Yabu Pushelberg of Toronto designs luxury project 210 Bloor

Why did it take so long?

Twenty-five years after Monsoon — a Toronto restaurant that propelled them into the international stratosphere when it won them a coveted James Beard award for design; one that glamor aficionados will remember – the guys behind Yabu Pushelberg are touting a housing project.

Their first here. Completion.

“It just felt right,” Glenn Pushelberg, one of the founders of the powerhouse interiors firm, began saying when I got an exclusive first look this week at where a building called 210 Bloor will rise. Close to the Royal Ontario Museum, which it overlooks, as well as Philosopher’s Walk, the Tribute Communities development will comprise just 40 units spread over 29 floors – one Pushelberg called it “a treasure project.”

Heck, the presentation center itself for 210 Bloor is so outrageously chic and so quietly luxurious that it felt like Kendall Roy was already crashing here. (Note: The units go from $7 million all the way to a staggering $40 million.)

To talk more about what attracted them to this project – perched on a lot where the Remenyi House of Music stood for decades and where generations of Torontonians strummed their pianos and/or got their song sheets – Pushelberg explained: “As a designer, it has a very clear design problem to solve, which you have to be adept at solving, in that it’s a very deep building, deceptively deep, wider than you perceive it to be, to plan it well and not just another shoebox being in the city… takes some finesse.”

At that point, George Yabu – his partner in life and lighting fixtures – stepped forward to talk about the promised “skin of the building”, c/o CORE Architects, which will boast an alluring “glass mosaic tower” (also known as covering a surface using one or more geometric shapes, with no overlaps or gaps… thanks Google!).

For all the designer nerd talk, it’s clear that 210 Bloor represents a triumphant Toronto milestone for both dudes (who already hold an Order of Canada together). Granted, their fingerprints can already be found on a range of landmarks here – they did the famous interiors for the Princess of Wales Theater and the Four Seasons Hotel in Yorkville – but their loudest performances are increasingly appearing on the global front, as typified by their inclusion on the Elle Decor A-list (a designer list they climb year after year). From New York City to Kuwait City: The Cities They’ve Circled. From Bergdorf Goodman to Tiffany to La Samaritaine in Paris: the retail collabs on their CV.

Only a partial list of the hotels they designed tells the story: the Park Hyatt in Bangkok, the Las Alcobas in Mexico City, the Fairmont Century Plaza in LA, the Edition in Miami Beach.

In terms of residences, the other big one they have on the way right now, I’m told, is the Aman Residences in Tokyo. In 2018, Departures magazine reported in a profile about them that Yabu Pushelberg had “41 ongoing projects in 15 countries, 80 products in various stages of design and development, and a workforce of 125 spread across Toronto and New York City.”

We strolled through memories, stopping to chat a bit about Monsoon, the Simcoe Street restaurant that more or less became their calling card in 1998. Although they had been slaving for a while by then, it catapulted them to a whole new level when they won their James Beard for it, and accepted their award at the ceremony in Manhattan from none other than Martha Stewart, as Yabu now recalls . It was what caught the attention of the Starwood Group – the hotel giants – and led to high-profile performances across the United States.

The Asian-fusion temple had lighting that seemed new at the time—a soft fluidity, Yabu calls it—plus panels that reference Shoji screens and lacquer accents throughout. It was so chic that when the movie “American Psycho” was filmed in Toronto around that time, Christian Bale’s Patrick Bateman took a date to Monsoon (also setting a restaurant scene). Check: the history of Toronto fabulosity!

Longtime followers of Yabu Pushelberg probably already know that they first met as students at Ryerson – just platonic! — and later crossed paths again on the street, where they shared their mutual frustrations about finding studio space. One thing led to another, leading to office space sharing and eventually more.

Which street was it?

“It was for the Summerhill liquor store,” Yabu said with a big smile.

Their relationship has been one in which they have been ping-ponging about design ever since: a long, undulating conversation about shape and size, side tables and wall mouldings. Wherever and whenever (the duo have four homes, in Toronto, Miami, New York and Amagansett), it never ends. When they go out to dinner, Yabu, whose father was a boatmaker, and Pushelberg, whose grandmother was a weaver, can’t stop talking about it, they both say.

“We don’t get invited to people’s dinner parties anymore,” jokes Yabu — mostly because people feel like their furniture and their table settings are being diagnosed.

Lighting in particular remains an obsession and is something they’ve had countless conversations about when it comes to the 210 Bloor project. “We started as store designers, don’t forget that,” remembers Yabu (for example, the first Club Monaco stores). “It’s all about lighting: how to entice the customer to take that sneaker off the shelf or go for that Christmas ornament.”

Their view of the Toronto residency reflects the development of their thinking about what they do now. “At this point in our career,” says Pushelberg, “it’s not about being bigger. It’s easy to do the obvious luxuries. This is a luxury based on scale and proportion, and the flow of spaces. Use quieter materials. You don’t have to be overly expressive.”

Shinan Govani is a Toronto-based freelance contributing columnist on culture and society. Follow him on Twitter: @shinangovani

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