Mike in TO
Senior Member
This project originally launched over 2 years ago...
|
|
|
- Thread starter investican
- Start date
urbandreamer
recession proof
^Yeah, wasn't it by that lawyer dude with the cheesy name--Jayson (hello it's spelled Jason!) Schwartz?
Mike in TO
Senior Member
^ yes
junctionist
Senior Member
It could also be red brick, or some sort of fusion of local historical styles with the modern aesthetic.
scarberiankhatru
Senior Member
Alone, it's a bit silly, but a whole block of these would be wonderful, far better than a whole block of plate glass and grey panels that will invariably look like utter trash in 20-30 years when the newness wears off and cracks and chips and stains and rust set in...stone and mansards and so on often looks better after a few decades.
Dan416
Senior Member
I dunno usually I like this kinda stuff but here it looks rather bad, cheesy, unconvincing, and faux.
adma
Superstar
Hard to tell when it's faux stone and faux mansards.
Then again, all that stuff that popped up around the (ex-)CHUM building in the 90s doesn't look like utter trash yet. (NB: I'm talking about physical shape, not aesthetics.)
Urban Shocker
Doyenne
It's impossible to imagine pretentious pastiche like this becoming anything other than aging pretentious pastiche with the passage of time. One example is bad enough, but an entire block would be horrendous.
Archivist
Senior Member
A block of these would look better after a few years? Would anyone really make that claim about, say, the French Quarter? I certainly haven't noticed that doing anything but getting slightly smudged. Time does nothing to improve these eyesores.
Another set of contrary examples that I can think of are in Rosedale, where there are a suprisingly large number of houses built in the 1970's. My feeling is that those that truly reflect their era can still be viewed sympathetically and have aged well. Those that are Georgian wannabes have aged poorly, and look ghastly now. (I should point out that there are exceptions to both points, a small number of the very 1970's buildings look gross to my 2010 eyes, and a single one of the SeventiesGeorgians is deceptively handsome. But the general rule stands).
Another set of contrary examples that I can think of are in Rosedale, where there are a suprisingly large number of houses built in the 1970's. My feeling is that those that truly reflect their era can still be viewed sympathetically and have aged well. Those that are Georgian wannabes have aged poorly, and look ghastly now. (I should point out that there are exceptions to both points, a small number of the very 1970's buildings look gross to my 2010 eyes, and a single one of the SeventiesGeorgians is deceptively handsome. But the general rule stands).
scarberiankhatru
Senior Member
I can already tell we might as well link straight to the 1 St. Thomas thread...
Adma, is the "faux" mansard going to fall off or something sooner than a "real" mansard? It may not even be faux stone.
Archivist, we might say that about the French Quarter in 25 years...let's revisit the issue in 2035. What are those 70s houses made of or facaded with? Wood, glass, metal, brick, stone, fake stone (fauxite?), aluminum siding, stucco, etc.? These things depend not just on the quality of the material and the workmanship, but on the upkeep over the years...stone - or "stone" - is probably more forgiving than a grey panel whose whole aesthetic purpose is to be new and modern, a flat plane milled to perfection.
I could assume that Design Guild will be clad with the crappiest precast ever, stained and chipped to death before it ever gets installed, but why assume that it'll be worse or uglier right off the bat than, for instance, the grey bricks on the new opera house?
It's a simple truth that this building would look better in a row of equal or taller buildings, and not even just a row of duplicate Design Guilds. Buildings that are taller than both neighbours but have blank sides in anticipation of taller neighbours almost always look silly when alone, particularly if the current neighbours are small grey boxes and if the building replicates a style never intended to be built alone. Silly or not, this is a happy building, and a row of them would be happier still. A row of grey panels at eye level is almost never happy. The fact that developers always select "pre-fab Haussmann" out of the historic hodge-podge cabinet is annoying, though...why not try out some of those 17thC Amsterdam houses with the funky roof lines, dark brick, and bright trim? Is it because there's no place for concrete bollards and Juliet balconies, which developers think discriminating buyers must have if they are to own the ultimate in luxury?
Adma, is the "faux" mansard going to fall off or something sooner than a "real" mansard? It may not even be faux stone.
Archivist, we might say that about the French Quarter in 25 years...let's revisit the issue in 2035. What are those 70s houses made of or facaded with? Wood, glass, metal, brick, stone, fake stone (fauxite?), aluminum siding, stucco, etc.? These things depend not just on the quality of the material and the workmanship, but on the upkeep over the years...stone - or "stone" - is probably more forgiving than a grey panel whose whole aesthetic purpose is to be new and modern, a flat plane milled to perfection.
I could assume that Design Guild will be clad with the crappiest precast ever, stained and chipped to death before it ever gets installed, but why assume that it'll be worse or uglier right off the bat than, for instance, the grey bricks on the new opera house?
It's a simple truth that this building would look better in a row of equal or taller buildings, and not even just a row of duplicate Design Guilds. Buildings that are taller than both neighbours but have blank sides in anticipation of taller neighbours almost always look silly when alone, particularly if the current neighbours are small grey boxes and if the building replicates a style never intended to be built alone. Silly or not, this is a happy building, and a row of them would be happier still. A row of grey panels at eye level is almost never happy. The fact that developers always select "pre-fab Haussmann" out of the historic hodge-podge cabinet is annoying, though...why not try out some of those 17thC Amsterdam houses with the funky roof lines, dark brick, and bright trim? Is it because there's no place for concrete bollards and Juliet balconies, which developers think discriminating buyers must have if they are to own the ultimate in luxury?
Urban Shocker
Doyenne
As design, the ludicrously named Design Guild is inauthentic - a product of developer culture, of recycling a hodge-podge of historical styles for consumers who probably think this denotes "good taste" or something. To compare it to the work being done by any of our leading local architectural firms - who aren't channelling Second Empire ( or, if they were, would do something new with it ... ) - is just plain silly.
scarberiankhatru
Senior Member
Our 'leading architectural firms' are just channelling other historic styles that they think constitute good taste. Again, we'll see what happens in 2035. Perhaps these same firms will have Philip Johnsonseque longevity, though perhaps with less of a career morph.
"Design Guild" is inauthentic - not that a grey box is authentic in any way other than being authenticly grey and authenticly boxy - which is why I suggested 17thC Amsterdam houses might be a better and more interesting model than pre-fab Haussmann. Global human history is free to be plundered and yet we get endless mansards and Juliet balconies - boring! It's like that episode of Curb Your Ensthusiasm where Larry's waiting in line to buy gelato and this woman in front insists on slooowly saaampling eeevery flaaavour before finally choosing...vanilla.
Urban Shocker
Doyenne
The good contemporary design that we see around town, and the sort of faux-historicist rubbish that RN Design purvey here, are entirely different things, culturally. Their website gives an idea:
http://www.rndesign.com/
Under "Portfolio" select from: Palladian, Art Moderne, Arts & Crafts, Baux Arts, Canadiana, Cape Cod, Cottage, Craftsman, Edwardian, English Country, English Manor, French, French Chateau etc. ...
In the "good artists copy, great artists steal" sense we're dealing with a firm that's unable to appropriate anything and make it distinctively their own, and isn't a part of local design culture either. The last thing we need is a whole block of this stuff. The best we can hope for is a guiding hand from some design review panel. Or banishment.
Archivist
Senior Member
scarb, the point I was making about Rosedale, is that a review of the buildings there which are now about 35 years old shows that those built in the best styles of the day have retained their attractiveness. Those built in the historical pastiche of the day - a kind of Georgian inspired effort - look quite horrible. They always did, and they still do.
The materials, in that case, have nothing to do with it. Though I agree they are important, as is their maintenance over time.
You also suggest a "wait and see" attitude to this building. Well, we don't have to, because there are simply no good examples of this kind of building in the city that weren't built on the cheap with inappropriate materials and don't look like shit. This building looks like pretentious crap in the rendering, will be worse when it's built, and worse again in 35 years.
The materials, in that case, have nothing to do with it. Though I agree they are important, as is their maintenance over time.
You also suggest a "wait and see" attitude to this building. Well, we don't have to, because there are simply no good examples of this kind of building in the city that weren't built on the cheap with inappropriate materials and don't look like shit. This building looks like pretentious crap in the rendering, will be worse when it's built, and worse again in 35 years.
egotrippin
Senior Member
There appears to be some confusion here, so for the record I'm just letting everyone know that this is a terrible building. Blatant faux-historicist schlock is one of the lowest common denominators of architecture.
Hopefully that clears everything up.
Hopefully that clears everything up.