While the provincial government remains tight-lipped about the future of Ontario Place, the daughter of the architect who designed it wants redevelopment plans to preserve both the site’s cultural heritage and her father’s “incredibly unique” architectural structure.

“I think Ontario Place can have another life,” said Margaret “Margie” Zeidler, daughter of renowned architect Eberhard “Eb” Zeidler, who designed the iconic 63-hectare waterfront in the 1960s.

“It may not be the same life it was, but I think it can use the bones that it has — the architecture and the landscaping that it has,” she said.

Zeidler is one of many advocates fighting to keep Ontario Place a public space for all amid the government’s call for bids on its redevelopment.

Currently in the late stages of Alzheimer’s, Eb doesn’t recall his life as an architect or any one of the buildings he created, Zeidler said.

But she believes he “would be horrified” about the proposed plans for Ontario Place, so it might be better this way. 

“I’m happy that he can’t know what’s happening. It would break his heart,” she said. 

Now 94, Eb designed Ontario Place in the ’60s for people without summer cottages — a place for everyone, Zeidler says.

Opened to the public to 1971, the site featured such amenities as the Cinesphere — the world’s first permanent IMAX theatre — and the five pods. 

He also designed myriad prominent buildings, such as the Eaton Centre, the Toronto Centre for the Arts, Queen’s Quay Terminal and numerous sites and monuments across Canada and internationally.

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