The 2007 Festival of Architecture & Design is Toronto's celebration of the city's great buildings and spaces. Featuring a month of exhibitions, films, symposia, lectures, walking tours, readings, book launches, award celebrations and dinners, the fAD's premiere event is Doors Open Toronto, when 150 buildings (including, this year, the Canada Life Building, the Carlu, City Hall, Coach House Books, the Don Valley Brickworks, the Gooderham Flatiron building, and the Avenue Road Hare Krishna Temple, among scores of others) will throw their doors open for free public tours this coming weekend, May 26 and 27.

While satiating yourselves with other fAD events, Reading Toronto readers may also be interested in attending The Imagined City, a fAD event which will feature two Reading Toronto contributors, Amy Lavender Harris and Gary Michael Dault. The official description:

Haunted subway tunnels? A riot at Christie Pits? The CN Tower toppled into Lake Ontario? Amy Lavender Harris (Imagining Toronto) and Gary Michael Dault (Cells of Ourselves, The Milk of Birds) explore Toronto's place in the literary imagination and discuss how Toronto writers capture the city's diversity and growth, as well as its nightmares, desires, and secrets.

This free public event will take place at the Lillian H. Smith Library, 239 College Street (just east of Spadina), on Thursday May 31, 2007, from 7:00-9:00 pm.

Using iconic images of Toronto and writers' own words, we'll be discussing how Toronto writers bring the city to life and how urban and suburban spaces resonate with layers of narrated meanings. We'll also consider the city's stories that have yet to be told, echoing writer Dionne Brand's observation that "the literature is still catching up with the city, with its new stories." We'll look not just at iconic Toronto novels, but also at some of the stories (and writers, including Phyllis Brett Young and Hugh Garner) that have been nearly lost and deserve a renaissance.

All are welcome. If you are a Facebook user, there is an event description and RSVP list here. You can find more information about the Imagining Toronto project here.