[Observer Walt]

The building is mediocre. The big problem is that it sits on a main street but does not address the street at all. The location would be good for at least one commercial unit at street grade and a much better street "presence" than a wall and a set of steps. (Doesn't this sound like Christopher Hume?) Something nicer could have been done here.

On the positive side a bit more life has been added to a somewhat dead property in central Hamilton, and central Hamilton needs all the help it can get.

 

[adma]

The big problem is that it sits on a main street but does not address the street at all. The location would be good for at least one commercial unit at street grade and a much better street "presence" than a wall and a set of steps.

And said "problem" is inherited from the office complex it chewed up.

Again, they would have been better off simply adaptively-reusing the original's modernism. (Though the more I look at this thing, the more it seems to have a not-that-horrible vulgar verve to it--all emanating, I guess, from its retro-80s-Pomo aesthetic. I mean, it really does seem more 80s than 00s in approach...)

 

[bizorky]

It needs more urns.

I'm with ya!

 

[mark simpson]

"It's neat that they converted it from commercial space though. "

Why is that neat though - I can think of dozens of commercial buildings in Toronto that have had a similar fate

 

[ahsun]

The proportions are all wrong, the massing is terrible

alklay: Not that I think the building is a beaut, but how do pin the blame of the massing and shape of the building on the current design if you know for yourself it's an adaptive reuse of the original office building?

 

[Darkstar416]

I hate French Quarter so much, it's also the building that is most preferred by the masses. I've had no fewer than three people tell me that it's the building they most prefer that's been built recently. Unbelievable.

Mom's seem to love the French Quarter. I've had many friends tell me the same thing.

My own mom seems to comment positively on it each time she's in the neighbourhood. And then of course, my reasoned critique of it seems to go over her head. :\

That Hamilton building is horrible though. Worst thing I've seen in a long time. It reminds me a bit of that Post Road building near York U's Glendon Campus.

 

[alklay]

"alklay: Not that I think the building is a beaut, but how do pin the blame of the massing and shape of the building on the current design if you know for yourself it's an adaptive reuse of the original office building?"

Good question. Its really what they did with the shape. The old building used vertical lines and materials to lighten and 'heighten' the mass. This new adaptive use does the opposite by adding chunky features, building upon the weaknesses of the size and shape (using horizontal features instead of vertical ones) and using materials which do nothing to slim the building down.

 

[ummagumma66]

it looks better than some of the condo's here in calgary!

 

[green22]

The building is definitely cheap and poorly done. The wall in front of the original office pretty much cancels out any positive effect it might have had. The building is somewhere between very poorly executed and funny. It looks like some of the missing stucco didn't take to the building either.

 

[adma]

Though there's some poetic consistency there; when it was still a 60s office complex, IIRC it suffered from buckling marble facings, et al. Not that I approve of their trowelling on the whore makeup to spite the face...