[Traynor]

Although I am all for intensification along Bloor, I am not a complete philistine when it comes to the sensitivity of the view up University. I just want Toronto to look like the metropolis that it is. When some tourist goes back home and they show that photo to friends, I cringe when I think what a small town they must think Toronto is.

I would love to see a wall of 200-250 meter towers behind the Main Legislative Building at Queen's Park. Though ideally they would all be examples of the best architecture in the world. I personally would like to see something like One St.Thomas only 100 meters taller and then about 25 more of them in all different claddings.

Eventually we may get the Central Park effect that I crave. In my opinion, building around a park only serves to elevate the status of the remaining green space. Raising it to a protected oasis and not just another patch of trees.

(courtesy SSP at http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=304336 )

 

[Urban Shocker]

The City of London has tried for years to build around St. Paul's with the historical lobby fighting them all the way (because the tall buildings would block historical view corridors to the Cathedral's dome). After years (and years and years) of debate, the tall buildings to be approved in the area (Bishopsgate, St. Mary Axe, The Shard etc...) all have complex forms.

Do you think those buildings pretentious? Inferior to the big tall corporate boxes that could have been built instead?

I thought Paternoster Square, built in the '60s, worked well as a Modernist foil for the Cathedral, though it fell from favour and has since been replaced - fortunately, by neither that late '80s PoMo mess nor the neo-Classical pastiche proposed a few years later. And what London does with their tall buildings is their own concern; I don't think we need take our cues from them in developing our city since we have a different history, form, and contemporary creative culture. Buildings such as the Trump tower, or 1 St. Thomas, or L-tower - which set themselves apart from the neo-Modernist Toronto Style towers that are now becoming so familiar and interchangeable as to be almost invisible, invite comparisons - and must stand or fall on their pretentions of superiority. Mostly, I submit, they tend to fall and stand out like sore thumbs. I'd rather see our typical "background" buildings form the background to the Legislature than anything else, if buildings must go there.

 

[UrbanFervour]

I raised London as an example because of the famous debate over tall buildings and view corridors of St. Paul's (as it is a parallel discourse which has enjoyed far far more debate that our own view corridor up University). The pomo redevelopment of Paternoster Sq. doesn't have much to do with that topic, although I will say blank-faced-modernism-as-foil for heritage architecture is not as challenging or innovative of an idea as it was in the 1960s.

I don't suggest Toronto mimic London or any other city. But I do feel it is important for architects & developers working in to break free from "the box," a safe, easy, by-the-book way to offend (and inspire) nobody and to deliver a product designed to reap maximum profits for a developer. Prince Charles's personal tastes aside, some cities are better than others at demanding superior architecture that responds intelligently to local heritage. Your logic implies that because we have a lot of boxes already, we ought to build more boxes. And boxes will beget boxes, and those boxes will beget more boxes... And before you know it, Toronto will officially have the most generic, uninspired architectural profile of any large city in the world.

My point is that this site is different than other sites in central Toronto. It calls for design. The architect/developer's recognition that these building intrudes on the historic view corridor should be implicit in its eventual form. A spire is far from the only solution, but a glass box with funny concrete hat (a la 18 yorkville, Casa, 1 Bedford etc...) will not cut it, in my opinion.

 

[Urban Shocker]

The Modernist box is part of Toronto's heritage though, probably more so than it is for most other cities, so we need not run screaming from it. Qualitatively, the form isn't as easily dismissed as you might wish: if boxes such as the TD Centre, Commerce Court or - bringing us right up to date - Casa were easily reproduced in order to begat other boxes then Toronto would be chock full o' handsomely proportioned buildings. But it isn't, and there are plenty of examples of how the form has been misused by design-challenged architects. But then not every Greek temple matched the Parthenon either and you're right that design counts, that there is a magic ingredient at work that can't be quantified but which produces beauty. But not, I think, in that there is a heirarchy of forms of beauty with the rectilinear at the bottom of the list. I couldn't say that the 'Marilyn' towers are more beautiful than Casa, for instance, yet they both make my life more enjoyable when I behold them. But I could say that The Met towers, worthy and popular expression of "sexy curves" that they are, don't command attention at that high level. Building a city through repeating a form with variations is perfectly valid - it happened with our early Georgian buildings that were probably adapted from books of existing plans, with the more elaborately decorated Victorian red brick commercial rows that followed them, with the neighbourhoods of bay and gables, and today's practically interchangeable residential point towers. As the form is repeated it strengthens the identity of the whole.

 

[UrbanAffair]

I thought Paternoster Square, built in the '60s, worked well as a Modernist foil for the Cathedral, though it fell from favour and has since been replaced - fortunately, by neither that late '80s PoMo mess nor the neo-Classical pastiche proposed a few years later. And what London does with their tall buildings is their own concern; I don't think we need take our cues from them in developing our city since we have a different history, form, and contemporary creative culture. Buildings such as the Trump tower, or 1 St. Thomas, or L-tower - which set themselves apart from the neo-Modernist Toronto Style towers that are now becoming so familiar and interchangeable as to be almost invisible, invite comparisons - and must stand or fall on their pretentions of superiority. Mostly, I submit, they tend to fall and stand out like sore thumbs. I'd rather see our typical "background" buildings form the background to the Legislature than anything else, if buildings must go there.

Do you think 1 St. Thomas stands out in a bad way? If so we definitely disagree. Don't we want to have some buildings that stand out? It would be awfully boring around here if everything looked the same. As for the background, it will still be a distraction no matter what they put on Avenue, whether it is traditional Toronto or a newer style. I just think if we have to build higher here a newer style would be a more pleasing and intersting contrast than something that someone sees that looks boring and already done a bunch of times over.

 

[Traynor]

Urban Shocker ... that there is a magic ingredient at work that can't be quantified but which produces beauty.

But it can be quantified and was known to the ancient Greeks. It is called the Golden Ratio of which the Golden Rectangle is part of. All aesthetically pleasing architecture uses it. Psychologically it is pleasing to humans though the exact reason is not understood.

The Wikipedia article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_rectangle

 

[Urban Shocker]

Do you think 1 St. Thomas stands out in a bad way? If so we definitely disagree. Don't we want to have some buildings that stand out? It would be awfully boring around here if everything looked the same. As for the background, it will still be a distraction no matter what they put on Avenue, whether it is traditional Toronto or a newer style. I just think if we have to build higher here a newer style would be a more pleasing and intersting contrast than something that someone sees that looks boring and already done a bunch of times over.

Well, 1 St. Thomas already has a delightfully lively thread, and my opinion of the building is similar to this one, though less admiring of Stern's ability to mine styles of the past for meaning:

I find myself caught between respecting Stern's skill in pulling off these 'faux' designs so well, and lamenting the lost opportunity for something that is more reflective of our time. If it does not represent contemporary design, I think there is something inherently dishonest about it, and thus I have a harder time enjoying and appreciating the work.

 

[CN Tower]

It remains far from a certainty that there exists a bona fide market for more super luxury units in this area. The new Four Seasons (what do we call this, the New Old Four Seasons?) has plenty of units remaining from the builder and not one actually closed yet at those stratospheric prices. Same goes for 77 Charles and there are many other super luxury units floating around as well.

Don't count on this project proceeding too quickly. I give it 5+ years before you would need to call the movers.

 

[Urban Shocker]

But it can be quantified and was known to the ancient Greeks. It is called the Golden Ratio of which the Golden Rectangle is part of. All aesthetically pleasing architecture uses it. Psychologically it is pleasing to humans though the exact reason is not understood.

I don't see the Golden Mean explicitly expressed in the general proportions of Casa, which packs a mean aesthetic punch, do you? It isn't there in the proportions of the floor plan, for instance - I checked when the building first caught my eye as a rare beauty and didn't find it. I once looked for it in the proportions of the TD Centre buildings, however, and the modules of the windows seem to conform, and the towers are composed from these modules and are in proportion to one another while being different sizes - which gives harmony to the group of buildings as a whole. And the spaces between the towers, when contrasted to the mass of the towers themselves, plays a part in how they're "read". There are nice placements like that happening in the space between the Radio City towers, and between the 18 Yorkville tower and the town houses that are part of that complex, and in all sorts of other buildings around town new and old. Where the Golden Mean exists, it may be more a case of the designer arriving at a conclusion that happens to express it rather than it being employed as a device to produce something that's pleasing to the eye. With Casa, maybe the proportions of the building expresses it from certain angles? One of the Maple Leaf Square towers is an angled pentagon in plan, which suggests that it is lozenge shaped when seen from the south east, and I think that gives it a more dynamic form than the sister tower.

 

[Architecturefan]

... hence the 'lost' opportunity, no?

At the end of the day it's all about the kind of city you want to live in: either one with a frontier town-type mentality where anything goes and nothing is valued at all, or one that believes in the notion of a public realm that is more than merely a blank slate for unbridled commercial development. The former cares for expediency only while the latter seeks a balance that makes sense to some greater good. Mandating for the preservation of heritage structures when there are empty lots available next door makes this kind of sense, and so does mandating for the preservation of natural or heritage vistas. This is a compromise though. We cannot save every single view corridor or every heritage building and the city does have to continue to evolve and grow, which is all the more reason why we have to be careful to choose the truly outstanding and significant examples for preservation. The University/Queen's Park view is just such an example. If we can't make a case for it then we can't make a case for anything, and this is the dangerous precedence we are setting.

Fair enough. I thought you were saying the Board erred in not shooting down the proposal. I don't think anyone on either side of the debate would go so far as to say the city should be a blank slate for unbridled urban development. This development is not an example of that either.

Despite the way the media insists on portraying it, the impact on the legislature will be minimal. The City took the position that an acceptable height would be one where the buildings aren't visible looking north from College and that's the height that the developer agreed on and was eventually approved at the Board. In terms of impact on the view corridor, the only diffrence over the existing four seasons is that instead of being visible from Gerrard the new development will be visible from Elm. This is not a loss for heritage preservation in Toronto and if there's some sort of precedent being set as a result of this, I'm missing it.

 

[interchange42]

In fact, it turns out that what has been approved is the north tower at 127 metres and the south tower at 133 metres, so the impact will be less than what it would have been at 143 metres, as shown below:

42

 

[Name]

What's the big ugly castle building in the middle? -and why do i feel obliged/compelled to focus on it?

 

[adma]

Although I am all for intensification along Bloor, I am not a complete philistine when it comes to the sensitivity of the view up University. I just want Toronto to look like the metropolis that it is. When some tourist goes back home and they show that photo to friends, I cringe when I think what a small town they must think Toronto is.

Sounds like a pretty simple-minded and dumb tourist to me.

Sounds, too, like if we travelled together in, say, London, you'd be screaming your fool head off at me. That's your problem. Your idea of "metropolis" is strictly penile; mine incorporates the vaginal as well. And if you don't like it, just call me Lorena Bobbitt...

 

[Tewder]

I just want Toronto to look like the metropolis that it is.

[...]

Eventually we may get the Central Park effect that I crave. In my opinion, building around a park only serves to elevate the status of the remaining green space. Raising it to a protected oasis and not just another patch of trees.

... but Toronto does look like the metropolis it is. You want it to look like a metropolis it isn't. Toronto isn't Manhattan and never will be, but this isn't necessarily a bad thing. I'd rather a first class Toronto than a second rate knock off of somewhere else, which will only ever pale in comparison anyway.

 

[marcus_a_j]

Although I am all for intensification along Bloor, I am not a complete philistine when it comes to the sensitivity of the view up University. I just want Toronto to look like the metropolis that it is. When some tourist goes back home and they show that photo to friends, I cringe when I think what a small town they must think Toronto is.

I would love to see a wall of 200-250 meter towers behind the Main Legislative Building at Queen's Park. Though ideally they would all be examples of the best architecture in the world. I personally would like to see something like One St.Thomas only 100 meters taller and then about 25 more of them in all different claddings.

Eventually we may get the Central Park effect that I crave. In my opinion, building around a park only serves to elevate the status of the remaining green space. Raising it to a protected oasis and not just another patch of trees.

Just do a 180 and look down University. If/when MaRS gets built, that and the Ontario Hydro Building will be in the forefront of a very urban corridor with Shangri-la, your desired 200 metre building, as the view terminus. A metropolis does not need 200-250 metre buildings all over the place. Tourists coming to Toronto will see the dense cluster of skyscrapers around the CBD and at Yonge-Bloor, not to mention the dozens and dozens of pockets of apartment high-rises scattered throughout the 416 and even into the 905.

I understand your desire for the Central Park effect you keep on bringing up and I agree that would be great to have here in Toronto, just not around Queen's Park. Besides, the 21 Avenue proposal isn't even on the periphery of Queen's Park to create this effect. It will not be noticed by people sitting and strolling in the Park, just seen as some other high-rise off in the distance.

What's the big ugly castle building in the middle? -and why do i feel obliged/compelled to focus on it?

That's called the Ontario Legislature Building. It looks like that because it is a basic massing drawing of the building. You feel compelled to look at it because that is the point. It should be given full attention without any silly little knobs poking up behind it.