"For young Joe Canuck in 2040, he'll think this building was from 1940 something. He may say. "I love the way this city continues to preserve its past," looking up the sides of One St. Thomas. If I'm alive and there to witness some facsimile of this, I shall probably not have the heart to tell him the truth. "
I'm no architect but only an fool would think this building was actually built in the 1920-30s. It resembles what it is - a 21st century building inspired by earlier periods. Stern ain't trying to fool anyone.
There may be plenty of "fool(s)" out there - as you may define that word - since I had an experience like that with a young couple from Indiana pointing to a Stern building as recently as a week ago in New York City. They seemed well-educated, and I didn't assume they were fools - as I would define that same word - simply coming to their conclusions based on visual inspection only. Incidentally, these two were the source for my mythical Joe-Canuck-in-Future comment - this particular Joe Canuck is not a fool either, just unaware that the historical look of the building does not mean that the building is in fact historical.
How does 1ST resemble a 21st century building?: not in its taper, it uses setbacks; not in window design, all derivative; not in detailing, the precedents come from many decades ago; not in style evoked, this is a form of classicism; one can go on for quite some time in that vein. This building is steeped in the past, not just inspired by it, the latter would likely translate into more "updates" to the form than we can see here. Be assured, whatever is 21st century will be largely invisible to those who buy into it.
I hasten to add, as I've done at every turn, this is not a poorly done building, but rather represents a distraction, via the faux historical choice. I shall, for one, not attack 1ST for being bad architecture, just the wrong architecture, in the long run, for a city that may be behind the curve in balancing modern with other types of skyscrapers. Just an opinion, but one which I will continue to support.
_________
And although you have not said it, there is a recurring theme here that architecture critics and/or snobs exist only on the modernist side against such people as Stern. I've put information out there already that this label better fits Stern and other postmodernists if one were to examine history. Remember how Paul Goldberger phrased it, with his friend Stern during his less mature period - "excessively polemical". There were many postmodernists that had access to Universities, the media, architectural publications and the like to confront what they collectively termed "modernist". The fairest position is that the elitist argument is not the sole property of modernists, but leans both ways, and probably more emphatically toward those that reject modernist styles.