[Ladies Mile]

You really think Art Deco was not unchecked commercialism?

You really think London's architecture is not overtly and consciously Imperialist?

You think that New York, Paris and London are NOT centers of the international financial elite?

Granted, most people like Paris, but most people have never seen the 95% of the city where the non-rich inhabitants live. Gothic Paris is lovely and the parks and gardens are excellently maintained, but Beaux Arts Paris is no great shakes and postwar Paris gives LA a run for the Blight Awards.

Modernism was certaily turned into the plaything of the rich (Bronze front on the Seagram Building, hello), but it was and still is the first real architectural model to address the needs of citizens at every level and function of society. You don't need to hate capitalism to think this better than the Frick Collection for the rich, Rockefeller Center for the tourists and the Bronx for the masses.

 

[Whoaccio]

You really think Art Deco was not unchecked commercialism?

I don't think applying political and social paradigms, like commercialism, is practical in architecture. All encompassing theories of earth are the preserve of totalitarian hack philosophies like Nazism or Objectivism. It's possible something can come from an era of commercialism and still be accepted as high quality architecture, just like it possible art and literature can come from the Soviet Union without being unchecked socialism.

You really think London's architecture is not overtly and consciously Imperialist?

Uhh. yes? Maybe if you consider London as nothing but St. Paul's and Westminster it is a bit over the top, but then that ignores the mass of structures which represent nothing but London. That also includes a great deal of buildings built after WWII along modernist lines.

You think that New York, Paris and London are NOT centers of the international financial elite?

Of course they are, but how the hell does that effect their architecture? I'd also be more conscious of dissing the "financial elite" when everyone of Toronto's skyscraper's, modernist or otherwise, exists because of them.

Granted, most people like Paris, but most people have never seen the 95% of the city where the non-rich inhabitants live. Gothic Paris is lovely and the parks and gardens are excellently maintained, but Beaux Arts Paris is no great shakes and postwar Paris gives LA a run for the Blight Awards.

What's wrong with LA? It's a vibrant, if someone conceited, city. I also can't help but point out most of the Parisian Banlieues were built along explicitly modernist lines.

Modernism was certaily turned into the plaything of the rich (Bronze front on the Seagram Building, hello), but it was and still is the first real architectural m,odel to address the needs of citizens at every level and function of society. You don't need to hate capitalism to think this better than the Frick Collection for the rich, Rockefeller Center for the tourists and the Bronx for the masses.

This is the problem with tying architecture into social sciences, you get false positives. Modernism coincided with a period where normal citizens saw their status rise. Architecture has always been in response to demands. When Paris was rebuilt in the 19th Century, it was done according to the bourgeoisie climate of the day. Ditto for the redesigns of cities like Berlin, Chicago or New York. The large parks, futuristic department stores, wide streets and advanced sanitation systems were built to serve the new urban middle class. The masses, for various socio-economic reasons, remained rural.

I'd also be curious to what extent normal citizens even appreciated modernism. Certainly in Europe, modernist housing complexes are typically the site of intense social problems. Most American cities have recoiled from the monotonous public housing projects modernism suggested (Cabrini Green, Regent's Park, Jane Jacobs). For a movement that prides itself on commonality, modernism can often be strangely dismissive of ordinary people. The standard architectural response to criticism of modernism as unoriginal, for instance, is that ordinary people shouldn't question architects. Was it really in the ordinary citizen's interest to demolish whole, vibrant, communities and replace them with single-use complexes?

 

[egotrippin]

You're all falling victim to a shameless troll.

 

[Tewder]

You're all falling victim to a shameless troll.

Ahh, I get it. This is more about you trying to project your politics onto architecture than architecture per se.

Yes, the bias is clear and is as I have been suspecting for a while, which is fine but at least be upfront about it!

 

[Tewder]

Yes, I could imagine a whole landscape - urban, or rural - of buildings designed by Mies. How lovely! I.M. Pei certainly thought so, when he so cleverly lifted the TD Centre's proportions in his design for Commerce Court West, while playing off of the TD's matte black cladding with different materials, and the TD's orientation with a 90 degree north/south twist...

Toronto at that time wasn't a landscape of functional minimalism and I don't blame Mies or Pei one bit for wanting to add a little innovation to the local built form, but clearly in that specific context they were in fact the very sort of 'architectural novelty acts' you perceive Gehry/Alsop/Libeskind et alto be now...

I don't underestimate the thirst for architectural novelty acts from abroad ( Texas this, New York that ... ) because it stalks this forum daily and has quite a glee club going for it - but look around at what the new generation of local architects are doing. They haven't needed to reinvent the wheel because many of them are from the same Modernist lineage ( recent 'grads' from KPMB, which evolved from Barton Myers, or recent 'grads' from D+S, for instance ... ) that produced similarly legible and practical designs forty or fifty years ago. The process that goes into solving design problems hasn't changed much, and I while agree with Ladies Mile that green issues will present new challenges I think that sensible Modernism is well placed to incorporate these new imperatives. We happen to do this very well here, it is how our design culture works - this elimination of the "wasteful, gaudy, dysfunctional" tendency.

Modernism has a lot going for it to be sure, and some local designers are sometimes doing some fine work, no question, but this isn't the endgame of local design. That designers who have come of age now are inspired by the styles and trends popular during their youth is no big surprise. Some of them are handling it well and reinterpreting/updating the work of foreign designers working in Toronto 40 years ago to more current needs and sensibilities, including greater respect for the environment, the heritage of older structures and the vitality/integrity of urban streetscapes that was often lost on even our greatest of modernist design icons. Unfortunately others working from this inspiration are merely falling into the trap of inferior and derivative cheddingtonista-type garbage we see when any designer panders to fashion trends. It's a mixed bag in other words and we shouldn't be content with churning out the same old design and the same old aesthetic. The indiginous design culture in Toronto is far too young to be claiming that the last word has been written, and thankfully so...

 

[kool maudit]

it is absolutely clear what is happening here. ladies mile has "the canadian disease" with regards to the three nations that have dominated our history (the u.k., france and the u.s.a.), and -- as usual - the case is most pronounced in the case of the u.s.a.

this isn't an argument so much as a form of national psychosis, pompously phrased.

 

[Urban Shocker]

Toronto at that time wasn't a landscape of functional minimalism and I don't blame Mies or Pei one bit for wanting to add a little innovation to the local built form, but clearly in that specific context they were in fact the very sort of 'architectural novelty acts' you perceive Gehry/Alsop/Libeskind et alto be now.

Not at all - by the time Mies built the TD there was an established group of local Modernist architects who had been building here for some time. He wasn't the first.

The indiginous design culture in Toronto is far too young to be claiming that the last word has been written, and thankfully so...

We've had an indigenous design culture since 1793 - earlier, I suppose, if you consider the artifacts produced in Iroquois trading settlements over a century before that.

it is absolutely clear what is happening here. ladies mile has "the canadian disease" with regards to the three nations that have dominated our history (the u.k., france and the u.s.a.), and -- as usual - the case is most pronounced in the case of the u.s.a.

this isn't an argument so much as a form of national psychosis, pompously phrased.

The message seems pretty clear to me: Modernism is Toronto's design vernacular because it suits us very well. We took to it like a duck to water. It is a practical and democratic workhorse design approach that rebuilt much of Europe after WW2 and was, at the same time, embraced by our own rapidly-expanding concrete city. It informs the work that our best award-winning and critically acclaimed local architects are doing today. As already stated by Ladies Mile, it is a problem-solving approach that addresses the needs of all people at all levels - a new Regent Park development by aA, an opera house by D+S, or a ballet school and music conservatory by KPMB, for instance.

As for "psychosis" well, we have a strong local design culture that doesn't need know-nothing design quislings to tell us that the grass is greener elsewhere or that in order to be "world class" we must hitch our wagon to the rising star of some jetlagged foreign starchitect or other.

 

[kool maudit]

funny, i didn't get that at all. that actually sounds quite sensible, and is utterly free of such overcompensatory inanities as the statement that, on a building by building basis, toronto is new york's architectural superior.

i mean, torontonians shouldn't have to jump from repeating that tired old peter ustinov quote to that.

 

[ProjectEnd]

The message seems pretty clear to me: Modernism is Toronto's design vernacular because it suits us very well. We took to it like a duck to water. It is a practical and democratic workhorse design approach that rebuilt much of Europe after WW2 and was, at the same time, embraced by our own rapidly-expanding concrete city. It informs the work that our best award-winning and critically acclaimed local architects are doing today. As already stated by Ladies Mile, it is a problem-solving approach that addresses the needs of all people at all levels - a new Regent Park development by aA, an opera house by D+S, or a ballet school and music conservatory by KPMB, for instance.

Ahh what the hell, I guess I'll wade into this one as well...

While I agree with much that you state, it is not the 'style' which gives a building life, but the interplay between functionality and form. Our stock rightly focus on the former, allowing it to generate and inform the latter, but they seem to do it with such rote blandness that one cannot help but protest. The buildings which you list are all excellent examples of Canadian design, highlighting the talents of those professionals while giving the users beautiful spaces to work, play and, indeed, dance. But what, beyond that which you would surely term a 'quiet majesty,' sense of place to they project? I'm not talking about the hoo-ha, look-at-me work of those 'jetlagged starchitects,' but rather something which demonstrates the progressive nature of our society in built form.

The Corus building about which we will always disagree is an excellent example. You highlight the functional office spaces, light, airy atrium and generous cantilevers, and you are right to do so. It's a pretty damn good building in that respect, and it will serve its tenants well, but I would hardly call it stunning, much less moving. Once again, you will surely deride this post with the hyperbolic "well whadda want, a crystal?"-style arguments to which you consistently gravitate, but my sense of 'more' isn't rooted in ostentatious forms or kitchy trends. It's something indefinable, something which forces you to stop in your tracks and marvel at that which you cannot define, but likewise, cannot ignore. When I see Corus, or the Ballet School, or the Opera House, or the Gardiner, or the AGO for that matter (distantly Canadian...), I see an excellent building and a home for some entity which would otherwise be homeless, but beyond that I'm rarely stunned, much less moved.

Shocker, for all your pomp and vitriol, you are not speaking about something definable, trained eye or not. You are speaking about the way in which architecture touches you and improves the quality of your life. I cannot argue that away from you just as you would have a difficult time arguing me into believing that Corus, or any other given building, is better than any other. We both know that there is a line between beauty and schlock but where that line is drawn is for me, and you, and everybody else on this forum to decide. You seem content with our strong collection of post-war modernist structures and for the most part, so am I. I however, take issue with your and Lady Smile's blind ability to relegate all else to the scrap heap while loudly asseverating our own design superiority to those 'philistines' who seem not to know better.

By the way, Diamond's little scribble from Tuesday's talk is now framed on my wall and looking excellent.

 

[Ladies Mile]

Why not say it if you think it?

I think what you are describing is what I would call “the numinous.†I have definitely felt it in buildings, but wonder if it’s something that can really be “designed†per se. Sometimes the components of a building in relation to its site, its history, its use and its symbolic meaning can combine to produce a feeling close to awe—but oddly, some of the buildings where I’ve felt this the most strongly are not what I would call “good architecture.†It would be hard to argue that the palaces of Venice should be used as a model for anyone today but they have a kind of mystery and drama about them that is irresistible.

I think the modern architect who delivered this best was Louis Kahn.

 

[Ladies Mile]

funny, i didn't get that at all. that actually sounds quite sensible, and is utterly free of such overcompensatory inanities as the statement that, on a building by building basis, toronto is new york's architectural superior.

i mean, torontonians shouldn't have to jump from repeating that tired old peter ustinov quote to that.

Again, why not?

In my opinion it happens to be true.

 

[kool maudit]

all i will say is that you possess a deeply uncommon opinion. very few people with no ties to toronto would agree with it. contrarily, there are many people with no ties to new york who would agree with the inverse. this leads me to believe that your views are being influenced by patriotism/allegiance, but, really -- it's an aesthetic opinion and those can be very idiosyncratic. i can only remark again that i strongly disagree.

(edit: as an aside, i can't even understand the opinion from a fundamentalist-modernist viewpoint. toronto does have an excellent collection of high-mod skyscrapers, but they occupy a fairly small sector of a broadly colonial/victorian city. if we are going to suppose for a moment that the TD centre, first canadian place and CCW outrank the lever building, the seagram building and, say, the secretariat (a view that is not unreasonable, if hardly obvious), are we also saying that commerce court north, canada life and the royal york are superior examples of their type than the american international building, 40 wall street and the american radiator building? are the anonymous hulks of lower yonge clearly superior to those of lower broadway? are the bay and gables of parkdale demonstrably superior to the brownstones of bedford-stuyvesant? what metric are you using, and to which buildings are you referring?)

 

[Ladies Mile]

all i will say is that you possess a deeply uncommon opinion. very few people with no ties to toronto would agree with it. contrarily, there are many people with no ties to new york who would agree with the inverse. this leads me to believe that your views are being influenced by patriotism/allegiance, but, really -- it's an aesthetic opinion and those can be very idiosyncratic. i can only remark again that i strongly disagree.

(edit: as an aside, i can't even understand the opinion from a fundamentalist-modernist viewpoint. toronto does have an excellent collection of high-mod skyscrapers, but they occupy a fairly small sector of a broadly colonial/victorian city. if we are going to suppose for a moment that the TD centre, first canadian place and CCW outrank the lever building, the seagram building and, say, the secretariat (a view that is not unreasonable, if hardly obvious), are we also saying that commerce court north, canada life and the royal york are superior examples of their type than the american international building, 40 wall street and the american radiator building? are the anonymous hulks of lower yonge clearly superior to those of lower broadway? are the bay and gables of parkdale demonstrably superior to the brownstones of bedford-stuyvesant? what metric are you using, and to which buildings are you referring?)

That very few people without ties to Toronto would agree with it does not necessarily make it untrue. We fly under the radar architecturally.

That people with no ties to New York would disagree also proves nothing. How many people have owned a Rolls Royce? Yet millions more look upon it as a quality car (not saying it isn't--I wouldn't know either!)

I would say that the modern examples cited are superior to their New York counterparts, and, yes, that the Royal York etc. outshine AI etc. Not sure about Yonge vs. Broadway as both are fairly chaotic environments. I will go out on a limb and say that in terms of circulation, light and garden space, the bay and gables have it all over the brownstones, which turned so rapidly to slums in part because their interior arrangements were warren-like and their expanding footprints gobbled up outdoor space that softened the urban environment as a whole. Lewis Mumford was the first to point this out that I am aware of.

 

[Ladies Mile]

BTW--my apologies for the complete thread-jack!!!

 

[kool maudit]

well, in my opinion, your take on the modern skyscrapers is arguable and your take on the bay and gables is not without some merit (though it doesn't take into account their inferiority at creating the sort of streetwall/outdoor room so often prized by urbanists). your take on the royal york and canada life, though, is preposterous. these are minor and relatively clumsy buildings, akin to the sun life or the old royal bank here in montreal. though they contribute a certain period feel, they are in every way inferior to the great prewar skyscrapers of lower manhattan. they deviate from them in no original way, they are simply lesser.

and yes, sorry for distracting from minneapolis, all.