TORONTO – More than 500 people will gather in Toronto on Thursday, June 14th to honour 18 of Canada’s brightest urban visionaries, activists and local heroes.
The occasion is the Canadian Urban Institute’s 4th annual Urban Leadership Awards Luncheon, and on the honour list is media innovator Moses Znaimer, who will receive the Jane Jacobs Lifetime Achievement Award.
Each year, the Institute presents awards to organizations and individuals who through their leadership, activism, tenacity and vision, change lives and transform communities.
“These are the champions of Canada’s civic public realm,” said David Crombie, the Institute’s president and CEO. “Their activism inspires us to build better cities.”
The Lifetime Achievement Award for 2007 is awarded to an individual who has made an extraordinary contribution to the public realm over many years and in more than one field. It was created by the Institute in honour of the late Jane Jacobs, whose vision and leadership influenced the development of cities around the world.
Moses Znaimer’s name is best known as co-founder of Toronto’s Citytv, the unique television conglomerate, in 1972. Often described as a media innovator, he challenged the traditional view of television and was a champion of the rich cultural mix of Toronto, both on the air and off.
The Institute notes that for more than three decades, this “maverick” has symbolized progress, growth and a new vision of Toronto. In his TV work, Znaimer introduced a novel approach to bringing programming to the people.
The CHUMCity building reinvented the TV studio as an open, street-front, perpetual performance space that demystifies the television process in a way that helps democratize the medium, the Institute said.
Znaimer has also left his mark on the city in ways beyond his broadcast innovations, it said. His adaptive reuse of a heritage building spawned a transformation of that part of the city, and today, the building has become a landmark and is designated under the Ontario Heritage Act.
“A man of endless inspiration and creativity, Mr. Znaimer is tireless in his quest to inform, enrich and engage our collective spirits. He transformed an existing medium to tell the everyday stories of the urbanization and ethno-cultural diversification of our major urban centres.”
