INTERPRETING THE APARTMENT-HOUSE - MODERNITY AND METROPOLITANISM IN TORONTO, 1900-1930

Apartment houses became fashionable in many North America cities in the early decades of the twentieth century. This paper focuses on one city, Toronto, where the construction of apartment buildings was fiercely contested, on moral, sanitary and economic grounds. Particular attention is paid to the language used to promote or denigrate apartments, and to questions of architectural style and design. Apartments were a key element in the creation of a landscape of modernity, but they were also indicative of the modernization of capital. As such, they illustrate the conjunction of cultural and economic dimensions to modernity. © 1994 Academic Press. All rights reserved.