Xray_Crystal_Junkie
Senior Member
No but city planners would have eventually approved it.
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That's funny, I thought architects designed buildings
City planners should lay out general design guidelines. For instance, an unbroken wall of above-ground parking garages is probably not the best use of waterfront land.
Dreamy Harbour Square Watercolor
I'd demolish Harbour Square if I could,.
My original point is that we tend to overestimate the extent to which the standards of the early to mid 1970s are different from our own. Keep in mind that while Harbour Square was being planned on the east side of Yonge, the Federal government was trying to build a "harbour walk" on what is now Harbourfront Centre. In fact if you read the documents of what the government was trying to do at the time, it sounds almost exactly the same as what we hear today: reconnecting the waterfront with the people, creating a pedestrian friendly environment, cultural programming, etc. There's also plenty of evidence from back then that people already believed the Gardiner was a mistake.
It's also an overstatement to say that people went nutso for pre-cast concrete, just like no one goes nutso for aluminum spandrel panelling now, despite the fact that it is ubiquitous on Toronto's 21st century buildings. As far as I know - and please correct me if I'm wrong - Harbour Square never won any major architectural honours during its time. If that is the case, then we have very little evidence that many people considered it to be a great project even in its own day.
View attachment 15041
Just to get idea what the area looked like at the time. The architect is Bregman + Hamann Architects, firm that is around since 1953.
Did the residents needed cars? yes, they did, did they need parking garage? yes they did. Could they go six floors underground / 5 underwater/ ? No, they could not, or even if they could it would have been extremely expensive and not necessary. So it had to be above ground, so please Silence&Motion how you would have it designed? On high columns, or transparent, or may be no parking at all.