromiseci function for form to achieve aesthetic dkersity @?uiford1995).

Not dl Torontonians appreciated City Cound's new façade. The flamboyant design for a city council building was considered impractical. Its most controversial aspect, however, was the Archer, more commonly known as the Henry Moore statue.

Revell, just before his death in 1964, while City HaU was approaching completion, made arrangements with artist, Henry Moore, to seil his sculpture to Toronto as a permanent exhibit on Nathan Phillips Square. But it was not until derReveUYs death, that Toronto

City Council leamed of the arrangement. Mayor Philip Givens supported the idea of paying $100,000 for the piece but his opponent in the upcoming election, William

Dennison, who later became part of the 'old guard' of potitics (described below), opposed. City Council was divided. Instead of exhausting the ta-payers' money, Givens collected donations, purchased the Moore statue himself, and donated it to City Hd. But his political career suffered nom the decision, which he believes is the reason why he lost the election to Dennison (Fwrord 1995, 10). Today, it remains in fkont of City Hall, and is photographed by many tourists.

City Hall was only the beginning of Toronto's recovery. The movement against modem urban development proWerated into mainstream discourse, and people began to categorize the city under different concepts. Toronto became recognized as an unattractive and unwelcoming city. The public feared that developers, with their 'super- block' complexes, would create a new character for the city within a decade. The destruction of an entire block to be replaced with a singie design was considered reactionary, based on a fetish with progress. Developers were accused of neglecting heritage and overlooking the heterogeneity of city dwellers. Accordmg to Sd,who was an activist of the movement, "public sentiment coalesced to challenge the idea that developers and planners could refashion the &y to their liking? (Sewell 1993, 133).

The 1963 City of Toronto, Planning Board responded to the negative dennition of

Toronto with plans to increase its appeal by strategically plachg plazas, courts, fountauis and statuary throughout the landscape. They wanted to connect the city's pnvate and public spaces to create the façade of a unified whole. By placing rhythmic patterns of trees on, for example, University Avenue, they airned to un@ the fiagmented streetscape into a seamiess flow. In fact, tree planting throughout the ciiy was to establish consiaency, to equalize the entire downtown core. Along with tree planting, private buildings were to be encouraged to do landscaping to soften the harsh corners of urban concrete. They also proposed to restore old buildings and integrate new buildings with the façades of the old to reduce the violent distinctions between private spaces. As an alternative to the formai and ngid look of nght angle buildings pardehg to the city's iron-grid streetscape, they wanted to encourage an informal, and even irregular, placement of buildings, again with emphasis on gradua1 relationships to neighbou~gstnictures and public spaces. The emphasis was on achieving an overall linearity or comection to

Toronto's landscape. The new dialogue of city planners, concening the human element wnsisted of ternis such as natural, flow, less tiinctional, less orderly and less stmctured.

Similady, with the human element under new definition, there was a new sense of a good urban landscape. It included a new sense of what is geometrically and physicaüy natural.

City planners asserted a need to un@ Toronto, and proposed a fluid mix of colours, textures, lines and shapes. They betieved they could give the city a natural look by comecthg the landscape hto a seamless flow.

The 'Reformers' versus the 'Old Guarà'

Stein (1993) recds the nse of the Toronto's Reform Party: led by John SeweU in the late 19609, marked the end of the days where an alderman could be re-elected by retaining the flow of capital and satis%g the business needs of individuals. The Refonn

Party believed in preserving neighbourhoods, deconcentrating commercial buildings by subverting modem development projects into the suburbs, and controlling downtown growth by limiting the height of new buildings. They discouraged single office buildings in whdy plazas and sought alternatives to 'tower-in-the-park' apartment buildings that were filling the residential neighbourhoods. They also proposed less homogeneous zoning regulations, in favour of mi>ang zones and sharing space between residential and commercial districts to promote lively and convenient places to Live in the downtown area.

The issues of progress, tearing down neighbourhoods for the construction of expressways and tail buildings, and the creation of non-profit housing and group homes becarne dominant themes in city politics (Stein 1993, 17). The Refom Party is accredited by Stein

(1993), Seweli (1993) and Fulford (1995a)' with introducing a new discourse into politics which consisted of words such as heritage and preservation, again redenning the human eiement.

The Toronto Reform Party of the 1960s and 1970s is not related to Preston Manning's present day Reform Party. Moreover, by merging new principles of urban development into the political mandate, the Reform Party forced City Council into a party system, where "we have groups determineci to be against something just because the other side is for if' (Stein

1993, 13). They helped mate a modem discourse, dichotomiPng the developers agad the heritage preservers. Dichotomies between progression and anti-progression, development and heritage became the central concern in Toronto politics. Between politicians the dichotomy was between the young and the old: the reformers and the old guard poiitieians- where, in the eyes of the reformers, the old guard became the 'bad guys' against the good citizens of Toronto, as weii as their old houses and their historical comrnunities (Fulford 1995; Stein 1993; Sewell 1993). In short, developers acquired a public definition as those who ''wanted to force us ail to live in soulless, concrete, high- rise apartment blocks that we swnifuiiy called 'fiüng cabinets for people"' (Stein 1993,

17).

In 1972, David Crombie, who later becarne leader of the Progressive Conservative

Party in Ontario, was elected mayor of Toronto. He stood the middle ground between the refonners and the old guard, in effect expancihg the distance between the two poles of extremes. He was consistent with the Reform Party's mandate of preserving neighbourhoods and opposing change (Stein 1993, 18). However, he was not as radicdy opposed to modem development. He has been noted for his ability to compromise between the two forces (Fulford 1994; Stein 1993). Crombie, a political science tacher, broke away from the traditional career choices that dehed the old guard, which included lawyers, real estate agents and insurance brokers. Other leaders who did not fit within the old guard were Elizabeth Eayrs, a leader of the Ratepayers Organization; Colin Vaughan, an architect and one of the leaders of the movement against the Spadina Expressway project; and Mike Boldnclq a university professor. Today, accentuated by critics and writers, the 1970s marks a period when Toronto City Council took on a new reality.

The Reform Party's conternporary ideas reflected public sentiment. A city is an organic, movhg network, making it diicult for any one plan to remain valid. Toronto's first fiiiy complete and comprehensive plan was approved in 1969. 1t took ten years to devise, and drew on plans and reports of past studies. Inner-city neighbourhoods around the subway stations of southern Toronto, such as the Annex, Cabbagetown, Sussex,

Ulster, and Riverdale, which were considered slums in the 1940~~became popular destinations for middle-class couples in the 1960s. Property taxes were cheaper in the inner city, and accordhg the Stein, the middle class "were motivated by a desire to escape fiom the boredom of the suburbs and romantic notions about the sophistication of the inner city" (1993, 2 1). The 1969 plan designated parts of these areas to be sites for expressways and apartment blocks. Pianners neglected the changing concepts of inner city neighbourhoods. The Codederation of Resident and Ratepayer OrganUations, CORRA, a political movement of local residents against the construction of new apartment buildings and office towers, protested. The dichotomy between the young heritage preservers and the old guard resurfaced, and so did the definitions that corresponded to the two categories. CORRA cqnsisted of 'young' 'middle class' 'suburbanites.' They were the children of the old guard generation, of those who lived 'hard lives in the city,' and worked hard to get their families into the suburbs.

Responding to culhirai trends, the refonners encouraged people to move back hto the inner city, heritage neighbourhoods by combhing the residential and commercial districts. People wanted to Iive close to work, trendy shops and fashionable restaurants.

The Reform Party was commended years later, in 1987, by the City of Toronto, Urban

Planning and Development Board (1987) for enhancing Toronto's network of public space. In power untii 1980, the Reform Party widened sidewalks, planted trees, improved iighting, and added gardens, markets and outdoor cafés. They also integrated a variety of new and old architecture into a searnless landscape. Magazine articles and American W documentaries described Toronto as "a swiftly growing urban centre that has somehow escaped the gravest problems of cities elsewhere on the continent" (Fulford 1993, 32).

SimilarIyy Xhe World's Tallest Book about the World's Talest Freesfanding ShuciweY released by CN Tower promoters in the 1970s, says Toronto began to 'bloom' as a global city. It established itself as a world financial capital and a mode1 city "against which all urban development in North America is rneasured" (CN Tower LUnited 1975).

2.3 Surrounding the Tower

The remainder of this chapter remains focused on Toronto, but it is centred around the CN Tower site and its surroundings. The pnor discussion examined local and North

Amaican urbanization and wsmopolitan tendencies in which the CN Tower fits into a niche in space and time. In Toronto, a centre of communications and a megalopolis of the

1970s, a towering communications device represented the wave of the future, both retaining and promoting Toronto's image as a city of the fbture. Described below, is how historicdy the site progressed as a space for the Tower, and how the site went on to develop into a boomhg tourist area Urban trends occun-ing in the city are included as direct paths to Tower's existence and condition. The CN Tower: 0rip.i Pian

Bordering the Coast of Lake Ontario, Toronto developed as port in the 1840s.

Space along the watefiont was purchased and utilized by businesses that needed to expand their whames to accommodate larger vessels. As a resuft, the public and commercial areas were pushed northward. A decade later, the city's fïrst railway was built just north of the waterfront, tuming the area into an industriai site; and by 1875 the watedkont industnalized with lumber yards and grain elevaton. Ln the 19309, the city was separated fiom the bay. With continued expansions to the wharves, the annexation of land for more railways, and further developments to the industrial site along Front Street,

Toronto's public and commercial districts were pushed up to King Street (see figure 2.1: last chapter). There was poor tratFic flow between what becarne two distinct courses of urbanktion. In response, the city built a viaduct undemeath the railways to create seven tratnc underpasses between Spadina Avenue and the Don Valley.

Today, amplifjhg Toronto's4 separation from the waterfront, is the Frederick

Gardiner Expressway, completed in 1966. During the 1!ZOs, when Fredenck Gardiner was leading the Municipality of Metropoiitan Toronto, he saw a need for an expressway to wrap around the base of the city. The result is a large cernent and steel, elevated structure extending over Lake Shore Boulevard just south of Front Street. Accordhg to

Fuifiord, it has "in recent years become the most intractable problem facing anyone who wants to bring new life to the Toronto waterfront" (1995, 51). The 1963 City of

Toronto, Planning Board said, "This barrier is of such proportions as to discourage almost completely any pedestrian from walking between downtown and the lakefkont except to park his [sic] car" (1963, 47). The dway tracks and the industrial lands left

openings for city planners to reintegrate Toronto into the bay. However, the expressway

is an uninterrupted, unaltering siab of concrete posted above the landscape. To solve the

problem, the Harbourfkont Corporation was assembled by the Federal Governent as a

crown corporation in the early 1970s to redevelop the Bay to consumer interests. They

set up a market, restaurants, pubs, art galleries and a wuple of theatres. While these

developments attract approximately three donvisitors a year, the waterfront remains

separated fiom downtown Toronto. The Gardiner Expressway is the back wd of the city,

offending anyone who wants to go to the lake. On the other hand, it is used by motonsts

entering and leaving the city. It is an expressway that is always backed up during rush

hour, an aspect of Toronto that people criticize but will not hesitate to use.

Regardless of people's ambivalence towards the Gardiner Expressway, it and the

raiiways remained the major obstacles for City Council's plans to de-industnaike the

waterfkont. Fbally, in 1967, in the spirit of the indoor, mega-centre ideology, utilized by the Canadian national banks in Toronto's financial district, Metro Centre Developments

Limited, a company formed by CN and CP, corroborated with the city to build a $1.5 billion residential-commercial-transportation complex on a 187 acre plot of land between the Gardiner Expressway and Front Street, and Yonge and Bathurst Streets. Planned to be the largest muItifunctional complex in North America, it was supposed to revive the southem end of downtown and bring the city closer to the bay. The design hcluded office buildings on the east side of the complex near Yonge Street and residential buildings on the West side near Bathurst Street. An agreement was made with the city that Metro

The distinction between Toronto and the waterfiont Rfas ody to the distinction between the downtown Centre Developments Limited would move the tracks or bury them in tunnels, and in

rem would receive zonhg permission for high-density, commercial development

between the east and West wings of the cornplex.

While most of the land was owned by CN and CP, thuteen acres, which included

Union Station, were owned by the city. Another thirty-nuie acres were owned by the

Toronto Harbourfkont Corporation but were leased to CP. Under the concept of the

Metro Centre design. all the buildings including Union Station, were to be destroyed.

According to Seweli (1993). the destruction of Union Station raised protests fiom

CORRA. They delayed the project through their appeal to the Ontario Municipal Board,

arguing that Union Station was a great heritage building, and played a major role in

Toronto's history. It was the point of departure for the soidiers who lefk for World War

II, and an entrance to the city for the thousands of immigrants in the 1940s and 1950s. In

addition, Sewell, who was then aldeman John Sewell, was against the Metro Centre because it "Was a development in the new style, one that refùsed to recognize the existing

Street system, one that emphasized large open spaces and buildings in an extreme expression of modeniist ideas" (1993, 147-48). He worked with CORRA to sway the public against the entire Metro Centre plan. Publishing an article in the GIobe adMail, he disclosed that four members of City Council who were personaily involved in planning

Metro Centre and were also part of the city's decision-making process. He also said the project was a 'behind the scenes' plan against 'public interest' (1972, 110). Then, in

1972, Seweli published a book, Up AgaillSf City Hall, in which he talked about secret meetings and private documents within City Councii. He charged the four interested cote of Toronto and the harbourfront. members with trying to pass Metro Centre as quickiy as possible without adequate

consideration. In Council meetings he accused them of misleading the public, sayhg that

the design proposed "insuffiCient public parkland, dozens of apartment towen and no

housing suitable for childreny' (1972, 111). The delays, that are now accredited to

CORRA and Seweli, paid off in 1973. David Crombie was elected mayor of Toronto and

Sewell's Reform Party acquired seats on City Council. The Metro Centre was put on hold

and finaiiy abandoned in 1975.

However, from the debated plans the CN Tower emerged. The surge of

skyscrapers elevating Toronto's skyline made CBC's broadcasting antenna near Jarvis

Street, just east of Yonge Street, insufncient to transmit TV and radio waves. In 1967,

while Metro Centre was stil in its planning stages, CBC approached Metro Centre

Developments Limited asking them to include a communications tower in their project.

The corporation agreed it was a good idea, and the two companies planned to share the

cost and ownership of the $21 million project. Mer the original design was drawn up in

1968, the estimated cost rose to $90 milion. Then in 1971, federal govenunent cut-backs on spending for ali govemment agencies delayed construction of the Metro Centre. That year CBC backed out, and CP left the year after. Construction of the 'communications device' was already underway, leaving CN with an unfinished tower on its property. CN lent the money to a new subsidiary Company called CN Tower Limited to complete the tower and pay CN back the rnoney with interest.

The CN Tower was completed in 1976 as a tourist attraction and communications device; its public opening was held on June 26 of that year. Reaching a height of five hundred and fïfty-three meters it stiil holds the status as the tailest fiee-standing structure in the world. There are severai designers, architects. structural engineers and consultants credited with its construction. However, Edward Baldwin was the 'associateci projeb' architect. Baldwin (1975) admits he was concemeci about how it could be used to generate incorne, but even before its grand opening he showed confidence in its success as a potential tourist attraction In December of 1975, six months before its grand opening, he explained that the CN Tower may appear to have followed the clichés of other towers: revolvbg restaurant, indoor and outdoor observation decks, souvenir shops and refiecting pool. However, he described its distinctive aspects. For example, there was a private elevator leading visitors to the self contained revolving restaurant in the SkyPod so diners would be unaware of tourists stroiling on the observation decks below. He also noted the glass-faced elevators, six specially-pat ented zoom-lens telescopes, the largest revolving restaurant in the world, a souvenir shop, and a post office (Baldwin 1975). There were two mini-theatres in the SkyPod: one presenting a short film of the CN Tower under different weather conditions and the other presenting the construction of the Tower.

From the SkyPod there is sa1 a separate elevator leading to the Space Deck, the highest observation deck in the world. The base of the Tower had an information kiosk, a gift shop. a fast-food and 'take out' area, two drinkuig lounges, and a pool of water circlïng its exterior. Finally, there was a wall of TV monitors and digital weather display devices featuring the CN Tower's technicai fûnctions. Baldwin believed the distinctive characteristics of the CN Tower would place it beyond a cliché to the status of a unique tourist attraction (1976, 30). As a consumer product isolated between the railways in the industrial lands, it stil managed to attract approximately 1.7 miliion visitors in its first year, and has maintaineci at least this number in each successive year. The CN Tower Surroundings

Throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, downtown Toronto shified westward.

Between University Avenue and Spadina Road, fiom the Gardiner Expressway up to

Queen Street West, the industrial area, grounded on the mode of production, became a

centre for the mode of consunption. Consumerisrn moved westward, expanding the

downtown core that was centred around Yonge Street before the 1970s. In fact, Toronto

is now a consumer-based city where the mode of consumption is generated through a

variety of facets across its space. There are several popular loci of conglomeration,

induding the Eaton Centre on Yonge and Dundas Streets; Yorkville around Yonge and

Bloor Streets; the financial district centred at King and Bay Streets; City Hall on Queen

Street West; the Annex on Bloor Street West; Kensington market just south of College

Street West and west of Spadina Avenue; the St. Lawrence market on Front Street East;

the fashion district on Queen Street West; and the entertainment district on Front West.

In addition, the East Indian neighbourhood east of Yonge Street on Gerrard Street; China

Town, centred around Spadina Avenue and Dundas Street; Little Itdy on CoUege Street

West; Portuguese Village on Richmond Street West; and the Korean neighbourhood on

Bloor Street West, just West of the Annex, are a few of the city's ethnic neighbourhoods.

Expanding mostly westward, there is now a variety of places where people gather in the city. The centre of Toronto varies for different people, but the neighbourhoods and districts melt into each other, constituting a mosaic of culture and activity west of Yonge

Street. It is what Stein cds a c'shapeless urban aggiomeration" (1993, 76).

As culture changes, it adapts and expands to fill its niche. With the rise of consumerism, Toronto's industrial area just east of King Street and Spadina Avenue, and north of the CN Tower, de-industrialized throughout the 1980~~@hg way to a multi- zoned entertainment and office district. In the 1970s, Municipal urban planning boards submined documents to the city proposing limitations on office use in the area. City planners recognURd that the old buildings appealed to lawyers, architects, and accountants looking for office space in the City. They argued that the loss of industrial noor space through office conversions and increased rental rates drove manufacturers out of the area

(City of Toronto, Planning Board 1978a: 1978b). While the old buildings were deemed unsafe for large mandixturing companies, they were ideal for silversmiths, commercial p hotography, printers, custom workshops, manufacturer's agents and importers. The city 's zoning by-law groupings mixed industrial and commercial uses. Commercial and light industrial companies could locate in any of the zones, but the heavier the manufacturers the more restricted were their zoning options. PIanners argued that the industrial areas were not protected f?om expansions of the commercial and office networks. Subsequently, developers continueci to convert the buildings for office use and the industrial district was pushed west of Spadina Avenue.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, in the section between King and Queen Streets, in the aforementioned section east of Spadina Avenue, offices remained, but were not fùlly occupied. There was empty space for rent scattered through out the site. Again, culture moved to fill the niche. In its most recent transition, the area became an entertainment district containhg bars and nightclubs. The pioneers who tumed the manufacturing buildings into night clubs couaborated with the existing environment to create and actualize their ideas. Transcending the existing place of dispersed office and vacated industrial buildings, they saw a potential site that they could rnold and utilize. With the structure ofthe physical space in min4 they saw an opening in culture, a possible need for the area to serve as a night club district. The buildings, as weli as the site which had an existing form and definition, was given new signifïcance and a new reality. The physical structure of the area recombined with its location. A once ideal industrial site has been transfoxmed into an ideal site for a bar and nightclub district. As people began entering into the area for entertainment, the space became recognized in its new definition. It now occupies a new position in discourse, is categorized under new generics and has a new appeal. The structures are not old manufacturing buildings used for nightclubs, but are nightclubs in an entertainment district.

Moreover, its new definition blends into the texture of Toronto's urban fabnc. In the 1980s, the Yonge Street shopping district suffered fiom the opening of the new Eaton

Centre indoor shopping arcade. The structure's unfriendly shell bordered the west side of the street, ait the exterior off from its intenor. The Yonge Street stores died out and were replaced by 'seedy' mb shops, head shops, and flea market style outlets. Mea.nwh.de, most of the garment industry sweatshops that were located on Spadina Street, Queen

Street West and Dundas Street West in the 1950s and 1960s separated nom their outlets and de-centralized fkom the city. By the 1980s, with mainly outlets, stores and boutiques, the district concentrated on Queen Street West, north of the CN Tower and directly above the night club district, to become one of Toronto's trendy fashion districts. The label

'Fashion District' is painted on the street signs to make sure everyone hows where they are. Containing wffee shops cafés, trendy boutiques, the CHUM City buadhg and jazz, blues and reggae bars, it is a cultural centre attracting urbanites who appreciate the appeal of an outdoor fashion district. Queen Street West is not ody a place to shop but a 'place to be.' People can look into the bay windows of the Much Music Studio; by chance one

of the hosts may be conductuig an inte~ewwith a famous singer. They can go to see

buskers, street performers and artists iined dong the Street, to enjoy a coffee on a

restaurant patio, or to mix with the crowds of people who appear to be enjoying the scene.

Also, throughout the 1980s and 1990q in a more sporadic progression of large

establishments, the irnmediate sumundings of the CN Tower and the area around Front

Street West. south of King Street and east of Spadina Avenue, de-industrialized. The

large open spaces became sites for the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, Roy Thomson

Hail, the SkyDome, the Canadian Broadcasting Centre (CBC), Metro Haii, the P~cessof

Wales Theatre, the Holiday Inn and the soon to be completed, the Toronto Rapton'

Stadium just south of Union Station. Meanwhile, CN's industriai waste-land south of

Front Street West took on new value as an ideal site for a 'natural' expansion of the

downtown core.

Presently, the site comecting the SbDome, the CN Tower and the Convention

Centre receives over twenty million visitors a year. Several plazas and parks serve as both passageways and places connectuig the hgrnented areas defined by large structures into a

searnless flow of space fiom Front Street, over the railways, around and throughout the buildings and ont0 Bremner Boulevard (a road completed in 1996 bordering the south side

of the site). There are hot dog and ice-cream stands, coffee shops, trendy restaurants with outdoor patios, and of course, a McDonalds. As we4 there are souvenir shops and kiosks

selling T-shirts, sunglasses and other tourist paraphernalia; and street performers, artists

and rickshaw runners, culiectively enhancing the façade of a tounst area. Rather than displacing the raitway tracks, the enterthent and consumer fiicilties were built around and over the industrial zone. The tracks were too expensive to move and the city could not agree on an overall plan to tum the area into a consumer district.

The problems of the railways pushing the city northward since the 1800s, inhibithg development of the land und the late 1980q has been overcome by an unplanned process of urbanization. Developments occurred through segrnented and private interests. There remains a CO-existenceof realities of distinct the segments extracted from hear-ity and laid out in one space and tirne. One can contrast the raiiway, a one hundred year old mode of transportation, to the CN Tower, an engineering 'wonder,' where people travel upward to the highest observation deck in the world. The industrial transport lands have not been displaced, but exist within the consumer area The railways are dlrunning, but may eventualiy become an aesthetic aspect of the site as a heritage appeai, an aspect of history that the City built over and around to Save.

The Role of Politics

As a rising consumer area, the city zoned the land bound between the Gardiner

Expressway and Front Street, and Yonge and Bathurst Streets, for entertainment, retail, hotei, office and/or residential facilities. According to the City of Toronto, Planning and

Development Board, the site should "have a mi.of uses, and a form, character and environmental quality which will ensure that the ana is used by people for a wide variety of purposes throughout each day" (Plannùig and Development Board 1994, 19.225).

Their objective is to minùnize the barriers of the railways and the Gardiner Expressway, integrate the land into downtown Toronto and reunite the city to the harbourf?ont

(Planning and Development Board 1994). They ensure the iron-grid system that underlies Toronto's structure will continue throughout the area to maintain a consistent urban fibric that connects the difEerent parts of the City.

Under the CN Commercialkition Act in July of 1995, CN underwent pnvatization in a share issue to national and international investon. As stipulated in the Act, the govemment purchased CN's 'non-operating' land, and human resources associated with the land, for MO0 million, and transfened the acquisition to Canada Lands Company, a non-agent crown corporation. The trader arnounted to approxïmately one hundred and nfty properties consisting of the CN Tower, hotels, shopping malls, office complexes and land. CN7ssixty acre patch of land between Front Street and the Gardïmer Expressway surroundhg the CN Tower and the SkyDome stretching west to Bathurst Street was also included in the transfer.

Founded in 1956 under the name, 'Public Works Lands Company,' Canada Lands was granted "power to acquire, manage, improve, sell or otherwise deal in or dispose of real or personal property or any interest therein" (Canada Lands Company 1997). Upon acquisition of CNYsproperty Canada Lands divided the assets into three categones: the

CN Tower, properties under development and land held for development or sale. And

'3he two principal types of business operations currently camed out by the Corporation are: a) real estate management, value enhancement and divestiture through Canada Lands

Company CLC Lirnited. and b) entertainment and hospitality through CN Tower Limited"

(Canada Lands Company 1997). As a competitor in the private sector, they claim that they support Canada's deficit reduction program as weii as "the goals and aspirations

Canadians have for themselves and for their communities" (Canada Lands Company

1997). Sidar to pnvate companies, they seek to maximize profit and receive no subsidies fiom the govemment. Pnor to the CN Commercialkation Act, they were used primdy as a holding company for two properties in London, England, and two properties on First Nations' resewes in Canada. Now, Canada Lands head office is in Toronto and there are five regional offices located in Vancouver, Edmonton, Toronto, Montreal and

Moncton.

In lune, 1996, Canada Lands announced an international cornpetition to private corporations to purchase adordevelop the land around the CN Tower with a mandate of tourkm and entertainment under the name, 'City Place.' Their objective was '90 attract signincant private sector investment to expedite productive utilization of the lands for the bettement of the community" (Canada Lands Company 1997). The only building not for sale was the CN Tower. However, the company sought a partnership to redevelop the base. Some of the proposais submitted were fiom Cambridge Shopping Centres Limited,

Olympia and York Properties Incorporated, and Simon DeBartolo Group. MC4

Universal, Cineplex and Wittington Properties Limited also expressed interest in couaborating with the winning company.

John Tevlin, president of the CN Tower until 1997, submitted his own development proposd under the title, 'Millennium Place.' An article in the Financial Post magazine published in April of 1996 disthguished Tevlin as one of the 'Top 40 Under 40' successes in the business world (Profile 1996, 26). In fact, the media has widely granted

Tevlin credit for the success of the 'new' CN Tower. With the company in a state of decihe, he was hired on as president in 1992. The CN Tower was described as visuaiiy wom dom with management relying solely on tounsm for income (CN Tower Limited

1997, 1). Creating a five year redevelopment plan, Tevlin is held responsible for updating the interior façade of the Tower and creating a ticket system that improved crowd control,

cutting line-ups in halE In the past, promoters attempted to attract visiton by advertishg

it as a fituristic communications device and the world's tailest fiee-standing structure with

the world's highest observation deck. Promoters. now advance it as an entertainment

centre, '90 make the Tower one of Toronto's most popular enterthent destinations for

both residents and tourists" (CN Tower Lirnited 1997'2).

Up to date, the (SN Tower is divided into the Space Deck, the SkyPod and the

base. The Space Deck remains the highest observation deck in the world. The SkyPod

contains the recently renovated revolving restaurant, a bar, a souvenir sho p, the 'latest' technological visual equipment and a recentiy instailed glass floor enabling visitors to

'walk on air.' It aiso houses the 'EcoDek': an environmental tour ofthe globe consisting of interactive exhibits. At the base, both the interior and the extenor are utilized. hside is a series of simulator or Whial reality attractions including the Simulator Theatre offering signs (physical indicators) for the sensation of locomotion for participants to interpret movement through space; a Q-ZAR laser tag, enabling participants to physicdy engage in a simulated battle; and Vhai World, an interactive game conducted with video monitors.

There is a mini-putt golf course surrounding the exterior of the Tower, a mountain climbing waU attached to the exterior of one of the Tower's fins, a foodcourt following the foxm of a shopping-mail food court, and two gift shops, with both CN Tower paraphemalia and generic souvenirs that can be found in rnany tourist gift shops throughout Canada. There is also an outdoor pub and a snackbar, as weil as a patio extending from the foodcourt. Two new elevators were built hto the north fin of the

Tower, and a five hundred space parking lot was planned. Since 1992, the CN Tower's entertainment revenues have increased by forty-eight percent and its cash-flow earnings by fortysne percent. In efforts to connect the CN

Tower to the SkyDome and the Metro Convention Centre, Tevlin's, MIlennium Place, was to be his next project. The design was an enclosed entertainment complex of 350,000 square feet that would also be Lùiked to the Harbourfront. While the land would remain under public ownership, Miilennium Place would be fully hanced by pnvate investors.

However, afier going through hundreds of proposals, Canada Lands announced in

Mardi of 1997 that a forty-four acre plot of land will be split into two sections, each owned by a separate company. The Toronto-based real estate company, TrizecHahn

Corporation is expected to construct a 250,000 square foot retail, tourism and entertainment complex next to the CN Tower, the SkyDome and the Metro Convention

Centre. They will also purchase a mixed-use building on 15 1 Front Street West and the

SkywaUq an indoor shopping concoune extending from Union Station to the CN Tower.

They wiii lease the CN Tower and its base for up to sixty-five years.

The land West of the SbDorne to Bathurst Street will be developed by Grand

Adex properties Incorporated Their plan consisting of office towers, stores, restaurants, five thousand townhouse and condominium units, and a three hectare park. Out of the five thousand housing units, fifteen hundred would be aliocated for social housing. A school and a daycare were also planned. Current zoning ailows for buildings in the commercial core of City Place, by Front Street and Spadina Avenue to reach as high as thuty stones. Moving westward, the height of the buildings must decrease to a range of seven to fifteen stories. President of Grand Adex, Terry Hui, said in a press conference,

"This 18-hectare property is ideally situated as a natural extension of the existing downtown core and provides a wonderfbl opportunity for the creation of a master-planned

new residential and mixed-use neighbourhood" ("Major" 1997, Dg).

Private Management

Trizec Corporation Limited was a stnigghg real estate company owned by the

Bronfhn fdy's, Edper Group Lirnited. In 1995, Trizec moved its head office from

Calgary to an office space across the hail f?om Horsham Corporation in BCE Place,

Toronto. Under Gregory Wilkins' guidance, then president of Horsham, Trizec office

division began selling its completed office towers and purchashg undervalued ones in

recoverhg downtown districts (Gitths 1997, 77). TNec's retail division, Hahn Co.,

began selling off its smaiier shopping mds for the purchase of larger fashionable ones in

muent areas. Lee Wagman, president of the San Diego-based retail division understands

that the older shopping mails that were anchored by major department stores have gone

out of fashion. Trizec began investing in shopping complexes anchored by tourist

attractions, multi screen theatres, or 'hip' superstores such as Nke or Vugin Records

(Gittins 1997, 78). For example, in 1995, Trizec began construction on Meadows

Shopping Center in Denver by a design fashioned dera Rocky Mountain ski lodge.

Horsham Corporation was a holding company owned by Peter Munk. The company had forty-eight percent interest in Trizec, but even with the improvements the stock was only half of what Horsham invested. Under the belief that the real estate company needed more capital to invest in Amencan cities, merger arrangements between

Horsham and Trizec began in 1995. By November 1996, the two companies merged, under Munk's ownership, to fom TrizecHahn Corporation. Since then TrizecHahn has purchased landmark properties in rnidtown Manhattan and office towers in New York, Daiias, Houston, Minneapolis and Los Angeles. Generaiiy, the mandate of TrizecHahn

Retail Centers Incorporated is not to purchase complexes but develop projects (Gittins

1997). Presently underway are development projects such as the Denver West Regional

Mali, the Aladdin Casino in Los Vegas, and the site on Hollywood Boulevard in Los

Angeles, including Mann's Chinese Theatre and the Walk of Farne. Other projects include the Polus Centre shopping, office tower and business park complex in Budapest, Hungary;

Brandenburg Park south of Berlin; and Germany's fist retail outlet centre in

Ludwigsfelde.

Canada Lands chose to keep the CN Tower because it is an 'icon of Canada.'

TrizecHahn has not yet announced what they will do with it. However, positive attitudes emerged fiom the media concerning the issue of partnership between public and private companies. Over a nine-year construction penod, two thousand jobs are expected to be created. Mayor Arthur Eggleton said, "This is exactly what we need to get the economy

Ui Metro movhg again" (Wong 1997. Al). In the same article Wong wrote, "The project is viewed by most city officials as the spark that will start the city's economic recovery. It is welcome news, especidy since the city has spent decades battling over the fate of the site."

The TrizecHahn take-over is an invasion of private enterprise into the civic redm.

City planners now rely on the production of the mode of consumption., of businesses supplying the city with public space and social atmosphere. Under the belief that motivation for proM will satisfy th= people's needs, TrizecHahn now has legal nghts to present the civic monument as they wish. Difishg the lines between public and private enterprise, the CN Tower will continue to appear as a public monument, a city landmark, a public tourist attraction, and an entertainment centre, but its management is private. Chapter 3: Elevated to Ambivalence

The remainder of this thesis is divided into two chapters. The present chapter, is an analysis of the exterior of the CN Tower and its inherent, ambivalent status. As an object that cannot be contained within the bounds of the modem notion of utility, it is a sign of many codes, connected to many images. Revealing the death of iconography fkom the rishg significance of the image, the original design of the CN Tower is examined.

Movhg into chapter four, the focus is on the interior of the Tower, and how it is a spectacle of a spectacle in the 1990s. 1 reveal its placement within the postmodem paradigm and complete this thesis by revealing its position in different social networks.

3.1 A Towering Conception

The vague conception of the word, 'tower' encompasses structures throughout history and fiom around the world. It is an elevated structure rishg f?om the earth into the sky with a particular emphasis on its upward direction. When juxtaposed to other structures, it is narrow and hi&. Yet its construction, placement, use and significance differs among cultures. The tower is an empty sign given as many meanings as a culture can create for it.

The meanings that are usuaily connected with the sign of elevation are often connected to the tower. For example, a structure rising up f?om the ground can be seen as an expansion of consciousness and a medium to transcend one's existing position in life.

Theonsts argue this by extracted examples fiom the past such as Mount Olympus in Greek mythology being the dwelling for the Gods, Noah's ark landing on Mount Araiat, and

Moses receiving God's laws on Mount Horeb. The Mongoiian people see the peak of Belukha mountah in the Altay Mountains as God's mountain and Lamaists in Nepal considered the mountains of Machapuchare, Gauri Sankar, and Kangchenjunga as holy mountains (Heuile and Leonhardt 1989). Thinkers comect the idea of elevation to a greater state of being. And 'a greater state of being' as a concept then proliferates through discourse where people deke elevation as urban liberation, a oneness with cosmology, a comection to Go4 or an expression of hancial power. People climb towers, rnountauis or other elevated sites for an overview the landscape in which they live. men seen as the desire to learn about one's own existence, the aerial view is an ove~ew of the human condition. People can look upon their space as a complete whole. The tower can provide an ascent away fiom the world, outside one's position in life to a greater and more encompassing state of being. Thinkers have attributed this vague and symbolic concept of power and sacred presence to churches, temples, shrines, pagodas and skyscrapers.

The conceptions of a greater state of being in comection with elevation is fùrther proliferated through discourse, enabhg people to use the tower metaphorically to describe human achievements and advancements. Academic success is referred to as working one's way up the ivory tower, or in the business world, an economic achievement is referred to as 'a towe~gsuccess.' People 'climb the ladder of success,' or 'work their way up' in the business world. The metaphors are used for those who are recognized for their outstanding achievements in such fields as academia, business, sport and the performing arts. When judged by peers in the same field, the 'great' achievers seem to have a better understanding of Mie, they are believed to be in a higher state of being, which dows them to possess a quality mattainable by everyone else. They are icons put on a peâestai, towe~gabove the rest, rishg in excellence.

'ïheorists aiso provide practicai accounts for towen. For example, defense towers can fùnction as lookout posts for the observation of oncorning intruders or as advantageous positions in batde. In 3200 BC, the Egyptians had residential towers which also served for defense (Heinle and Leonhardt 1989). The early Irish round towers were safe places for the village people to hide when under attack by their enernies (Fisher

1969). The tower can be a town landmark In medieval tirnes, cities contained civic towers on the town halis to portray the importance of the bourgeoisie (Heinle and

Leonhardt 1989, 12). In any society with a diversity of built structures, there is always one that inevitably stands out as the taIiest. According to Gottdiener (1986), towers were placed in the centre of medieval villages, and at the base was an open square used for the public market: a meeting place for people to socialize and exchange goods.

Today, in the twentieth century, towers exist in a countless variety of forms.

There are broadcasting devices, windmills, iighthouses and electricity poles. Developers of restaurants, office buildings and landmarks may dso include towers in their designs.

Towen are used in religious buiidigs, financial districts, city centres and universities.

Some towers are used just for observation. The word 'tower' uin be applied ephemeraily to anythhg that physically or metaphorically nses. Whether it is labeled as a symbol of fùlnlluig dreams, of financial power, of phallus, of a desire to be closer to God, a tourist attraction, a public centre or a defense post, the tower belongs to the movement of culture, and continues to change with it. The Modern Observation Tower

Observation Towers such as the Eiiel Tower in Park the Skyion in IGagara Falls, the Stuttgart Tower in Stuttgart, the Sydney Tower in Sydney, and the Ostankino in

Moscow, were built to be looked upon and looked out Eom. Barthes says the EEel

Tower is "an object which sees, a dance which is seen; it is a complete verb, both active and passive, in which no finction, no voice (as we say in grarnrnar, with a piquant ambiguïty) is defective" (1979,4). It is a tower for observation but is not hidden; it is also an object to be seen. It "transgresses this separation, this habitua1 divorce of seeing and being seen" (1979, 5). Likewise, the CN Tower is on display to the greater Metropotitan

Toronto area and it is also an observation post. Architect Ned Baldwin explained that because it is located at the front of the city he was concemed with how it would appear when people scanned Toronto's landscape (Fulford 1995, 32). Modem observation towers attract viewers to nse up to their observation decks not for what they contain, but to look out upon the landscape from which they came. An observation tower is an empty sign that does nothing but direct sight back to the viewer. It has no ontology and signifies no meaning; it is a passageway of sight where somewhere within it, it ceases to be an object to be looked at and becornes an object to be looked out from.

The CN Tower

The CN Tower's true fùnction and what it syrnbolizes remains debatable. Fulford cails it the "most powerful and flamboyant public sculpture in Canada," saying that aside fiom its function as an electronic communications device, it functions to assert its own importance (1993, 32). According to Whiteson and Gage, "Its 'marveiiousness' is its true function" (1982, 30). McHugh says, "The CN Tower is a monument to monumentality" (1989, 53). As both a leisure attraction airneci at gaining profit, and a communications device used to transmit the city's broadcasting waves, it mbs Torontonians sideways, leavhg them with mixed feelings. It is something they can hold as one of the city's great achievements, yet they are also aware of and embarrasseci by promoters' commercial efforts that continue to direct its progression. In an article in the Globe and Md[, John

Bentley Mays questioned why he never talked about the CN Tower when describing

Toronto to his American fXends. In response he claimed, "There is no way to write about this master work of modern wnstnrction without reminding readers of the vile indignities the hucksten and hawkers have been visiting upon it since the day of its completion, in

1976" (Mays 1994, C2). Lods will teil visitors it is the tailest free-standing structure in the world, but will then Say they do not care for it, and have never taken the theto visit it

(Fulford 1995, 18). Common reasons why locals have gone to the CN Tower include a date to the 360 Revolvhg Restaurant, to entertain guests to the city, or to participate in one of the charity stair climbs.

In December, 1995 the American Society of Civil Engheers voted the CN Tower as one of the Swen Wunders of the Modern WorZd (Pope 1995). Along with the Panama

Canal, the Itaipu Dam on the Brazil-Paraguay border, the Golden Gate Bridge, the English

Channel Tumei, the Empire State Building, and the North Sea Protection Works in the

Netherlands, the CN Tower received wmmemoration as a great piece of modern work.

But it can only be commemorated as a display and expression of the advancement in engineering. It is an engineering 'wonder,' without, accordiig to the modem myth, a fùnction. It is a means tumed into an end. Unlike the other modern 'wonders' it is for direct wnsumption. That is, its technicd fûnction is marginal to its existence. In its opening in 1976, fifteen percent of the CN Tower's revenues were from communications;

today, they are twelve percent (FwEord 1995, 31). As indicated in the introduction,

developers and CN Tower Limited claim that its extreme height is necessary to transmit

radio and television broadcasting waves, but critics express doubt. Its construction, the materials use& its shape, attractions, and organization of space were not necessary for

communications. Architect Ned Baldwin admits, even before its opening, that the crew knew they were creating a structure directed towards tourism (1975, 30).

The CN Tower is thus not a single, ail-encompassing signifier. Its signincance as a physical structure eists in a matrix of discourse that meet spatial metaphors in different locations. The spatial definitions of city, country, and world are pardeled by distinct significations of the CN Tower. In other words, it is &en different meanings in reference to categorical spatial constnicts used in common English. It can be juxtaposed in reference to downtown Toronto, Toronto as a city, the greater metropolitan area, Ontario as a province, Canada as a country, and the world as the entirety of civilized space. The foilowing is a three-part discussion describing the CN Tower in relation to Toronto,

Canada and the world.

Toronto Juxtaposition

The C=N Tower can be irnmediately juxtaposed to the city' by sight. In contrast to the rectangular skyscrapers, it is a narrow pend-shaped image tapering inward, extending to a point twice as a high as the congiomerate of blocky structures in the city. It is light gray, and suspends its uniquely shaped observation deck above the city's highest skyscraper. The CN Tower stands out as a distuictively original structure on Toronto's

l Thejuxtaposition d the CN Tower to îhe tity is in nference to the downtown core of Toronto. horizon line. Ifjuxtaposed to the city, it appears to be created from a unique ontology where only one is needed to serve the entire area And as one of a kind, seen tiom almost anywhere in the &y, it stands as a Toronto landmark Descriiing the CN Tower as geographic marker, Richler says "ifyou are a newcomer and unwilling to stroll about with a compass... you wiIl instead develop an affecfion for the tower" (Richler 1995, CS).

In its first years of display, isolated in CN's industrial lands, promoters stmggIed to destroy the dichotomy between commercial and industrial zones. Without consumer aesthetics and paraphemalia in the area, the CN Tower was less inviting than it is today.

According to Torontonians, children use to say, 'there are no buildings around it just in case it fds over.' WMe it st3.I succeeded as a tounst attraction, it was inconvenient.

There were no other attractions in the area, which forced people to travel by car or public transit to get to it.

Even today, ftom certain angles and usudy fiom postcards that look ont0 Toronto fiom Lake Ontario, the CN Tower is located on the periphery of the city. It gives an overd appearance of a disorganization of space and a sign of a Young, incomplete city.

The sihouette of the Toronto skyline is broadened. The Tower stands just outside the edge of the city's conglomerate of skyscrapers. It is at enough of a distance to not be central, but not fiu enough away to hold its own centrality. The group of skyscrapers is

Like a hiil or a beil curve graduaüy elevating nom each side towards the middle. Even with the CN Tower in view, the skyscrapers constitute the centre of the cityscape. However, the juxtaposition of the high pointed tower broadens the visual range of the viewer. It draws the viewer Eom the core into the penphery. And the empty space between the

Tower and the city takes on character. It is a competing visual display. The two eye catchers are close enough together to be part of the same panoramic vision, but far

enough apart to cause the eye to glance back and forth without achieving a resolution of

oneness. The Toronto silhouette f?om spots such as Lake Ontario or near the corner of

Coîîege and Bathurst Streets, lacks Linearity- It contributes to Toronto's chaotic façade,

teiiing the viewer the city has not reached its capacity and is in need of further

development. On the other hand, when viewing the CN Tower fkom, for example, Young

and Bloor Streets, it appears as a well-planned structure situated within the core of

Toronto. Toronto appears as a modem city with a strong foundation.

Civic Façade

Contrasted to its marginal location, the CN Tower is centrai for the creation of a

civic façade for Toronto. To use an analogy, movie stars go on tak shows to promote

their movies. The tallc show is the medium between the public and the perfonner.

Performers reved their lives outside of acting and give signs the public can ident* with.

It is an outlet for perfonners to present themselves as people the public can know on a

personable and personal basis. Similarly, businesses attempt to incorporate themselves

into the community façade of a place. They present familiar signs of their surroundings,

such as a landmark to personalize themselves. They incorporate their image into the

image of the cornrnunity. In effect, they create the image of a cornmunity. For example,

Molson Canadian, with its '1 am Canadian' advertisements, contributes to the Canadian

identity. They promote the consumption of beer through the actuhtion of one's kinship

with ail Canadians and a mystic awareness of the Canadian identity. On Canada Day,

Molson Canadian sponsored Whiskey Saigon, a nightclub in Toronto, where anyone who

said '1 am Canadian' was admitted free of charge. In short, when businesses incorporate themselves witbin the façade of a wmmunity, they becorne elements of the community and nostalgie aspects of the place.

Private corporations defiise the fine between private and civic enterprise by portraying a civic image for themselves. CHUM City is a privately-owned broadcasting

Company. City TV, a subsidiary of CHUM City, is a TV station that appears to represent

Toronto. The medium is the message and by its structure and format as weli as its choice of information given, City TV's message is Toronto, a civic place and a close cornmunity.

Live camera shots fiom different parts of the city, with the fiuniliar City TV commentatorys voice announchg, "City TV, everywhere! " is periodically placed between comrnercials and the formatted TV programs. The City TV truck with the station's logo painted on its side, can be seen parked or driven throughout the city. And people walking on the streets of Toronto are televised to introduce movies. Furthemore, 'Speakers

Corner,' produced and broadcasted by City TV, is a community fund raiser that promotes interactive media among the Toronto people. The public can step inside a Mdeo booth located in fiont of the CHüM City building, donate a loony, and express themselves to the rest of Toronto. And finally, 'City Pulse' news, sMilar to local TV news programs around the world, delivers information of community news and events. As a result, City TV is imprinted into the city's definition as a constituent of Toronto.

The CHUM City building is located on the corner of Queen and John Streets in one of the cultural centres of the city. The actual building is the visual logo used by City

TV when introducing the news or a movie. Much Music, which is housed on the main floor of the building, utilizes the bay windows that look out ont0 Queen Street. For example, Electric Circus is a dancehide0 show presented every Friday night by Much Music on the main floor of the building. It feahues dance music videos and Toronto teenagers dancing in the studio. To Toronto and the rest of Canada, the production incorporates the urban dance culture into the dance culture of the media world. However, behind this façade, participants are required to audition for the show before being accepted. Outside on Queen Street there is a crowd of spectators, stereo speakers extending the music ont0 the street, and a camera person yehg at the spectaton to dance and make noise. As part of the show, Juliette Powell, the host of Electnc Circus, ofken makes her way out onto the street to exchange words with the spectators. Today, the

CHüM City building is ofken referred to as the City TV building or the Much Music building; but regardless of its title, it has become a city icon for locals.

The image of the CN Tower as a civic monument and landmark of the city is often utilized by Toronto businesses. It is the symbol of Toronto, the point of reference and even identity- a sign of the city. It can be what a T-shirt company uses to sell shirts, or what a TV station displays to promote a nostalgie sense of community. Tt can be in newspaper advertisements for a courier company, situated in the cartoon landscape on the menu of a Toronto dé, or placed on the edge of the page for a stereo Company advertisement. Whether one is entering the city of Toronto by automobile, airplane or boat, one cannot miss the CN Tower. In everyone's view it connects the people of

Toronto; it is what aii viewers of the city have in comrnon. The image of the CN Tower enables businesses and stores to associate themselves with place and personalize themselves within the imagined community. They use it to incorporate themselves into the urban fabric of the city. That is, they elimùiate their own ambiguity by producing an image for themselves as local, Toronto companies. CN Tower management aiso incorporates the image of the Tower into the façade

of the community by their achial involvement. They promote it as 'the people's Tower'

and a civic monument. On its twentieth birthday, management held a 'community

barbecue' featuring some of the cast of hmthe musical, 'Forever Plaid.' A five dollar

admission fee was charged, and the proceeds were donated to Toronto's Sick Chüdren's

Hospital. Management also arranged for F-14 fighter jets to fiy by the Tower and guests

were treated to a birthday cake shaped &er its image. Vsitors celebrating theu twentieth

birthdays or twentieth anniversaries, and spectators fiom that evening's Blue Jays basebail

garne were admitted to the SkyPod free of charge. A member fiom senior management

said their goal is to make the CN Tower a 'gateway' to the city. They sponsor the Big

Brother Association and the Toronto Metropolitan police; they host the Special Olympics

as weil as two ch* stair climbs a year- the United Way and the World WildiEe Fund.

And in February of 1996, management hosted 'Oasis,' a party for and in appreciation of

one hundred and nfty of Toronto's volunteer organizations in the areas of health,

education, social seMces and the arts.

In contrast however, the proliferation of the Tower's image is for some people its

own dernise. Its over-exposure desensitizes locals to its existence. To a new-comer

scanning the cityscape, the juxtaposition of the Tower to the rest of Toronto rnakes it a

, focus of attention, but the violent distinctions of the city's spatial arrangements can be

overlooked and taken-for-gmnted after seeing it a few times. From over-exposure it

becomes an overlooked aspect Toronto's natural landscape, a structural and spatial

arrangement that people are use to. On the TV screen, in the newspapers, on T-shirts and

advertisements, and on Toronto's horizon line drowning its appeal, the CN Tower is marginal in the discourse of Torontonians. Locals say they do not think about it and many

have never thought to visit it. When asked why, the most cornmon responses were '1

don't loiow' and '1 have never had a reason to.' For these people the Tower has escaped

sensitivity, and has become a taken-for-granted aspect of Toronto.

1Am Canadian

In August of 1995, CN Tower management hung a Microsoft banner of 162-

metres by 6-metres along side of the CN Tower to promote the release of the Wmdows

'95 cornputer program. As an international tourist attraction that attracts 1.7 million

visiton a year, it, for many, stands on display as a national icon and landmark of Canada.

Bohdan Lukie, wrote a letter to the Toronto Star saying that the Microsoft Wmdows

banner "hanging so cheaply fiom this tower was ove~helming~What a sad prostitution

of a proud monument" Gukie 1995, AM). The following year, when a Wdt Disney

banner of similar shape was displayed along the stem of the Tower, Chnstopher Hume

said, 'men advertising banners appeared on the shaft of CN Tower, the world's taiiest

fi-ee-standing structure also became the world's tackiest. First was Microsoft, now it's

Walt Disney - f?om bad to worse" (Hume 1996, 14). The negative feedback was in

response to management's 'blatant' advertising strategies. As an international tourist

destination, presented as a public icon, and 'owned by the people of Canada,' to critics it

signifieci Canada as an unpatriotic, money-hunpy country.

Also seen as significant, the banners were from American corporations. Part of being Canadian is not identifjing with America too much. There must be at least an ambivalent zone in Canadian discourse for Arnerica-bashing. In the presence of

Canadians, Arnericans can be criticized as loud, overbearing and ignorant people. Statistics seem to develop out of people's mouths that say, for example, 'forty percent of

Americans can't even find their own country on a world globe.' They are labeled as egocentric, beiievuig the world revolves around them. They are accused of not understanding other cultures, but expect the cornforts oftheir own culture to be provided for them where ever they are. It is tme that remote tourkt areas often become commerciaiked under American inventions: McDonaId's Restaurant has become a cosmopolitan institution; and the American douar is the universal currency of exchange.

Accusations of corporate imperialisrn are a popular strikes agauist America. Amencan imperialisrn remains fertile ground for Canadians to shed their American inclination.

Distinguishing Canada as 'a peace-keeping country' citizens often proudly backpack around the world with Canadian flags on their packs. As if their country is innocent of

America's corporate hvolvement in exploithg women and children in third world countries, they travel the world saying 'Like me, I am Canadian, not American.'

The CN Tower holds a shifüng position in the dichotomy between Canada and

Arnerica. On the one hand, it is the world's tdest fieestandhg structure, and the

Company makes sure every visitor is told it. As part of the promoters' nationdistic montage, a mural of famous Canadians in the fields of sport, fashion, entertainment and other areas of achievement was pauited in the private dining room of the 360 RevolWig

Restaurant. It is a 'surreal' mural of people Qing which Charles Dunlop, adrninistrator of the painting, believes appeals to anyone who fantasks about flying (CN Tower Limited

1997, 28). Also, promoters display the work of contemporary Canadian artists. Joanne

Todd, Charlie Pachter, Michael Snow, David Bolduc and Thaddeus Holownia have aii presented their work in the reception area of the restaurant. Promoters produce a narrative that builds the CN Tower and Canadian hsts into the Canadian identity- In

hct, they fàbricate a Canadian image fiom the ideai that a country produces a nation of

individuais that cm be coilectively contrasteci to the rest of the world. Presenting the

work of Canadian artists connects the CN Tower into the space of Canada, giving it a definition as place to be commemorated as a national landmark.

On the other hand, as explained by Tony Wong in the TmoStar, some critics have 'slamrned' the Tower for its "very un-Canadian machisrno attempt to be the biggest at something" (Wong 1996, A6). He cites former president of the Ontario Association of

Architects, Ellis Galea Kirkland, who says "It's hurrah architecture, it says, 'Look at me,

I've anived,' and it's a delighttùiiy un-Canadian trait. It says we're trying to be the ht and the best" (KirHancl cf Wong 1996, A6). Wong also notes the dEerence between

Canadian and Arnencan fast-food, saying "Canadian culture fights for space in the food court where Taco Beii and Pizza Hut face off with Tirn Hortons and Haweys" (Wong

1996, A6).

With the CN Tower occupying an already-ambivalent status promot ers antagonized the public with their display of the Microsoft and Disney banners. Politician

Howard Moscoe said, ''1 don't like a big Arnencan corporation violating one of our tourist sites, the whole image of Toronto is tied up in that tower." And he further said, refehg to the American corporations, "Let 'em put their sign on the Empire State building"

(Moscoe c.f Swainson 1995, Ml). Similarly, Wong referred to the advertisers as 'ugly

Adcans' and accused CN Tower management of doing whatever they could to make rnoney, including "hanging out dirty corporate laundry" (Wong 1996, A6). GIobal Juxtaposition

Hermeneuticaliy, the CN Tower is uniquely the 'tdest fiee-standing structure in the world.' However, it sa belongs to a class of structures. How else could it be comparatively the taiiest? Documented in the Guinness of WorZd Records, its significance protrudes fiirther than its visuai space. That is, it is contrasted in a space broader than its visual range. The spatial category is the world, and the context is the realm of towers.

Documented in PopuI' MechrÏcs as one of the seven 'modem wonders,' its context is civil engineering. Heinle and Leonhardt (1989) describe the CN Tower in their book,

Towers, A HistoricuI Survey, which includes such stmctures as skyscrapers, temples,

Gothic churches and rock towers. The world space is a fluid context that can include communications towers, modem towers, all towers or even a.N structures. By use of photos, memory or conceptual knowledge, the CN Tower can be juxtaposed internationally to other structures. It receives international recognition. Tt is more than a landmark of its visual space, it symbolizes Toronto's placement on the map as cosmopolitan ciw.

While dEerent spatial categories are comected to various defhitions, an increasing tendency to see the CN Tower as a product of commercialism is evident. It is inevitably, by its very structure, a landmark of the city. Thus it is utilized for consumerism through a variety of facets, including the spatial categories dominant in discourse. Likewise, it provides severai avenues for public concem and criticism.

3.2 The Death of Iconography

Accordhg to MacCannell(1992), for anything to become an icon, it must have a cuit foiiowing. That is, there must be a group of people who recognize the icon. There is a hierarchicai social relation mediated around the icon where it is placed above its foliowers by its followers. MacCanneII uses the example of a Shakespeare play. Ody in front of Shakespeare fans wouId a Shakespeare production be received as a 'wonderfii1' performance (1992). However, Shakespeare is the 'great' Shakespeare to people who do not read his work. For many he is an icon not because of his work but because he has a cult followîng. Under the system of signs, icons can already be provided. The cult foliowing is a sign of an icun. The relationships between people and their icons have been displaced by images of iconography- And the images are created or recognized through signs.

Wwe can today produce a virtual clone of Richard Bohringer to put it on stage in his place, then because he has aiready replicated himself; he has aiready become his own clone before they clone him" (Baudrillard 1995, 98). In other words, his identity has aiready been reduced to a surfâced image, to an abstraction. He is an icon sensationalized and romanticized for people to respect. However, people do not perceive him; they perceive his image, his sign, what he represented. The clone of Richard Bohringer fits into the network of signs to tum him into an icon even before people know who he is.

The image of iconography is evident from W shows such as Beverly Hills 90210 and Fresh Prince of Bel Air, where actors and amesses perform two-dimensional character roles. These roles signiS. a WestyIe. It is a synthetic IifestyIe authenticated by clothes, attitude, slang and activities. Fictional characters become charismatic role models that viewers intend to emulate. Emulation is done by utiliting the signs. Thus, media images are the trend setters of fihion, attitude, leisure and entertainment. The sign is the message; that is, people look for signs to confirm their images and construct reality. TV news spokespeople must assume partidar physicai appearances, and extend specinc styles of speech and presentation of the information to validate the news. They mate fàlse stylized narratives "to report 'what is tme' by merging reality and representation in an electronic haze" (Luke 1991, 35 1). Nom MacDonald on Saturday

Night Live wears a shirt and tie, has a microphone on his shirt, sits behind what appears to be a newscaster's desk, and has a TV monitor positioned to the left of him. Presenting the material as if it were 'real' news, he performs his comedy act. Under ali the signs that make 'news' he changes one aspect, a sign, and turns the presentation into a comedy act.

It is enough for people to know he is not attempting to present 'real' news, but the entire façade of his presentation makes his act finny. Similarly, Ventos (1980) says Spain is semiological country where people live by the signs of American culture. The 'romantics' who first toured the country invented the image of Spain through the stories they brought back to their homeland. For Westerners, Spain becarne the sign of "adventure, passion, danger, and exiticism" (Ventos 1980, 169). Conversely, Spanish locais consumed the signs of Western culture. They Live as pseudo-Amencans, experiencing the signs, living to watch and not participate. He says, "We know what cybemetics, ecology, or counter- culture mean. We even bow whether they are reactionary or progressive... We do not have the opportunity to touch them or practice thern; only that of consuming the news of their birth and death. We Zive, as the football fans do with their teams ... we motget Our hands on the bail" (Ventos 1980, 170).

The Towering Icon

In many cases, the mediation between an icon and its foliowers, between tnith and its discoverers, has been replaced by the common image of the icon and of tnith. Because the CN Tower is located at the %ont door' of the city, developers tried to make it aesthetically pleasing. But even before its construction, its fonn was dready iwnic. In other wordq there was an existing generic of icon that the CN Tower was created under.

According the Whiteson and Gage, there was a trend, beginning in the 1960s. of world cities consmicting communication towers as u&an landmarks (1982, 29). Belonghg to the genenc of modem towerAeisure attraction, such as the ones in Moscow, Fr&rt,

Calgary, N~agaraFalls, Tobo, Kyoto and Seattie, the CN Tower was an icon before it was completed. Hence, it was to be the centre of the Metro Centre, to reposition downtown Toronto.

Eiffel was the father of modem tower/tourist attractions. The Eiffel Tower in

Paris, was constnicted in 1889 in celebration of the advancements in engineering. By the the of its construction, the bourgeoisie gained power through the ownership of capital, and most of the peasants were centralized in towns. worhg for wage labour. Religion and educationai institutions diverged fiom each other and the construction of palaces and churches was forsaken for the construction of libraries, theatres, galleries, museums and monuments. Meanwhile, the construction of towers in the nineteenth Century almost ceased. Religion was giving way to science and the need for structures stretchuig to the unhown diminished. Findy, displacing the spintuai or religious symbolism of the Gothic era, Eiffel revived the tower. The Eiffel Tower is a commentary which, in Eiffel's own words, is "a symbol of industiy and science" (Eiffel c.f Heinie and Leonhardt 1989, 214).

He proposed a new era that enveloped all aspects of life, fiom engineering to aesthetics.

Using the materials and technology that were used to construct bridges, he beiieved art should change with technology, and steel and modem engineering could be used aestheticdy for industrial art. It was to be a representation of modem beauty and a

symbol of a new direction for humanity.

Mer its completion, the new prestige of Paris was felt intemationdy, iduencing

other cities to construct simiiar structures. In 1890, London held a tower cornpetition.

There were over twenty submissions proposing steel towers with heights ranging from two hundred to four hundred and fifty-six meters. However, it was not until the first quarter of the twentieth century, when towers became finctional for radio transmission, that steel £rames became popular. For example, in 1926 a steel radio tower of one hundred and fifty meters was built in Berh. An Eiel Tower imitation of three hundred and thirty three meters with an Observation deck was built in Tokyo in 1959.

By the 1970s, CN Tower Limited knew they were constructing a public icon, filling a niche in culture; and they thus detennined it was econornically beneficial to patent the image of the Tower. A patent makes it iiiegal for the public to seli a clone of a product without permission from the originator. The distinction between the original and the counterfeit has been displaced by legal issues concerning, not the reproduction of an originai, but the sale of a reproduction. The acceptance of reproductions as legitirnate and desirable products has surfaced in the politics of capitalism. Before the completion of the

Tower, before it achieved cultural or historical significance, it was already an icon for people to purchase in the fonn of a souvenir. On the one hand, as mentioned above, the generic signs of previous iconized towers put the CN Tower into iconic statu. On the other hand, the aspects specific to the CN Tower are brought into already existing iconic forms. That is, the Tower's specitic image is comrnodified under the concepts that images oc for example, the Coliseum in Rome or the Eiffel Tower are sold. Souvenir shops sell its image in the fonn of an omament for consumers to place on their mantels or as a pichire on th& T-shirts. The souvenir is a niche in capitalism that CN Tower management understood even before the Tower was completed.

Both the CN Tower and its souvenirs are empty icons. Developed out of the signs of iconography they serve to generate incorne. Similar to the people who Say the 'great

Shakespeare' without reading his work, the CN Tower, with its souvenirs, is an icon without a concrete relation between it and its visiton. Best says der visiting the Sears

Tower, "Having experienced Chicago, we would naturaiiy want a postcard, T-shirt, or ashtray to wmmemorate the occasion. No doubt even to ve* it (would it be otherwise rd?)" @est 1988, 82). The CN Tower as an icon exists in discourse, as part of a network of reality. Developers subsumed the image of a tounst attraction in creating its design, and still today its visitors occupy the roles of tounsts. However, there is no iconic relation between the Tower and its visiton; the Tower is an icon fiom its genealogy and remahs an icon in image. Chapter 4: A Tourist AmactionIEntertainment Centre

A theme reiterated throughout this thesis describes the social interaction with and the definition of the built environment as an ever-changing process. Presently, discourse is directing towards non-dennition. Toronto has become a common place of the other, and its different aspects have surfaced into a haze of reality. Similady, by the 19904 the 1970s promotional mandate of the CN Tower was out of date. Accordhg to new management, old management faiied to recognize the needs of both customers and employees, and consider the impact of increased cornpetition (CN Tower Limited 1997, 1). They limited the cornpany's potential for long term growth by relying primarily on tourism. Following the restructuring of management in 1992, theû 'principle mandate' expanded to ccprovide entertainment that is customer se~ceoriented and offers a wide portfolio of unique attractions/exhibits and food and beverage venues" (CN Tower Limited 1997, 1). With their new logo, 'Toronto's Premier Entertainment Destination,' management now directs the Tower at Torontonians during off season. A member of senior management said they have broadened their venue to compete for the 'entertainment douar.' While there is only one commercial observation tower in the city, they compete with the entire entertainment industry of the greater Metropolitan Toronto area. They want people who are looking for an entertainment venue on Sunday afternoon or Friday night to choose the CN Tower.

At the same tirne, as an international attraction of Canada, the CN Tower represents the unification of the country into the international leisure trends generated fiom the globaiizïng circulation of production and consumption. Management has adopted the ephemeral and fiagrnentary tounst magnets that are consuming the northem world. In efforts to produce a carnivalesque attraction, they break away &orn the modem tendency of segmentation. Centred on the inside of their brochure is 'for amusement, amazement, chills, Ms, sights and delights visit the CN Tower- the world's tailest building.' Members of senior management make fiequent trips to Disney University to learn from what one member calleci, the 'lexicon' of the entertainment industry. In short, management has updated theu mandate and widened the Tower's venue to increase its range of visitors and remain prevalent within the leisure industry.

The actual facilities included with the change of mandate were listed in chapter two. Now, the focus is on the CN Tower's intenor, its connection to the circulation of production and consumption, and the consumer. Management has transcended modem discourse, demg the modem myth of utility in favour of the Tower's encompassing utility, which is to exist in imagination. On the surface, the CN Tower is the age-old camival, a place of liminality, and a space qualitatively different fiorn the everyday.

Ironically however, its carnivalesque façade is what inhibits its disposition to the imagination; it is culturaily dehed through commodity exchange. It is a contemporary tourist attraaiodentertainment centre. The imagination is lynited to its constructed images; visitors do not create their own fantasies they follow productions implemented by management. While ambivalence still exists among Torontonians, cntics and even out of town tourists, the CN Tower has become easier to label and culturally define.

4.1 The Carnivalesque Façade

The post-1992 CN Tower portrays a more convincing façade of a camival. There is a heterogeneous crowd of people, and a senes of distinct attractions. Instead of a single group of spectators watching one thing, people are scattered throughout the area. The lobby of the Tower is behind the main doors, facing south. If it was empty it would be an open space with a high ceiling. However, upon entering, there is an information kiosk to the right and to the left an escalator leadiig to a pathway that goes over the railway tracks to the Front Street entrance where there is an outdoor pl- area comecting the SkyDome and Planet Hollywood. Beside the escalator, near the ceiling of the lobby, is a large TV screen monitor showing various programs, including the original construction of the CN

Tower and clippings of people making and breaking world records by hand-gliding off the

SkyPod and pogo stick jumping up the Tower staircase. The back waii of the lobby is a line of booths where tickets for Q-ZAR, Virtual World, the Simulator Theatre, and the

SkyPod are sold. The booths are connected in a seamiess fiow of silvery steel, appearing like a ticket counter of a fùture airport or perhaps a space port. The interior space, which occupies most of the lobby, is a he-up area. The entire room is centred around a metal crowd organizer. On busy days people must walk the perirneter of the room to get fiom one side to the other, and on quiet days the crowd organizer is an Vnposing, out of place structure, forcing people to stdi waik the perimeter. It is clear that it is a line-up area constmcted for massive crowds. On a quiet day, visitors may be reiieved that they do not have to wait. On the other hand, while looking at the empty crowd organizer, they may feel desolate, as if they have corne on the wrong day, month or season.

On the nght side of the lobby there is a row of gates in the sleek steel image that was used for the ticket booths. The gates denote passages to the Tower's distinct attractions. Individual as well as combination attraction tickets indicate which gates to enter and at what the. A visitor knows, for example to enter gate 3 at 5 PM for Laser

Tag. Management distinguished the attractions fiom each other, making the line of gates the starting point and centre from which everything poliferates. And it is where visitors remeach thne they are about to engage in a new activity. However, beyond the gates

the pathways lose clarity. Gates 1 and 2 are long passageways pdeling each other.

Gate 1 is for the SkyPod and Gate 2 is for the 360 Revolvhg Restaurant. Halfway dom

either route appears a souvenir shop. It is difncdt to get to on busy days, but most people

who go up the Tower wiU at least see it. Gate 3 is for Q-Z& Via1World and the

arcade, and Gate 4 is for the foodcourt. Just beyond the threshold of gates 3 and 4 the

paths mesh back into each other. The path from Gate 3 loses clarity where visitors must

pay attention for the cut off hmthe lefk wall or else they will find themselves wonde~g

aimlessly around the foodcourt. Finally, Gate 5 is located beside the Simulator Theatre

near the information kiosk. Instead of a pathway leading to the attraction, the threshold is

reverseci. Participants must enter through the gate, go to end of the line of people and

wait in the passageway. People who are unaware of this will again walk too far and find

themselves lost in the foodcourt. There are employees standing by the gates helping

visitors find their way around, but too many employees in the area would intensify traflic,

especially on busy days. The base of the CN Tower is structureci to contain a variety of

attractions while maintainhg order among its visitors. However, as a point of

proliferation, there is overcrowding in the lobby. The line for the SlqPod elevator

sometimes reaches around, and extends through Gate 3, and there are usually people in the area trying to figure out where they are going. 1t is a chaotic point of proliferation forcing people to squeeze through the area in order to begin a new venture.

Virtual World and Q-ZAR are fianchise businesses owned and mn by (=N Tower management. Mind Warp Limited and the Toronto Cliibhg Academy lease space from management and hire their own employees. The Simulator Theatre and Mini-putt were built ont0 the site under management's guidance. There is dso a video game arcade

connechg the lobbies of Vyhd World and Q-ZAR. In the SkyPod the glass fioor was

instded by management; the EcoDek is scattered throughout two fioon of the Swody

organized by management in collaboration with severai sponsors. Finallys there are two

souvenir shops at base of the Tower and one in the SbPod. The result is a hapharard

organization of space and a proliferation of pathways. Instead of a unifonn act of people

entering through the main doors of the Tower, purchashg tickets, waiting in line, riding

the elevators, strohg the observation decks in a clockwise or counter-clockwise fashion,

retuming to the ground and leaving the building, there is a disorderly network of people

traveling in a various directions. There is no place to sit except in the lounge by the

elevator leading to the 360 Revolvhg Restaurant. An employee said the line-up for the

SkyPod elevators alone sometimes goes out the doors of the Tower and stretches dong

side the SkyDome. The base floor is a place for standing or waiting where people circle in

groups to converse or figure out where they want to go next. Moreover, the attractions

extend outside and around the Tower meshing with the park, the food and beverage

patios, McDonaIdysythe SkyDorne, Planet Hollywood, the street performers and the hot

dog and ice-cream stands. DiBising the lines between inside and outside, as well as between CN Tower attractions and other ficilities, the Tower blends into its surroundmg

area.

Every aspect of the Tower and its su~oundiigarea is both a passageway and a

place. Belonging to a genenc of camivalesque attractions that include sites such as

Disneyland and Niagara Fallsy the CN Tower is a spectacle of the spectacle. The conglomeration of people produces what Urry (1995) cals, a 'coliective gaze.' It is a self fiMling network or display, where people go to see thernselves; they are constituents to the attraction. In its purist form the collective gaze is of its own collective, an attraction from being a locus of conglomeration Being unaware of what goes on in the rninds of everyone else sustains its appeal. And it diverts people fiom questionhg why they are there. When questioned upon exïting the CN Tower, most visitors gave either neutral answers, such as 'its good,' 'its td,' or 'it was fin.' Or they gave rebeliious definitions, such as, 'its too expensive,' or 'its nothing unique.' These are spawned from generic responses that can be said for tourist attraCtions/entertaiment centres around the world.

4.2 The Future of Entertainment

In addition to the collective gaze, there must also be some kind of initial excuse for a space to be an attraction. The genealogy of communications towerdtourist attractions was briefly traced above. However, any existing attraction must be synchronized with cultural trends. The CN Tower no longer represents the future of communications, it represents a future niche in the tourisdentertainment and leisure industries. The goal of developers is to constmct a product that can extend the present, and rid it of spontaneity that is not part of the production. They supply consumers with a problem-fkee product where entertainment, thinking, and tùn is provided.

The 360 Revolvhg Restaurant is a hybrid of restaurants designed to envelop consumers in an overd expenence. As part of Tevlin's 1992 plan to upgrade the Tower, architects, Ned Baldwin and Mark Franklin, were hired to renovate the 360 Revolving

Restaurant in the Sky Pod. According to Franklin, 'polychrome colours' for visual richness, and natural materials such as Stone, slate, wood, stainless steel, plaster and leather were used for beauty and environmental cleanliness (CN Tower Limited 1997, 27). Management restructured both the staff and the physicai Iayout of the restaurant in the attempts to make it one of Toronto's finest dining faciiities. They hired some of the city's weli-known chefs, fiunished the kitchen for public viewing, displayed their 'award- wùining' wine selection, and remodeled the entire diig area. Since then, the restaurant bas been granted severai public awards, such as Wine Specfafor magazine's 'Award of

Excellence' in 1994 and 1995 for having one of the most outstanding wine lists in the world. In addition, the fidi '360' panoramic view offers an enhanced dining experience.

The novelty of enjoying a meal while rotating above civilization is a luxury that combines the Iandscape and the restaurant into a single cornmodity. Similar to a movie director who has a carnera person scan across the Iandscape at the beguuiing of hidher production, the view fiom the CN Tower is placed under the control of developers who tum it into a fluid presentation. They are unable to provide 'premium' weather conditions, and they do not simulate reality; but they guide visitors through it.

As human creativity is reduced to absorbing appearances, the signs of realiîy can be provided through simulation. In contrast to the diffusion of hes between inside and outside, there is a destruction of Iinear space within the physical boundaries of the CN

Tower. The linearity of the succession of events that ensures A precedes B and secures the physicai laws of the empirical world are replaced by the less defined limitations of technology. Management uses the dimensions of cyberspace to broaden the interior of the

Tower. Providing stimuli for the imagination and the senses, the limits are unknown. Just as simulation offers signs to authenticate redity' simulacra provides the signs to authenticate a non-existing reality. Eco says, when you take a ride on a paddle-wheel steamer in Mississippi and the captain "says it is possible to see alligators on the banks of the river, and then you don? see any, you nsk feeling homesick for Disneyland, where the wild animals don? have to be coaxed" (Eco 1983,44). Disney provides simulacra, a copy where there is no origin* a simulation not of reality but of a sign or an image. In other words, simulacra are a simulation of a fabricated or an ideal reality. In Disneyland an ideal reality is where the 'animals don? have to be coaxed.' Technology enables Disney to give the public a more interesting reality than nature. SUnilarly, the simulator attractions at the

CN Tower enables management to offer excitement and an 'adrenaline rush' drawn fiom actual Me but without the danger. Furthemiore, the attractions offer a reality supposedly more interesting and exciting then the actual world. Under the ontology that reaüty remains at the Ievel of the senses, sirnulacra are constructeci to provide people with experiences reai enough to prefer them over nature.

The CN Tower's base and SkyPod contain a decor of the hre. It is constxucted by the use of signs drawn fiom a synthetic image of the future to signe a reai place of the fùture. Its structures are made of sleek steel that are stretched and elongated with rounded edges to give an aerodynamic appearance. Deep colours and black and purple florescent lights deflecting the steel images are used throughout the Tower to give an outer space feeling. And silver coioured streamlines are placed on the walls and stairweils between the floors of the Swod. The signs are drawn nom a fictional or science- fictionai consensus of what the hrewould look like. 'IXs is why the decor is recognized as fùturesque, or if it is not recognized as fituresque, it is at least the basis of what developers believe would sign@ the fuhire. However, because the hrehas not happened yet, the decor is not drawn fiom reality. The act of creating the façade is from a network of communication; and the act of interpreting (decoding) the façade as intended legitimizes this reality. The CN Tower's decor is a concretization of an abstraction, an abstraction not âom reality but fiom a network of signs. Moreover, the elevator ride, the view of the landscape and the actual materials used to support the CN Tower are absor'bed into the fictional worlds of Q-Z& the Simulator Theatre, and the sleek steel designs that serve no other purpose than to produce an image. The Tower's façades integrate into its reai structure, and fiction and reality integrate into each other.

The employees of the shulator attractions are characters out of cyberspace. They

Wear dark sporty outf~tswith narne tags and the logo of the attraction they host across the front of their shirts. From behind the mysterious doors of the attractions they venture out into the ambivalent areas of the CN Tower to guide people fiom the physicai world into the space of non-linearity. When the participants cross the threshold they are fled into a room of distinctive lighting and textures. The doors are closed behind them and they are united, comected into a single group. There are two simple categones of hosts and guests, them and us. The commonality among the guests iq they do not know each other but are about to experience, as a group, a limllial adventure. They know they are about to collectively engage in an interactive garne, collectively agree to drop the fomaiities cornmon to stranger relations and participate together. Meanwhile, the host employee is the confidant, the guide and referee of the attraction. Q-- Q-ZAR is the most primordial of the simulator attractions because interactions between participants are not ficeteci through TV monitors. It is ftishioned after the children's game, 'guns,' but without the ambiguity of who got hit and who won or lost. It involves personal interactions of the participants moving around a 5,300 square foot battie area shooting laser beams at each others' body packs to eam points. The guns are fmhioned after laser guns that are used in the movies, and the outnts look iike battle attire fiom the fimire. Accordmg to management, the battle area is a "fituristic facility with energizing music, lighting and special effects" (aTower Lirnited 1997, 11). Rather then giving the façade of an acaial place, for example an industrial plant or an otnce building, developers created a space specifically defmed for battle. Participants are not in a space in this world but are in a space of sirnulacra: a simulated battle zone where there is no originai.

Virtual World

The same shlator technology that was in the past used by NASA and the militq is now used for Vuhial World. The Company is an expanding franchise with locations in

Canada, America and England; all of the locations can be connected for international competitions. Each Via1 Worid attraction is promoted as a transporthg station that takes participants into interdimensional realities. In the CN Tower, the Vhal Wodd hardware system consists of eight 'fiituristic' kterco~ected' pods' enabling participants to engage in interactive, 'virtual reality,' video games. Presently, there are two software packages offered: BATTLETECHB and RED PLANET@. The purchase of one ticket for Virtual World allows the participants to play one of the two games. The actual playing tirne is eight minutes. There is a briehg session or pre show, which lasts ten minutes, and a debriefing session, which lasts eight minutes, expanding the production to twenty-eight minutes,

While at the front desk of Via1 World, each participant creates a nickname for merself. Everyone is then filed into a room. The doors are closed behind them, and a video presentation begins. It is a skit of a great pilot preparing for battle, accomplishing her mission and experiencing the giory of euphoria She is a typical Hollywood rebel pilot breaking the rules and flirthg with the head scientist who has a cmsh on her. The skit is designed to entertain, as weil as inforrn people what the game is about, and how to play.

Laced with humour, a plot is built, encouraging people to imagine they are about to embark on an actual space mission.

Following the presentation the host employee addresses the participants for questions. They are then guided into a dark chamber where each person enters into a designated space pod. The doors of the pods are shut and each participant is entombed.

Fashioned after a fùture spaceship, there are a series of controls monitors and gadgets. In fiont, is a TV rnonitor simulating a window peering out onto the space world. Deep sound is also provided to enhance the simulations of movement and self-destruction.

Participants do not have real experiences to compare it to; it is a constructed reality, displacing the physical world, which include sight and sound, with the images of an irnagined reality.

The fictional story behind Vimial World elaborates an entire history extending back to the founders of 'Vimiai Geographic League' in 1895, Alexander Graham Bell and

NiaTesla. Their goal was 'discoverhg and explo~gother dimensions.' In attempt to include sïgns to fiibricate a secret history of interdimensional travel, there are black and white photos of different sues, in different fiames supposedly taken from difEerent points in time posted in the lobby of Vimiai World. They are of bulky vessels that were used in the old days, of travelers who never retumed to the twentieth cenhiry, of the explorers lounge where 'pilots enjoy a break between missions,' and of diffierent travel destinations.

There are also artifacts displayed that travelers brought back fiom other dimensions, such as an ancient mask fkom Anica. Furthemore, the two software packages offered at

Virtuai World are promoted as two distinct discoveries of Via1Geographic League.

The fictional story behind BATTLETECH@ situates the participants in the year

3028, on a desert planet. It involves Einstein and George Markov. Foilowing World War

TC, they discovered human colonies in outer space, two thousand years into the future. As part of Viai Geographic League, they sent 'famous' pilot, Sid Mandlebaum, fiom the twentieth century there through vimial reality. On his fourteenth mission, he left his space pod and went missing until he was found a decade later by a 'Virtual Geographic League reco~aissanceteam.' Mandlebaum refuseci to leave the Battle Tech zone, but he did supply the team with technical documents and a book he wrote, Inside the BaftZeTech

Universe. The manuals enabled Vial Geographic League to create the technology to transport people to any one of the 'BattIeMechs' safely.

The BATTLETECH@ package simulates a cockpit expenence in a "universe that is populated by machines controlled by human beings" (CN Tower Limited 1997, 14).

The program provides an open space of '100 square miles,' with changing weather conditions and obstacles for the players to move around and create their own action.

There is nothing inductive about the game; rather, it provides the setting; it simulates an image of the naturai environment of a deserted planet for such a battle to take place.

Founder of Via1World fianchise, Jordan Wiesman, describes the experience as a 'story'

that the players create (CN Tower Limited 1997, 14). The participants pilot the controls

of 'thkty-foot, wakg tanks' and engage in 'fiee-for-d' competitions, which means

everyone is against each other.

In RED PLANET@, participants tnwel to another discovery of Vutual Geographic

League: Mars- Red Planet, in the year, 2053. Upon discovery, the planet was under

control of 'the ultimate capitalist mega-corporation,' Colossal Mining Corp. They exploit

their workers through 'slave-labour wages' and overcharge them for housing and

sustenance. The employees cannot aord to retum to Earth and are thus trapped on

Mars. The ody other means of escape is through winnlng one of the staged races held by

'notorious profiteer, Freeman Jack.' However, not winning means 'neutralization.'

Hence, the game is a race where, according to management, pilots participate in a 'roller

derby-like' game (CN Tower Limited 1997, 16).

The story behind Vhal World mixes real dates, historical events, such as World

War II, and real people such Einstein and Beli, with fictional characters, events and places. haginhg that time travel is possible, the linearity of the story he has reasonable developments. There are gradua1 technological advancements extending from the hini of the cenhiry until the present, and Mandlebaum spent ten years in the fuhve drawing up manuscripts for life in the twentieth century. In fact, the story is more believable and mysterious than fântasy because Wtual reality is humanity using technology to bring simulation to Me. That is, as technological developrnents make possible simulations of the physical world, and better yet, of ideal or more interesting worlds, the possibility of transfefflng people between the two worlds is increasingiy a public concem. In movies

such as Viosity and Johnny Mnemonic, the transition occurred and the results were

devastating to the physical world. Fear of computer take-over, or people exithg into

cyberspace and never retunllng, have been featured themes on television programs such as

the Outer Lits, Star Trek and the X-Files. Science Fiction writer, William Gison,

focuses his stories on the friture and the ramifications of computer technology. After

watching teenagers play video games in an arcade, he coined the term '~yberspace~'

asserting that "thek posture seemed to indicate that they realIy. sincerely beiieved there was something behind the screen" (Gibson quoted in Johnson 1995). Public anxiety about rapid developrnents in the computer industry, of humans being subsumed by technology, are exaggerated and. in some aspects, created by the media. The extended sublirnity of cyberspace and vimial reaiity in the 1990s provides fertile ground for Virtual

World promoters to situate their product. Moreover, the historical succession of events, the detaited facts, and the science fiction shoreline b~gsthe attraction to Life. It creates a reality and a purpose to the garne, and nds the battle space on the computer screens of its anonymity.

Simulator Theatre

The production involving the Simulator Theatre includes motion, visuals, sound and a plot to virtualiy create a fantasy experience. The theatre contains two motion simulators that are modifïed 747 Flight Simulators. They are capable of six degrees of motion which include pitch, roll, yaw, heave, sway, and surge. The motion mes are synchronized to the movements projected ont0 the movie screen, and are accompanied by a six-channel surround-sound system. Now showing is Cosrnic Pinbaii; promoters descniie it as a "fûtunstic pinbd theme park floating in space. Converted classic cars act

as a pinbali that catapults the audience hto a powerfùl, high velocity hde through diverse,

multi-level areas filied with Bashg Lights, flippers, burnpers and pittiills" (CN Tower

Limited 1997, 14). In a press release, Michael Shearer, director of attractions said,

Cosmic Pinball is "an all-out assault of the senses. The cornputer-generated imagery and

vivid colours, combined with the intensity of the 747 Eght simulator and the sharp

soding clatters, twangs, rumbles and rom, sewe to heighten the ultra-real effect of the

film" (CN Tower Limited 1997, 10).

Host employees of the Simulator Theatre stand outside the attraction by gate 5 and

lead participants ont0 an elevator. The elevator takes them down a level to a preparation

room where there is an employee dressed in a lab coat tallcing with a mechanic on a TV

monitor. The four characters of Cosrnic Pinbail are the driver, the scientist, the mechanic

and the owner. Both the owner and the mechanic are recordings of professional actors,

and the driver and the scientist are actual employees of the CN Tower. But the entire

production is presented as live. The characters on the prerecorded videos are supposedly

in dïerent rooms of the Cosrnic Pinball institution. Interaction between the employees

and the characters on screen is portrayed as reciprocal, producing a façade of spontaneity.

With the mechanic in the garage accidentally blowhg things up, the owner in her office worrying about the mechanic's errors and the ernployees in the preparation room tryllig to caim the two characters down, Cosmic Pinball appears like a large organization without any connection to the CN Tower.

During the film, people do not actually believe they are traveling through a pinbail machine, but they do scream throughout the entire ride. There are sudden bursts of speed, they bump hto waüq and fa11 unexpectedly. Other than the guests who experienced motion sickness, most enjoyed the presentation. Calling it 'intense' or a 'good ride,' the

Simulator Theatre supplies enough reality for people to believe it 'felt' like an actuai ride through a pinbaü machine.

Classified as vimial reaiity, cyberspace and simulator attractions are hermeneutically disthguished fiom the popular video-arcade garnes of the 1980s. The titles, virtuai reality and cyberspace, are new in cornmon discourse. Relatively unknown and on the verge of revolutionary developrnents they offer an appeal of mystery. Vhal reality is the new space of the sublime. Rapid advancements in cornputer technology both scare and fascinate people. It is the area of liminality, the unknown, where future possibiiïties await. In hope that the attractions at the CN Tower, as weli as at tourist/entertainment attractions around the world, will provide them with the expenences they hear about in the media, people submit to their curiosity and take part. Atterwards, many are disappointed that the attractions did not match their images construed by CN

Tower promoters, or that vimiai reality is not as mentally consurning as the mass media portrays it. Rather than cornplain many accept it and move on. For example, when exiting Vimiai World, one visitor said, 'its just another tounst rip-oE' Then he lefi.

Other visitors at Viai World and Q-ZAR did not stay for the debriefing sessions to hd out their scores.

The CN Tower employment structure has become a constituent to its attractions.

It is organized to the demands of the contemporary seMce market. A new ontology for employment accompanies the rise of the se~cesector, and there is a fusion of employees and products into a single cornrnodity, the production. 4.3 The Service Sector

From diversification of production and consumption, customer satisfaction is increasingly the motivation behind business. The proliferation of services are, or appear to be, customer oriented. Employee-customer relations have become a determining factor for the success of a business. That is, promoters realize that with increased cornpetition and a variety in consumer products, customer relations are often the decidimg factor for public choice in what would otherwise be equally appeating comrnodities. As more companies centralize customer seMce in their mandates, it increasingly becomes the nom.

What the public lems to expect at times takes precedence over the actual product. In other words, the presentation of a product, the production of an image, which includes the fiont stage roles of employees, fuses into the cornmodity. Customer relations is a covert marketing technique encouraging the public to purchase not the product, but the production.

For example, Urry and Lash (1994) note that in the Western world there has been a proliferation of consumer choices in the restaurant industry. Twenty to thirty years ago the industry, which was codined to holiday periods for most people, has expanded to be a common-place activity. There is one restaurant for every 1000 people in Amenca (vrry and Lash 1994, 273). Producers have also proliferated the variety of foods they offer and the experiences they create. People looking to dine-out in Toronto can go to a number of restaurants specializing in 'authentic' cuisine from countries around the world. Or they can go to McDonaldYs,and watch their kids play in the indoor playground; to Medieval

Times and view a reenactrnent of a medieval show while they eat dinner, or to Vinney's to eat pub food and play in the adult video arcade. According to Zukin (1990)' service sector employees, such as servers, performers, parking attendants and hosts/hostesses are cuiturai brokers. They present themselves or their services on the market to produce culture. A cultural broker is anyone who can establish a position in the labour market without directiy producing a product. For example, a server in a restaurant performing a fiont stage role while delivering food is part of a cultural production mediated by a cultural broker. Cultural brokers present themselves or their services as an element of the product. By establishing themselves in the labour market, they are deemed signifiicant by consumers. The existence of their employrnent depends on their ability to create a public appreciation for what they do and signiS>.

According to CN Tower management, the guest is the 'cornmon thread that runs through every job' at the Tower. However, their main concem is profit. CN Tower

Limited is a business that requires income to survive and expand. Good customer service demands more out of the employees who perform the &ont stage roles, but the increase in overhead for the business is low. By offering the signs of sincerity, honesty and care, employees act on the one hand, as marketing agents for the company; on the other hand, they are incorporated into the product. CN Tower employees are told to seek direct eye contact at the start and end of every guest interaction, to greet them with 'Good momhg/aftemoon/evening' or 'welcome,' and to extend a 'sincere' thank you upon completion of a transaction. They are also told to 'be aggressively Wendly,' which includes anticipating guest needs by knowing answers to potential questions and seeking out guests who may need help. Leadership is also encouraged. Employees are expected to correct potentiai problems independent of supervision. They are to consider themselves 'empowered' to deal with a range of possible problems as long as they stay within the

operating principles of the Company.

More signincant is the expansion of the se~cesector. The city is a complex

network of intercomecting activities and consumer choices that provide openings for an increased varïability of possible services. The cultural niche expands, and ficilitates a diversity of concepts in the senrice sector. That is, the proliferation of attractions, senrices and other consumer-oriented products is paralleled by a proliferation in service-sector employment. Employees for attractions such as Q-ZAR , Mhd Warp, the Toronto

Chbing Academy and Via1World cannot just sit behind a counter and point directions out to people; they transgress the counter-floor barrier and interact with customers. They orally and visudy illustrate the experience people are about to encounter. Expanding their position of attraction host or counter clerk to guide, referee, coach, confidant, motivator and entertainer, the host employees stay with their guests or group of guests for the duration of the event. As shown with Cosmic Pinbail, they are actors and performers, integrating themselves into the dimension of cyberspace. The employees at Q-ZAR, the

Toronto Chbing Academy and Mind Warp help participants with theù gear, show them how to play, and watch them through to make sure everything ans smoothly. Even the elevator attendants must express confidence when reiterating their prepared tour guide speeches. Furthemore, greater qualifLing demands are required of potential employees.

Management seeks extroverted individuals. For exarnple, people applying for work at the

Simulator Theatre will benefit from acting experience and drama training. They must also audition for the position. The Toronto Chbing Academy requires mountain climbing experience and knowledge. Aside fiom their denotative functions, which contribute to the bctioning of the spectacle, the CN Tower employees are culturai brokers. They are comotative signs contributing to the display of the spectacle. They are spectacles themselves by mashg their working conditions and sometimes thernselves, as employees. In other words, diqr distract customers fiom cognitive thought and encourage customers to see them through their roles. Most of the CN Tower employees enjoy their jobs; one attraction employee said it is the best job he has ever had. Others claimed that the benefits fiom working at the

CN Tower were meeting people from around the world, interacting with people on a casual basis and doing jobs that are 'not boring.'

Explaineci throughout this chapter were the distractions of consumensm that clutters people's visions of an otherwise transparent observation tower. The CN Tower is a mirror of urbanization, and an illustration of the state of contemporary consumerism. It has been given a reason, a place in culture and a place in urbanization.

4.4 The Consumer

The expansion of venue to include an entertainment centre at the CN Tower, is representative of the dissolution of the aurotic distinctions that accompany the over- hybridization of discourse. The myth of modernity dilutes under the helm of consumerism.

This is evident through an inherent dialectic of capitalism. On the one hand, capitalists generate diversity in both production and consumption by seeking niches in the market to offer qualitatively distinct products. On the other hand their products must appeal to a large, heterogeneous crowd of cunsumers, and thus can ody be vaguely tied to a reality.

The result is a diversity of products lacking concrete connections to any one image.

Distinct categories mesh into a haze of reality. The following section magnifies this paradigm to illustrate the condition of contemporary cu1ture under the CO-existenceof realities. And the fonn of tourist attractiondentertainment centres that parents the CN

Tower is discussed as a medium for self expression.

From an Icon, to an Image, to a Niche

The image of an icon is a niche in capitalism. For example, it provides promoters with an oppominity to seil pop music. In the early 1990s' the pop music band, 'The New

Kids on the Bloclg' sold out concerts by lip-synching their songs while on stage.

Promoters can also tum a public icon that is a physical structure or a place into a tourkt attraction by promoting and, in many cases, creating the signs that attract visiton. The subsequent description exposes the construction of an image in wntext to culture. New

Salem, IUinois, is an 'authentic reproduction' of the 1830s town US President Lincoln lived in fkom 183 1 to 183 7. Its cornmernoration "serves to reinforce the master narrative of New Salem, the transition of Abraham Lincoln fiom common laborer to educated lawyer and politician" @mer 1994, 404). The town remained out of history until 1860, when biographers and politicians discovered it and connected it to Lincoln's 'humble beginnings.' It is now presented as a place distinctive to the 1830s. When tourists enter the histone site, they enter an 1830s American tom. The uniforms of employees, the crafts, and the buildings are presented to create and represent the 1990s image of the

1830s. That is, history is distorted to what is beiievable in the 1990s. For instance, in the

1930s, New Salem employees' wore jeans, wool shirts, and boots to represent out& of the 1830s. Because this has become common dress in the 1990s, they now Wear costumes that "seemed to be derived fiom the television series 'Little House on the Prairie"' (Bruner

1994, 403). AIso, the housing arrangements are not reflective of the 1830s' but 'typical' of the 1990s. Each family fiinctions independent of one another, and neighbours remah

socially isolated @runer 1994, 404). In effect, the structure of New Salem "makes the

site more beiievable to 1990s tourists, but less true to the 1830s original" (Bruner 1994,

402).

Promoters of New Salem and the New Kids on the Block tailor their productions

to fit into, as well as help create, niches in capitalism They observe and understand

culture, hda space, and pardel their productions to its movements by offerhg the signs

that signify an appreciated image of the times. Today, the world is commodified for

consumption; promoters collectively create, destroy and recreate culture. To sell more, to

keep aistomers coming back, they continually replace the old with the new. A product no

longer sels itself; signs must be attached to it for consumers to buy into its cultural

narrative (Zukin 1990). That is, everything on the market must be promoted. "The true

value of a new consumer product cannot be fully appreciated without endorsement by the

architect or designer who conceives ifa (Zukin 1990, 46). While products are still being

purchased and consumed, the signs are what sell. The signs attached to products and the

meaning or codes that are signined through them are cultural. * To appeal to a large, diverse audience, the signs of a narrative must be

collaboratory (Luke 1991, 356). Similar to fortune tellers describing peoples' iives, they

must be vague and open to dow people to create their own connections and

interpretations, to constnict their own images. Signs "are never necessarily received as

sent nor sent as received ... Power in hyperreality, therefore follows a logic of

collaboratory containment and constant deterrence, which exerts its infiuence through

equivocal, ephemeral images" Guke 1991, 356). For example, the vagueness of advertising clips make it impossible to denve a single concrete meaning. The '%ariability of interpretation is the constant law of mass communicationsy' (Eco 1983, 141). The volatility of contemporary dture is evident through the innovative TV ads, new varieties of shapes in cars, and the quick turn-over rates in sporting goods, fAon, trends and popuiar images. Marketing and image construction extend from electronic advertising right down to the structure and packaging of the products. Businesses must 'master' volatiiity and manipulate taste. Keeping up with changes in the 'fm-moving' market, they now plan for short-tem gains. They also buy insurance and use flexible hiring contracts

(Harvey 1989, part 3).

Post-Tourism

According to Bauddard, 'Pisneyland is presented as irnaginary in order to make us believe that the rest [of the worid] is real" (1988, 172). The CN Tower is a blend of simulation and fantasy. On the one hand, it can be dichotornized to the exterior world, sehgto authenticate the extemal world's façades and simulations. For example, there seems to be an absolute need for banks to build skyscrapers in the hart of the city (see

Financial District, chapter 2). On the other hand, the dichotomy used to distinguish the

CN Tower as a space distinct from the rest of the city ceases to exist. As a landmark of

Toronto, a civic monument, and a centre of Toronto's new tourist area; co~ectedto

PATH, the SlcyDome, Planet Hollywood and the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, and under promoters' eEorts to integrate it into the community, the CN Tower blends into

Toronto. It receives media attention for winnllig awards such as the Toronto Tourism award for best attraction in 1993 and 1995, as well as comrnendations, such as the readers' poll in Toronto's Nimagazine that says it is the best place to irnpress a visitor, and the Toronto Sun's readen' choice award for favourïte Toronto attraction (CN Tower

Limited 1997). Its mandate flows into its surroundhg district and comects with Canada's

Wonderland, Centre Island, Ontario Place, Sega City and Vimey's entertainment bar. Its

presence manœuvres around the modem buildings of fbnction and co~ectswith the

façades of postmodern buildings, such as City Ha& the Eaton Centre and the Toronto

Reference Library. And findly, it stretches out to every advertisement in consumer-based

Toronto, supporting the foundation and integration of advertising within the fabric of the

city. The CN Tower's physical and venue boundaries mesh into its sumundings.

What is sipnincant however, is that it has become an ideal site for the post-tourist, as opposed to the modem tourist. Uny and Lash (1994) explain that when vacations were first standardized by the government in the 1940s, the tirne fiames were the same for ail employees. Tourisrn 'democratized' when everyone was entitîed to tirne off work.

Maintainhg the distinction between work and play, tourist agencies organized holiday packages to accommodate large numbers of people within the specified tirne frarnes. Mid- week trips were alrnost non-existent (Uny and Lash 1994, 267). Constnicting a dichotomy between people's routine lives in their work and home space, and liminal spaces, people stili cm be heard saying '1 need a holiday.' Urry says "'1 need a holiday' is the surest reflection of a modem discourse based on the idea that people's physical and mental health will be restored if only they can 'get way' fiom tirne to time" (1990, 5).

The other is experienced through distancing tourists fiom their space of familiarity into a zone of liminality. Liminaiity is an "anti-structure... out of tirne and place" (crny 1990 c.f

Turner, IO), and it is relative to tourists' routine lives. There is a "clear distinction between the familiar and the faraway" and an understanding ''that such dïerences produce distinct kinds ofliminal zones" (199% 11). The other does not only refer to other cultures, but other rationalizations, other ways of thinking and conceiving connections in reality. The distancing of tourists fiom the normative stmctures of th& everyday work environment and fiom the spatial famiiiarity of their home landscape, places them in a less inhibiteci mental state. Traveling was a rite of parrage where, ideally tourists retumed fiom their trips refieshed, with a new experience and a new understanding (Shields

199Lb).

Producers of tourist sites are limited to a 'spatial &&y.' Whereas tourists have mobility to choose one place over another, producers must organize their space to sustain tourists' interest. However, the limited duration of leisure the fiames imposed on tourists inhibits them fiom investigating tourist sites. Rather, they must rely on signs to create or coha tounst gaze or an image (Urry 1990, 40). Thus, producers create the image of what they think tourists want to see by strategicdy placing physical signs representative of it. Images are (partially) established through marketing schemes and visual signs are created to coincide with the image, enabling tourists to experience the

'lived' reality of the place. "What people 'gaze upon' are ideal representations of the view in question that they internalize fiom postcards and guidebooks (and increasingly fiom TV program)" (Uny 1990, 86).

However, accompanying the transition fiom modemity to postmodernity, described in the iiterature review, tounsm diminishes as a distinct entity. Urry and Lash

(1994) characterize tounsm through three exchanges of consumption: the purchase of passenger spaces, such as the seats on an airplane or train; the purchase of hotels, restaurant tables. or other accommodation spaces away fkom home; and the purchase of visual property- the signs comected to the place, which could be a temple in Japan, a

druiking pub in Ireland, or even two people kissing in Paris (Urry and Lash 1994; Urry

1990).

nie fht two exchanges are wedcening as distinctive tounst facilities. As

technology advances, journey distances duninish. Amenities that were once used to

accommodate tourists, such as airplanes, specialty restaurants and hotels, are more

fiequently used by locals as well as by out-of-tom business, and sales people, public

figures, musicians and athletes. The reduced significance of mobility between places

enables people to combine travel with work, sport, music and other forms of

entertainment. In Toronto, it takes some business people longer to drive to work than its

does to fly to Montreal. Day trips are made from Toronto to Montreal or Halifax, where

business is conducted while, or foliowed by, enjoying a meal in a local restaurant. Trips

are no longer iimited to week or weekend times frames; people can vacate for a day, any

day of the week. A Torontonian can go to Niagara Falls for an evening, enter the casino,

and play blackjack at the sarne table as a visitor fkom France. Through the rnass media

and the advancement of transportation and communications technologies, phy sical

mobility across different cities has become a common activity.

The flip side of space-time compression alters the third exchange. People can be

tourists in their own cities. The vast availability of various forms of the other in a

compressed space has left people open to other connections, realities and rationalizations.

It enables a tolerance and an appreciation for the ofher in their everyday lives. The

condition of postmodemïty is also the death of the modem tourist. The dichotomy between work and play, and home and travel, has given way to the proliferation of the mode of consunption that now supplies people with iiminaiity, the unexpected and variety within thek own space. However, just as signs are provided to fabricate an image at tourist sites, they are aiso provided in cities. The modem tourist, with a need to get away, to experïence travel as a rite of page is replaced by the post-tourist who is aware that what hdshe visits is fabncated primarily for tounsm or leisure conswnption. The search for the avmt gm& is replaced by a search for artifid visuals. The post-tourkt is someone who experiences a variety of entertainment venues in hidher home city, who travels mid-week, spends a Sunday aftemoon at Toronto's Centre Island, shops at the

Eaton Centre on a Saturday, or goes to the CN Tower during spring break. In short, tourism is no longer a distinct activity in North Arnerica.

The (=N Tower is not disguised as a consumer facility, written on the tiont cover its brochure is the statement, 'open for fun.' It is a half-day attraction airned at both tourists and Iocais. Management continues to commerciafize the Tower and arrange its signs to appeal to the post-tourist. For instance, even though the simulator attractions are only a few years old, they are currently under review. To sustain people's interest, management remains at the forefiont of entertainment. In cornpetition with the entire entertainment industry, they struggIe against restaurants, arcades, amusement parks, movie theatres, shopping malls and bars, to remain or become a 'premier entertainment destination.' The Tower has transgressed tourism and meshed into the city. Visitors as weii as Iocais who visit and enjoy it, are post-tourists for the duration of their trip. They dow themselves to be consumed by artifid reality, that is, constnicted reaiity and images of contemporary culture. Consumers

The terni tourist attractionlentertainment centre has become a universal Iabet for

the CN Tower in the 1990s, but it is still a vague definition. As with the exterior of the

Tower, its intenor signifies several meanings. There is a CO-existenceof reaiities, which

enable a variety of impressions to surfiice within even a single individual. For example, the

concepts of the 360 Revolving Restaurant, the sirnulator attractions and the mini putt golf

course, have existed as independent attractions in North America. They all provide signs

corresponding to images discomected fkom the other aspects of the Tower. While people

can leave the Tower with an overali impression, their impressions can Vary depending on

what they did and why they went. The CO-existenceof realities make it a centre for

images. There is no universal quafïty descriptive of its visitors, they are drawn and repelled by dEerent attractions. The 360 Revolving Restaurant, the simulator attractions, and the foodcourt aii offer a distinctive appeal.

According to a member of senior management, the 360 Revolvhg Restaurant appeds to locals more than tourists. To the consumer, it is a 'high-class' restaurant speciabhg in gourmet food. Moreover, referring back to the metaphor of elevation, described in the last chapter, where one is both physically and mentally at a higher state of being, the restaurant offers a romantic contingent. To look over one's own civilized space reduces its complexities and aiiows the viewer to see it as a entire whole. That is in contrast to the urge to decipher the panoramic view into sections of the viewer's understanding of the city, the landscape flows as an unintempted space. Moreover, the romantic element of a tower restaurant holds legitimacy in discourse. The aerial view fiom a mountain or a tower to signe romance for a new coupIe is a cliché of TV shows and movies. Accordingly, the 360 Revolving Restaurant is a common destination for

couples celebrathg a special occasion. In fact, many Torontonians said that they have

only gone to the CN Tower once, and it was for a date to the restaurant.

The fianchise attractions, such as Q-ZAR, Mind Warp, and to a lessor extent,

Vutual World, also have regular visitors. Usualiy, children and teenagers, seek them out

in tourist areas. Whether, they are in San Francisco, Vancouver, or at the CN Tower,

regulars of these attractions wil1 sit through the pre-shows and instniction presentations that they have seen a number of times for the ten minutes of action. The attractions represent the actuai places that are in science fiction movies and TV shows. They are grounded in the media; and in a sense, they aliow participants to physicaily enter the worlds of these images.

Similady, the foodcourt containing a ThHorton's donut counter and franchise restaurants, such as Hawey's, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, and Mr. Submarine, have become elements of the leisure industry. The fast-food industry is a constant around the world that can be found at alrnost any popular tourist destination. It is an industry that has expanded its niche in the consumer society and found its way into the CN Tower. Without mentioning the business opportunities between CN Tower management and the fianchise owners, CN Tower management cames out a duty to its customers by including several fianchise restaurants in their foodcourt. The Uidustry is an element of the tourismlentertainment industry that avid fast-food consumers rely on. In fact, whether consumers are in their home town, in another country, or at an amusement park, they know they do not need to bring their own food, that the option of fast-food will always be available. Through advertising and the media, the fast-food industry is associated with a lively, social atmosphere. In itself it is its own spectacle, directing consciousness away fiom the issues of health. The restaurants are not attractions in themselves at the CN

Tower, but they add to the entertainment experience. They add to the spectacle of a carnival.

However, not everyone equally accepts the signs offered at the CN Tower. The heups, the crowds of people, the unnecessary noise and the expensive prices can b~g visitors to see it as an overpriced, boring amusement centre. The most cornmon cornplaint arnong visitors, especially for families, was 'it is too expensive.' The extensive overlap of signs leaves openings for opposing interpretations. The receiver of a sign is always fiee to apply Wher own meaning to it. It is up to the receiver to 'de-code' it. While management seeks to satisfL every customer by offering signs that can appeal to everyone, they also nin the risk of over-collaboration, which leave openings for deviant interpretations. The people-who do not interpret the proposed codifications of the signs are the consumer rebels. Those who cdthe (SN Tower a 'vulgar' tourkt trap or a

'typically un-Canadian attempt to be the biggest at something' are the rebels of the CN

Tower.

To use a cornparison, Shields says the structure of the West Edmonton mal1 "has almost Onvellian overtones" (1991a, 73). As the worlds' largest indoor shopping mall, containing a two and a half acre salt-water lake with dolphins, a mini-putt golf course, a ten acre water park, a carnival midway with thirteen rides including a roller-coaster, and reconstructions of tourist attractions fiom around the world, its motif is centred around liminality. It is a carnivalesque atmosphere supposedly inducing individuds to challenge discourse and fiee their rninds to experience new reaiities. It appears as a public space, for people to meet, mingle and gather. However, Shields later explains that under this façade, the mail is struchired and organized around profit. Similarly, Gottdiener descnies the contemporary shopping mall as having 'two distinct structural principles.' On the one han& they are a materialkation of retailen' intentions to sell cornmodities. On the other hand, they contain physical signs that invite people to participate in the ambiance of a public, social space (1986, 292). Shopping malls, hcluding the West Edmonton Md, provide the façades of liminality, carnival and social ambiance, but the motif is dictated by marketing ideologies. The façades serve the instrumental purpose of profit accumulation.

The façade of the CN Tower, even though surfaced, distracts people from issues of capitalist consurnerism. As descnbed in the previous section, participants of the simulator attractions drop the formal interactions characteristic of stranger relations, and collectively engage in the activity. They also purchase overpriced souvenirs, squeeze through crowds of people and endure hours in line. Even the modem tourist who seeks an extendmg awareness of lie by gazing upon the Iandscape fiom the observation decks, enters into a state of liminality. But consumer rebels take note of contradictory signs.

They are not desensitized to the workers, food court employees and security guards, who expose the façade of liinality as a façade. They refuse to buy souvenirs, denounce the

EcoDek and vow never to retum to the CN Tower when they leave. Some rebels even refiise to enter the Tower.

For example, the Viid World production lasts twenty-eight minutes, but participants realize the actual playing the is short. While management enhances the image of the attraction by fabricating a complex corresponding reality and presenting a ten minute pre-show, it does not displace the content of the game. In an article in the Toronto Sun, Scot Magnish wrote, "The CN Tower's Vaal World is not VR by any stretch of the imagination, although the sci-fi atmosphere goes a long way to creating the illusion"

(Magnish 1995, 51). And in comparison to other arcade games, Magnish said the sounds and graphics are just average. An employee said Via1 World appeals to people who like video games but 'parents' often do not understand how to play.

The EcoDek also has its rebels. The attraction is an example of 'edu-tainment,' designed to entertain as weU as idoxm visitors about local and world environmental issues.

Management created it to be a venue for school field trips, but it is an insult to anyone serious about the environmental movement (Strauss 1995). From a distance, the shells of its exhibits spawn cunosity and draw visitors in for a closer inspection. They are interactive exhibits, enabling participants to actively place themselves into the attraction.

Stephen Strauss wrote an article in the Globe milMail saying the EcoDek is a corporate attempt to capitalize on the commercialized environmental movement (Strauss 1995). He says edu-tainment should provide people with information relating to the subject under study and allow them to draw their own conclusions. But the EcoDek manipulates, or creates, an environmental conscience. Developers situate the attraction within the already- hegemonic discoune of the environrnental conscience. Strauss explains that the water usage display instills guilt and false fear into its visitors by exaggerating the possibility of drought in Canada. When visitors are tested on their daily water usage they are aiways told they are using too much. The creators do not infonn them of Canada's abundance of water reserves, and they do not take into account the tact that water consumption levels vary in diEerent seasons. Strauss says the EcoDek is a fom of preaching that passes mord judgment. In conclusion, he claims the term edu-tainment could more be accurately described as 'manipu-tainment'.

On the other hand, the EcoDek is also an example of an attraction that elite critics cm easily scrutinize and label as a vulgar tourist trap. It is an example of the dichotomy between intellectuds, and what the intellectuals believe are the naive people who comprise the consumer class. Critics assert the notion of objective tnith by labeling things as good or bad, and right or wrong. Strauss (1995) says that it is ironic that CN Tower Limited would involve itseif in the environmental movement because the Tower is a giant needle that attracts lightening and causes seagulls to die of exhaustion fiom tmgto fly up to its high lights. He iiirther says the EcoDek is a tourkt trap to make up for the empty feeling visitors get from the meaningless view of the city. Critics may be correct in labeling it a gimmick to increase revenues. However, it is a cultural aspect of the consumer world.

There is no correct mandate management must follow. It is a constmcted reality that can be understood in context.

The EcoDek may be 'manipu-tainment,' but in display. Its appeal is the visuai display of its attractions. Mer the initiai curiosity phase of 'What is that?,' most visitors quickly lose interest and move on. Regardless of content, the medium of information fails to sustain interest. The mix of entertainment and education in the EcoDek format does not apped to CN Tower visitors. But with the initial appeal of the attractions, it portrays a façade of a spectacle. The proliferation of pathways, of people rushing fiom exhibit to exhibit, spending less than a minute at each one, dong with the glass floor, is an exciting presentation regardless of content. In contrast, the rebel tourist sees the atmosphere as over-crowded, with people searching the exhibits, only to be disappointed at each one. Not ali rebels negate the Tower in absolute. The post-tourist is sirnilar to the rebel consumer but wilI remto the CN Tower, or to tourist attractiondentertainment centres of a sirnilar venue, again and again.

The post-tourist

The CN Tower serves as a consumer placebo for the continuation of rhetoric and the modem urge for self assertion. Tt imposes a dialectical strife withk its visitors. On the one hand, the CN Tower is an excuse to spend money, to leave the home, to travel or to just conglomerate with society. Encompassing the facets of consumerism that equalize it to other tourist/entertainment attractions throughout the world, it belongs to the disneyfication of cosrnopolitan cities. While its façade is of liminality, it is actudy a manifestation of routine ritual. That is, people routinely attend generic, spectacle attractions to be entertained by other people's produ~tions.~A member of (SN Tower management said their goal is to 'wow' their guests. People under exposed to movies,

TV, video games and other forms of the spectacle may be 'wowed.' However, many that cm afEord to go to the CN Tower, assume the roles of tourists and passively accept the productions offered. Upon leaving, as said above, many gave typical responses such as 'it was good.'

On the other hand, choosing to go to the (SN Tower is a medium for people to assert their individuality. People can participate in cultural rituals without fbiiy confiomiing to the label of passive consumer. The consumer reafnrms hislher own existence in an otherwise dictated space. He/she "hds individual reversais, destabilizations, and interventions h a continuous play for the fieedom of this space made

2 Only under the condition of postmodernity can the term, 'generic spectacle,' not be an oxymomn. by users who must not be 'written off as passive consumers" (Shields 1989, 161).

Without fear of contradiction, they are post-tourists, denouncing the Tower while enjoying it. In other words, the negation of aura and diffusion of absolutes under the condition of postmodernity allows them to participate in the rituai of the CN Tower without subjecting themselves to their own conceptions of the 'mainstrearn.' Both locals and outsf-towners are often heard subtly denouncing the Tower while attending by saying , '1 am doing the tourist thing.'

Post-tourists, who go to the CN Tower may be the same consumers that will go to a movie and Say, for example, 'it was great, but....'; or they may condemn pop music but foliow popular bands. They participate within culture's rituals but on the surface dissociate themselves Eom the crowds. Similarly, in Toronto people denounce the

Gardiner Expressway, or PATH, but use them when convenient. The Cartesian logic £îom which the subject and object are distinguished, that gave rise to the ideologies of individualism and humanism, for humans to know themselves as absolutely distinct entities, is the dialectic &om which the CN Tower is situated. Under the ideologies of individualism and humanism, where humans are masters of their own domain, they counter their dependence on social networks by asserting their independence. Ironically, they distinguish themselves fiom the 'mainstream' by participation within it. Post-tounsts do not disclose themselves fiom the rest of the world by going into the mountains, they construct their selfworth socially; it is a less obvious acceptance of society.

The dialectic of the post-tounst is contingent to the transition fiom modernity to postrnodernity. It is a stage that is dissolving into ephemeraiity, where cnticism and contradiction lose significance. Just as people's images have volatile existence, so do many of thei. opinions. Likewise, the CN Tower as consumer placebo for self assertion is weakening- While people continue with the rhetoric, the act is surfacing to the manifestation of an image. The words are said without meanhg. People will continue to attend, and management wili continue to compete with the entire entertainment industry to

'wow' their visitors, but the social networks organized around the CN Tower si& into habit. Conclusion

The ambiguity of the CN Tower has diminished in light of its cultural definition and positioning in Toronto. In a boomuig tourism and entertainment area, it is fhdy a centre of a market, where ideally, people go to socialize and escape routine. Meanwhiie, regardiess of management's efforts to promute the Tower as the 'new' CN Tower, there are many locais who are unaware of its restructured mandate in 1992. The people who do visit if whether they are £tom Toronto or fiom out of the city, will quickly learn it, and its surroundhg area, is a tourist attractionlentertainment centre representative of the 1990s.

The labeI, tourkt attractiodentertainment centre is a broad definition. 1 did not expose the CN Tower with a clear meaning. For example, 1 did not investigate into the heads of its visitors. I merely traced some of its routes and extracted fragments of tirne to expose the complicity of its present condition. More issues were surfaced than resolved and more questions were raised than answered. Some discussions were reached dead- ends and others were lefi open in the mesh of discourse. The goal, from this social inquiry, is for the researcher to leave the reader in contemplation, for the reader to reconsider the built environment whiie walking through town or to notice the signs of consumerisrn, the trends of the leisure industry, or the habits of consumers. This thesis is put forth as a cultural and social shidy to open avenues of inquiry outside the reader's intemal dialogue.

As a sociology thesis, this inquiry was not of a traditional sociological methodology or format. It belongs to a 'new school' of sociological thought, which attempts to broaden the discipline by adopting methods and styles nom other faculties within the social sciences. It is a research of society through the study of culture, To the academy of sociology, I oEer it as a theoretical study of the contemporary social condition concening tourism, the leisure industry and the significance of cultural productions under a capitalist order. References Cited

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