35 Walmer Road

35 Walmer Road. . , 35 Walmer Road was built in 1966 by architect Uno Prii, whose buildings were uniquely sculptural., Sixteen of Uno Prii's buildings are listed on the City of Toronto's Inventory of Heritage Properties, including the recently renovated 35 Walmer Road., Follow the map to discover five iconic Uno Prii towers in this neighbourhood., Uno Prii was born in Tallinn, Estonia in 1924 into a contractor's family, growing up with the "smell of wood in his nose." Like so many of his compatriots, he was forced to flee his home country amidst the devastation of world war two. In 1950, Prii and his wife Silvia - along with tens of thousands of Estonians and other refugees from areas then occupied by the Soviet Union - emigrated to Canada. Upon arrival, Uno Prii enrolled at the University of Toronto where he stood out for his lively sense of fantasy and became a favourite student of the legendary architect, writer, and educator Eric Arthur., Uno Prii established his own firm in 1957, coinciding with the start of an unprecedented boom in the construction of large apartment towers, which subsequently became the focus of his prolific career. Uno Prii - an artist at heart with an engineering degree - could make simple buildings into something special with minimum added cost. Prii's most most loyal client arrived in the person of Polish-born developer Harry Hiller. Prii designed ten iconic buildings for Hiller in the mid 1960s, most in the Annex neighbourhood of Toronto. Among these is 35 Walmer, a distinctively "Priesque" building with a flared lower section and "fins" jutting up from the partition walls., Uno Prii retired in the early 1990s, by which time he is said to have built more than 250 buildings and ensembles mainly in Toronto and Ontario with his small 6-12 member team. Recent years have seen an emergence of new interest in Prii's work both in Canada as well as in Estonia. , -Jarmo Kauge, Museum of Estonian Architecture