Obituary: The Ottawa man who helped shape Toronto's skyline and sketched the CN Tower on a napkin

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Some of Stewart “Bud” Andrews’ friends recently deposited a few of his ashes on the CN Tower’s SkyPod, the observation deck 447 metres above downtown Toronto.

The highest observation deck in the Western Hemisphere, SkyPod is nicknamed “Bud’s Bubble” in honour of Andrews, the Ottawa developer and project manager who played a key role in the building of the CN Tower.

Andrews grew up in the Glebe, graduated from Ottawa Tech High School, apprenticed as an architect, and made his name as a project manager and developer. In the 1960s and 70s, he worked on era-defining projects such as Habitat 67 in Montreal and Century City in Los Angeles.

Famously, in the early 70s, Andrews sketched out what the CN Tower should look like on a martini napkin. It would inspire the tower’s elegant design.

Andrews died last month in an Ottawa hospital from heart failure. He was 92.

“He lived life big and he did what made him really, really happy,” said Debbie Sherwin, one of his three children.

Andrews’ partner, Anne Cameron, called him “a most remarkable man.” “He was a good listener and extremely good-natured, but he had very definite ideas about the right way to do things,” she said.

Bud Andrews grew up on Holmwood Avenue, the second youngest in a family of 11 children. His father was a federal government accountant.

As a boy, Bud was handed the nickname he would carry all his life by a neighbour who thought he was as cute as a rosebud. He loved to fashion towers from wooden blocks. In school, while other boys doodled hockey goalies and cartoon characters, Andrews sketched houses. He dreamt of being an architect.

Andrews grew up in the construction business, working for his brothers’ firm, Andrews Brothers Construction. He built his first home at the age of 16.

After high school, Andrews enrolled as an architect’s apprentice, but returned to construction when the government eliminated the apprenticeship program. He worked for the Department of National Defence, planning residential facilities on army bases, then as an estimator and designer for construction companies in Ottawa and Toronto. He completed his first housing project at 23.

He later travelled to New York City to ask famed developer William Zeckendorf for a job at his firm, Webb and Knapp. Zeckendorf hired him on the spot as general manager of his Canadian housing and development division.

In that role, at 28, he was project director of Toronto’s Flemingdon Park, a large-scale housing and commercial development. Based on its success, he was brought in as a consultant on the company’s Century City project in Los Angeles.

In 1963, he launched his own firm, Community Development Consultants, to shepherd large, complex development projects through the planning and approval stages.

The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation asked him to meet with a young architect, Moshe Safdie, and offer an opinion on his proposed housing exhibit for Expo 67, Habitat. Andrews agreed to work on the feasibility study that ultimately paved the way for Habitat’s construction.

In 1967, Andrews was hired as director of the Metro Centre project, which would prove to be both the highlight and the lowlight of his long career.

The Metro Centre project was a plan to redevelop a huge plot of land in downtown Toronto owned by CN and CP Rail. They wanted to build offices, apartments, a hotel, a transportation hub, and a trade and cultural complex on a 170-acre site then home to a sprawling railway yard.

CBC executive Howard Hilliard approached Andrews in May 1967 and told him he wanted to build a large transmission tower as part of the project – one high enough to beam a signal into every home in the region.
Andrews called it a “wild and wonderful idea.” The tower plan was expanded to include a bar, a restaurant and a viewing area for tourists.

In its initial design, unveiled in December 1968, the CN Tower had three tubular legs which were connected to each other by enclosed bridges. But the developers were unhappy with the design and wanted something with a single stem, such as the Calgary Tower.

Andrews and a colleague, Michael Monk, visited the Empire State Building, Chicago’s Sears Tower, the Seattle Space Needle and the Calgary Tower on a research trip. On a flight back from Calgary, Andrews sketched out what he had learned.

“I took a napkin out and I drew the three legs of the tower on it,” he once recalled, “And I said, ‘We’ve got to bring them together at the base and make it into a single entity, and then let it blossom out.”

He took his rough drawing to the team of architects and engineers designing the tower, and asked them to create “a piece of sculpture.” “As to the aesthetics of the tower, I related it to a plant. I said, ‘It has to be like a flower with a beautiful stem with a beautiful pod on it,’” Andrews later recalled.

Andrews also insisted the design include a second, higher observation deck – “Bud’s Bubble.”

In his book, The Building of the CN Tower, author Richard Rohmer credited Andrews with being “central to conceptualizing and building” the iconic Toronto landmark. But the CN tower was one of the few buildings to emerge from the Metro Centre project, which collapsed in the mid-70s.

“He was proudest and most disappointed in the development of Metro Centre,” said Andrews’ nephew, Bob Andrews. “He always said Toronto would be a much better city if the whole project had gone forward.”

Andrews moved back to Ottawa in 1997 and settled close to Burritts Rapids on the Rideau River where he enjoyed boating, fishing, sports and vodka martinis. Cameron said he remained enamored of the CN Tower his whole life.

“There was nothing he loved more,” she said, “than to watch the Blue Jays games and count the number of times the CN Tower flashed on the screen.”