Third Garden

Hello, my name is Warren Quigley and I am part of a collaborative team of Millie Chen and Warren Quigley who developed the Third Garden piece for the City of Toronto. We're starting now at Lakeshore Blvd. And we're looking at a cast iron structure and what appears to be a morph between a couch and a serpent.

Part of the reason, the rationale behind doing this was that we wanted to incorporate the idea that it's on the site of a former mental hospital and we wanted to have places where people could rest and contemplate. We did a combination. We took a serpent from a medical symbol and fused that together, synthesized that in with a couch. And all of our couches and all of the seating arrangements turn into a serpent form.  So, there's a sort of a merge.

On the grounds of the original mental hospital there were orchards, there were gardens, they were growing their own food for their own consumption. And then the City, having taken over this property, renovated it and created a regeneration nature park at the lake. And in essence we are the third garden on the site.

As you move from this cast iron structure you go along a pathway, there are speed bumps and on the bumps there are some quotes. Quotes from people, former residents, family of patients who were at the hospital as well as staff members. I can read you one passage on one of the pavers that we're now close to and it'll give you an idea of what I consider a more positive experience at the hospital. Each paver is dated, so this one is dated July the 30^th, 1932.

"Went out with the other patients to cut and rake the grass, pick strawberries from the garden near the Assembly Hall. Got a good work out, came in good and hungry, tired. Strait to bed after our meal."

And I felt that that sort of sums up in a lot of cases exactly how everyone would want to experience life in that you worked hard, you came in, you had a nice meal. You felt like you had accomplished something. And then strait off to bed and rest for the next day.

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