Casa Loma: Millionaires, Medievalism, and Modernity in Toronto’s Gilded Age (McGill-Queen's/Beaverbrook Canadian Foundation Studies in Art History) (Volume 42) - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0228014565 ISBN 13: 9780228014560

Publisher: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2023

Synopsis

Leading architect E.J. Lennox designed Casa Loma for the flamboyant Sir Henry Pellatt and Mary, Lady Pellatt as an enormous castellated mansion that overlooked the booming metropolis of Toronto. The first scholarly book dedicated to this Canadian landmark, Casa Loma situates the famous “house on the hill” within Toronto’s architectural, urban, and cultural history.

Casa Loma was not only an outsized home for the self-appointed “Lord Toronto” but a statement of Canada’s association with empire, an assertion of the country’s British legacy. During and after the Pellatts’ occupation, Casa Loma was a major landmark, and it has since infiltrated the iconography and collective memory of the metropolis. The reception of Casa Loma, variously loved and abhorred by Torontonians, reflects many of Toronto’s major aspirations and anxieties about itself as a modern city. Across ten chapters, this book charts the history of Casa Loma from the purchase of the estate atop Davenport Ridge in 1903 and its construction from 1906, through to its sale and the dispersal of its contents in 1924, its subsequent life as a hotel, and finally its transformation into one of the city’s major entertainment venues.

Casa Loma brings to light a wealth of hitherto unpublished archival images and documentation of the house’s visual and material culture, weaving together a textured account of the design, use, and life of this unique building over the course of the twentieth century.

About this title

About the Authors

Matthew M. Reeve is professor of art history at Queen’s University.

Michael Windover is associate professor and head of Art and Architectural History at Carleton University.

From the Back Cover

Series Editor: Martha Langford

Recognizing the need for a better understanding of Canada's artistic culture both at home and abroad, the Beaverbrook Canadian Foundation, through its generous support, makes possible the publication of innovative books that advance our understanding of Canadian art and Canada's visual and material culture. This series supports and stimulates such scholarship through the publication of original and rigorous peer-reviewed books that make significant contributions to the subject. We welcome submissions from Canadian and international scholars for book-length projects on historical and contemporary Canadian art and visual and material culture, including Native and Inuit art, architecture, photography, craft, design, and museum studies. Studies by Canadian scholars on non-Canadian themes will also be considered.

Edition details

• Publisher: McGill-Queen's University Press
• Publication date: 2023
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0228014565
• ISBN 13: 9780228014560
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 336
• Editor: Reeve Matthew M., Windover Michael