Dupont

What a magical station!

Inside and out, Dupont is without question the most playful, exuberant, and inspiring TTC subway stop to visit on a warm midsummer evening.

Bench at Dupont station
Pause here for contemplation 

Designed by Dunlop Farrow Architects, Dupont is filled with organic curves, fluid corners, and mellow earth tones that evoke the idea of being inside a sheltered, subterranean cavern.

Bench at Dupont station platform level
Flowing concrete benches: a delight to sit on 

 James Sutherland’s Spadina Summer Under All Seasons graces the platform and mezzanine walls of the station with its lovely and intricate glass tilework. Count me in as a fan—I’m a sucker for spectacular representational art.

James Sutherland’s Spadina Summer Under All Seasons
Spadina Summer Under All Seasons: an explosion of lively colour

Meanwhile, the twin entrances to the station take the form of delicate, golden-barred, glass bubbles that hint at the wonderland below.

Dupont station South East corner entrance
Catch the 70s sci-fi vibe at Dupont

By the northwest entrance, Ron Baird’s massive, faintly ominous gate, Miscellaneous Hardware, guards an electrical transformer yard from interlopers. The doors reportedly take inspiration from the caps that sit atop oil tanker train cars.

Ron Baird's Miscellaneous Hardware at Dupont Station. The story goes that (in the context of the controversy over the Spadina line's Art in the Subway program cost), the sculptural gate was budgeted under 'miscellaneous hardware' by the architect, thus sneaking in the art and hence the work's name.
Ron Baird’s Miscellaneous Hardware

Dupont's southeast parkette
The parkette outside the southeast entrance is a romantic fairy-land


Dupont opened to lucky commuters on January 28, 1978 as part of the Spadina subway extension. What a self-assured contrast to the restraint of the older Bloor-Danforth stations... We can only wish that more stations exhibited Dupont’s panache.

Update: In late 2021 the TTC built a grossly obtrusive storage area in the middle of the station concourse. Sutherland was commissioned to create a 2nd art installation to go along with it. Entitled The Force that through the green fuse drives the flower, the mural wraps around the walls of the storage enclosure, and “provides thematic context for the original mosaics and for our species in this Anthropocene era...”

James Sutherland's The Force that through the green fuse drives the flower' traces the evolution of plants through the ages. I'm... ambivalent about the pallid green tiling. Was it specified by the artist?
Sutherland’s The Force that through the green fuse drives the flower. Underwhelming—but maybe it will grow on me.

For months I had eagerly looked forward to the installation of the work, but I find myself largely disappointed. What inspired our love for Spadina Summer Under All Seasons was the imposing and exquisite physical craftsmanship of the tiling; lush psychedelic imagery notwithstanding, The Force... is merely a bunch of printed panels mounted on the wall. The skill to generate the images is admirable, but the tangible labour of the art has been flattened into abstraction. Maybe I’m simply resentful of how the angular storage room intrudes on the concourse hall. 

View more of The Force that through the green fuse drives the flower in the gallery, and come to your own conclusions!

Photo Gallery

Tour the station, and view captioned historical images from its past:

Dupont photo gallery

Transfer:
Dupont station transfer
Dupont station transfer

More about Dupont

TTC Station info | Map | Wikipedia: Dupont

My next stop: Runnymede
Previous station: Lawrence

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