For Adrian Blackwell, the road to the Venice Biennale of Architecture may have begun in a derelict industrial building beside the railway tracks in the west end.

In the late 1990s, the former munitions factory at 9 Hanna Ave. in Liberty Village was a not-entirely-legal haven where artists and other creative types could carve out affordable space to live and work. It was a time, Blackwell recalls, when Toronto, although already expensive, still felt like “a city with a lot of spatial possibilities. A rich, exciting space.”