The memory of the city is fleeting; the lives of its buildings even shorter, condemning its inhabitants to a near-permanent state of amnesia. How is the history of the present metropolis told? Through what documents and artifacts can it be recognized? Bridging two disparate sites linked to Toronto’s cycles of creative destruction – Guild Parks and Gardens and the Leslie Street Spit – this thesis deploys processes of salvage and reconfiguration of the city’s artifactual history. Toronto’s rapidly developing metropolis is reimagined through a series of speculative dioramas marrying new and old, asking how the past can live in the present day.