Building the Future, Destroying the Past?

I was supposed to meet a friend yesterday to discuss the future of our collaboration on a research project. He lives in Scarborough, and because he is arguably lazier than I am, he insisted that I come to his neighbourhood. I accepted, partly because I always enjoy arguing with him. So we agreed to meet at Guild Park.

Guild Park is an unusual place. It feels less like a park and more like a retirement home for pieces of Toronto's history. As I walked in, I saw towering stone columns, carved pedestals, statues, ornate doorways, and fragments of buildings that once stood proudly in different parts of the city. Among them were architectural pieces rescued from places like the old Bank of Montreal building and several other landmarks that no longer exist.

Naturally, after greeting my friend, the first question that came to my mind was:

"Why are these here? Weren't they part of the city's history?"

He explained what had happened.

"It wasn't entirely a tragedy," he said. "Before the wrecking crews demolished the buildings, some of these architectural pieces were rescued and brought here. Think of them as survivors. They lost their homes but found a new one."

That sounded fortunate.

But it also raised another question.

"Didn't the buildings themselves deserve to survive? And if these fragments are valuable enough to preserve, why wasn't the rest of the building?"

He looked exhausted before answering.

"Dude!" he said. "Educate yourself."

"It was about building the future. You can't keep everything forever. You remind me of Emir Kusturica's Underground. Remember the people trapped underground, still making weapons because they believed the war was continuing? They became prisoners of the past while the world had already moved on."

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"Easy," I replied as we wandered through the gardens, surrounded by silent columns that had already outlived the buildings they once supported. Around us, people were taking photographs beside the towering stone facades, children were running between the old pillars as if they belonged there, and a few cyclists quietly passed through the winding paths. It was one of those rare places where history had somehow become part of an ordinary afternoon.

"You're making quite a leap."

Then I asked,

"But isn't there another danger? What if, in our enthusiasm for building the future, we begin taking the future hostage by destroying the very past it grows from?"

He smiled.

"Now who's exaggerating?"

"I don't think I am," I replied. "Many thinkers have argued that every future grows out of what came before. Your argument reminds me of the Futurists, the artistic movement that celebrated speed, machines, and modernity so passionately that some of them openly dreamed about sweeping away museums and the past itself."

"And your argument reminds me of Orwell's 1984," I added.

"Oh yes," he laughed. "Now we're uncovering secret systems controlling people's minds."

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"I may be getting carried away," I admitted.

For a few moments, we stopped talking. A young couple took turns photographing each other beneath one of the limestone columns. Nearby, a man sat quietly on a bench with a book in his hands, while another family wandered slowly among the sculptures, trying to imagine the buildings these architectural fragments had once belonged to. Between two trees, a spider's web glistened in the afternoon sun, every strand catching the light. From where I stood, those delicate threads seemed almost inseparable from the weathered stone beyond them, as though time itself had woven them into the park, alongside the centuries resting silently among its ruins. It was difficult to tell whether this place was a park, an open-air museum, or simply a conversation between different centuries.

"But since you brought cinema into the conversation," I continued, "let me answer with a few more stories."

"Think about Dark City. Imagine someone rewriting the history and identity of an entire city overnight. Or think about Huxley's Brave New World, where stability often comes at the cost of memory, history, and individuality."

"You can't have a tree without roots."

He looked at me.

"So you think we should spend our lives serving the past instead of building the future?"

"No," I said. "I think that's a false choice."

"The past isn't the opposite of the future. It's part of the process. Humanity doesn't reinvent the wheel every century. We inherit ideas, improve them, question them, and sometimes reject them. Progress isn't created by pretending yesterday never happened. My point is simply this: the past doesn't need to be sacrificed for the present, and it certainly doesn't need to be sacrificed for the future."

By the time I finished, we had reached the park's Greek Theatre, an open-air stage surrounded by historic stonework. stage crew were preparing it for a performance of Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey.

My quick-witted friend looked at the stage, then at me.

"This," he declared, "is a message from the universe. You're becoming as imaginative as Catherine Morland. Maybe you need to watch the play."

I accepted the sarcasm, laughed, and replied,

"Maybe."

Then I pointed toward the stage.

"But don't forget something."

"Even the performance exists because someone decided that a novel written more than two hundred years ago was still worth bringing into the present."

I smiled.

"Perhaps we both need to watch it."

YF, August 5, 2026