M
MetroMan1000
Guest
Mr.Geuze is wearing that wacky shirt that he was wearing during the presentation @ BCE Place. Maybe it has magical hypnotic powers 8o
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Mr.Geuze is wearing that wacky shirt that he was wearing during the presentation @ BCE Place. Maybe it has magical hypnotic powers 8o
B
bizorky
Guest
You have neglected to explain why they are "stupid." If I like them, does that mean I am stupid, too? One could suggest that any type of decorative element is "stupid."
Maybe the maple leaves should be replaced with an iconic Toronto rectangle.
Made from precast.
F
FutureMayor
Guest
The Maple Leafs have already been scrapped.
Even is we wanted to build them, there isn't any money for them.
Louroz
Even is we wanted to build them, there isn't any money for them.
Louroz
S
scarberiankhatru
Guest
"You have neglected to explain why they are "stupid."
Ahh, but you neglected to explain why they're not.
Ahh, but you neglected to explain why they're not.
D
drum118
Guest
Re: Waterfront winner chosen
No reason for it stay where it is now as it is due for rebuilding it now and there is no real extra cost to do this other than relocate the centre poles and rebuild the iintersections.
The existing portal is going to be rebuilt in the first place.
It will require an EA to move it and it can be tied into the new EA for the easten extension that is underway now.
I like the idea of 2 lanes of traffic and moving the streetcar.
No reason for it stay where it is now as it is due for rebuilding it now and there is no real extra cost to do this other than relocate the centre poles and rebuild the iintersections.
The existing portal is going to be rebuilt in the first place.
It will require an EA to move it and it can be tied into the new EA for the easten extension that is underway now.
I like the idea of 2 lanes of traffic and moving the streetcar.
S
Sir Novelty Fashion
Guest
Okay, but what about the United Nations International University of Caviar?
B
bizorky
Guest
Why should I explain your assertion? Are you so incapable?
T
tudararms
Guest
The leaves at least did offer something iconic for the waterfront, the photo op', so to speak. I don't hate them, but thought they would be better served as a place for water fountains or a "jet d'eau", perhaps with a changing coloured light show for the night. Maybe a little over the top, but it would have been kinda cool, and would have provided an added destination or attraction for those heading to the waterfront for a stroll...and think of the postcard opportunities!!
E
EnviroTO
Guest
By the time this project gets underway the plan will be reduced to "planting some trees". Congratulations to West 8. Personally I thought the floating leaves were the best part of the plan because of their uniqueness. If the plan is to create a basic footbridge or plant trees then a picture of the waterfront becomes a picture that could have been taken anywhere. Any good plan for a project which is designed to draw visitors should create something that becomes a recognizable symbol of itself. There is nothing iconic about a row of trees and a walkway.
A
afransen TO
Guest
There would be nothing truly iconic about the leaves. You would not be able to discern their shape (and thus their symbolism) from ground level. Maybe from the CN Tower...
Foster's teardrops would have been iconic and would have instantly screamed Toronto. Too bad we can't just combine the plans, given the leaves probably won't happen.
Foster's teardrops would have been iconic and would have instantly screamed Toronto. Too bad we can't just combine the plans, given the leaves probably won't happen.
T
thenay
Guest
I heard they were thinkin the leafs were a bad idea on the day of announcement, but they didn't give a final word on it.
I still think they should keep the big one
I still think they should keep the big one
M
maxy505
Guest
Who cares about iconic... I just want a nice walk along the waterfront.
M
MetroMan1000
Guest
^^who cares about iconic? Our tourism industry and therefore our economy does.
Iconic symbols bring attention to a city. Attention attracts tourists and business not to mention international talent willing to locate here.
Our CN Tower has done marvels in making Toronto the "it" spot in Canada and the most recognized Canadian city worldwide.
Iconic symbols bring attention to a city. Attention attracts tourists and business not to mention international talent willing to locate here.
Our CN Tower has done marvels in making Toronto the "it" spot in Canada and the most recognized Canadian city worldwide.
A
AlvinofDiaspar
Guest
John Bentley May's critique, from the Globe Real Estate:
THE PERFECT HOUSE
Harbour plan needs daffiness weeded out
JOHN BENTLEY MAYS
From Friday's Globe and Mail
The outcome of Toronto Waterfront Revitalization Corp.'s (TWRC) international competition to make over the harbourfront, announced earlier this month, is a decidedly mixed bag of ideas, some worth pondering, others not worth thinking much about.
Though I've long been among those Torontonians nagging TWRC to get a move on and do something about the urban shoreline of Lake Ontario, I think the winning proposals by the Rotterdam architectural firm West 8 and its several Canadian partners need considerable extra scrutiny before any shovels hit the ground.
Take, for example, the suggestion that the Gardiner Expressway be demolished.
This notion has been kicking around for years, of course, and it has many devout supporters. The hobgoblin that Gardiner fans, including this writer, have long used to scare off these enemies of the monumental old freeway is the steep price tag — estimated at upwards of $2-billion — for the teardown and burial of its transportation decks.
This handy old tactic has been blunted over the past couple of years, however, by fresh proposals that include the relatively cheap teardown of the highway's elevated sections, but exclude most or all of the very expensive tunnelling. If these arguments prevail, we may yet lose the Gardiner, alas! In any case, it's high time Toronto got those public consultations on the expressway's future that TWRC has been promising us.
The weirdest proposal in the West 8 consortium's package would see a huge floating maple leaf dropped into the harbour. If TWRC were to carry out this kitschy exercise in branding, the result would be hilarious — if it weren't all so embarrassing. Ditto for the plan to put some big eggs with Chinese dragons in them at the foot of Spadina Avenue. Chinatown is surely one of the things on Spadina worth celebrating, but it's only one.
In the midst of these and other bits of daffiness — most of it springing from the European fantasy of Canada as a place where everyone wants to live in the woods — the West 8 group's dreams for Toronto's harbourside also feature some ideas that strike me as sound.
One is the sharp, strong demarcation of the 3.5 kilometres of shoreline between Bathurst and Parliament streets as a place for public promenading and the pleasures of walking, running, skating. A stately cosmopolitan edge, at no point less than 18 metres wide, would contain a continuous arrangement of planked boardwalk and little wooden bridges, and a margin of large native trees. The bridges, as illustrated in West 8's final report, would span the slips that now interrupt continuous passage along the harbourside. The designers rightly vow to respect much-loved existing features at the water's edge, such as the Music Garden and the skating rink at York Quay.
Among the most striking aspects of this scheme, however, has to do with the disposition of Queens Quay. This street is now four lanes wide — which is too wide — with two lanes of traffic going each way and a TTC streetcar line running between them. West 8 would close the two east-bound lanes and leave the TTC tracks where they are. Presto: a new, broad swath of pavement for pedestrian and bike traffic on the south side of the tracks, and a simple, cheap reduction of Queens Quay to an entirely reasonable breadth. (A trial shutdown of the east-bound lanes could start as early as this summer. We will be watching to see if this change helps vitalize the now-moribund sidewalks alongside the condominium towers on the north side of Queens Quay.)
While it contains questionable aesthetic whimsy — lighting poles shaped like the CN Tower, for example — West 8 group's final report nods attractively to Toronto's history. To city founder John Graves Simcoe goes the credit for first thinking, in 1793, of conserving the water's edge for the pleasure of the citizenry. Nor did the idea of a waterfront park between Fort York and the old Town of York —roughly, the stretch addressed by the West 8 planners — simply vanish when John and Elizabeth Simcoe returned to England a few years later. In 1818, a royal patent established several early Toronto residents as custodians of a "mall" intended to serve as a lakeside promenade. The Esplanade, now truncated and stranded far inland by landfill, is the remaining trace of this mall.
While not all of West 8's designs are worth putting on the ground, the part that has to do with the edge of the inner harbour is welcome. As for the rest of it — we'll be waiting to see what aspects of the scheme survive the upcoming long march through the public approvals process.
AoD
THE PERFECT HOUSE
Harbour plan needs daffiness weeded out
JOHN BENTLEY MAYS
From Friday's Globe and Mail
The outcome of Toronto Waterfront Revitalization Corp.'s (TWRC) international competition to make over the harbourfront, announced earlier this month, is a decidedly mixed bag of ideas, some worth pondering, others not worth thinking much about.
Though I've long been among those Torontonians nagging TWRC to get a move on and do something about the urban shoreline of Lake Ontario, I think the winning proposals by the Rotterdam architectural firm West 8 and its several Canadian partners need considerable extra scrutiny before any shovels hit the ground.
Take, for example, the suggestion that the Gardiner Expressway be demolished.
This notion has been kicking around for years, of course, and it has many devout supporters. The hobgoblin that Gardiner fans, including this writer, have long used to scare off these enemies of the monumental old freeway is the steep price tag — estimated at upwards of $2-billion — for the teardown and burial of its transportation decks.
This handy old tactic has been blunted over the past couple of years, however, by fresh proposals that include the relatively cheap teardown of the highway's elevated sections, but exclude most or all of the very expensive tunnelling. If these arguments prevail, we may yet lose the Gardiner, alas! In any case, it's high time Toronto got those public consultations on the expressway's future that TWRC has been promising us.
The weirdest proposal in the West 8 consortium's package would see a huge floating maple leaf dropped into the harbour. If TWRC were to carry out this kitschy exercise in branding, the result would be hilarious — if it weren't all so embarrassing. Ditto for the plan to put some big eggs with Chinese dragons in them at the foot of Spadina Avenue. Chinatown is surely one of the things on Spadina worth celebrating, but it's only one.
In the midst of these and other bits of daffiness — most of it springing from the European fantasy of Canada as a place where everyone wants to live in the woods — the West 8 group's dreams for Toronto's harbourside also feature some ideas that strike me as sound.
One is the sharp, strong demarcation of the 3.5 kilometres of shoreline between Bathurst and Parliament streets as a place for public promenading and the pleasures of walking, running, skating. A stately cosmopolitan edge, at no point less than 18 metres wide, would contain a continuous arrangement of planked boardwalk and little wooden bridges, and a margin of large native trees. The bridges, as illustrated in West 8's final report, would span the slips that now interrupt continuous passage along the harbourside. The designers rightly vow to respect much-loved existing features at the water's edge, such as the Music Garden and the skating rink at York Quay.
Among the most striking aspects of this scheme, however, has to do with the disposition of Queens Quay. This street is now four lanes wide — which is too wide — with two lanes of traffic going each way and a TTC streetcar line running between them. West 8 would close the two east-bound lanes and leave the TTC tracks where they are. Presto: a new, broad swath of pavement for pedestrian and bike traffic on the south side of the tracks, and a simple, cheap reduction of Queens Quay to an entirely reasonable breadth. (A trial shutdown of the east-bound lanes could start as early as this summer. We will be watching to see if this change helps vitalize the now-moribund sidewalks alongside the condominium towers on the north side of Queens Quay.)
While it contains questionable aesthetic whimsy — lighting poles shaped like the CN Tower, for example — West 8 group's final report nods attractively to Toronto's history. To city founder John Graves Simcoe goes the credit for first thinking, in 1793, of conserving the water's edge for the pleasure of the citizenry. Nor did the idea of a waterfront park between Fort York and the old Town of York —roughly, the stretch addressed by the West 8 planners — simply vanish when John and Elizabeth Simcoe returned to England a few years later. In 1818, a royal patent established several early Toronto residents as custodians of a "mall" intended to serve as a lakeside promenade. The Esplanade, now truncated and stranded far inland by landfill, is the remaining trace of this mall.
While not all of West 8's designs are worth putting on the ground, the part that has to do with the edge of the inner harbour is welcome. As for the rest of it — we'll be waiting to see what aspects of the scheme survive the upcoming long march through the public approvals process.
AoD
W
wyliepoon
Guest
The "most recognized Canadian city" really depends on who you talk to. To most Asians, Vancouver is actually the most recognized city in Canada, if not the only Canadian city they know.