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  • Thread starter billy corgan19982
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I agree with Tewder. Toronto is a very good city with a great potential of becoming a great city that, unfortunately, does not get realized due to mediocre, cheap, non-visionary thinking and design.
For those who think everything is peachy and criticize those who complain and point out our shortcomings in city building, check this thread out:
http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=147218
Toronto it ain't, and it shows.
I guess those of us that want a better built environment are idealists, but that is definitely a starting point to turn things around
Accepting the status quo and defending mediocrity in building and urban design won't help our city realize its full potential and make it a city that is respected nationally and internationally.
 
Pfloyd said:
I agree with Tewder. Toronto is a very good city with a great potential of becoming a great city that, unfortunately, does not get realized due to mediocre, cheap, non-visionary thinking and design.
For those who think everything is peachy and criticize those who complain and point out our shortcomings in city building, check this thread out:
http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=147218
Toronto it ain't, and it shows.
Click to expand...

Perhaps that isn't a good thread to exemplify the point as I saw mostly aerials. We're talking about streetscapes. There were photos of a quality waterfront with lots of parkland, and we're working on that. We already have some good parkland, and I bet I could throw together some photos of the islands, or cyclists crossing that white suspension bridge by the Humber and say "Chicago it ain't, and it shows".

Chicago has done made a lot of progress towards improving the urban environment and I'd like to see more of it in the photos. Ultimately no one is saying that Toronto doesn't have a lot of work to do, but trying to get the city to look like a collage of the nicest places in different cities is rather unrealistic. That's what a lot of lot the cynics do.
 
junctionist said:
Perhaps that isn't a good thread to exemplify the point as I saw mostly aerials. We're talking about streetscapes. There were photos of a quality waterfront with lots of parkland, and we're working on that. We already have some good parkland, and I bet I could throw together some photos of the islands, or cyclists crossing that white suspension bridge by the Humber and say "Chicago it ain't, and it shows".

Chicago has done made a lot of progress towards improving the urban environment and I'd like to see more of it in the photos. Ultimately no one is saying that Toronto doesn't have a lot of work to do, but trying to get the city to look like a collage of the nicest places in different cities is rather unrealistic. That's what a lot of lot the cynics do.
Click to expand...

The point of the thread was to show a city that is very similar to us in a societal and geographical sense, but that in contrast to us, has a very long tradition (since the late 1800's) of great architecture and good urban design.
Is that so difficult to understand? If you knew the place I guess you would...
Your "collages" and "cynics" comments are out of place.
As I mentioned in previous posts in this thread, every building is an opportunity to turn things around in this city in order to improve the built environment, but it seems this mediocre mentality is stubbornly ingrained in the minds of many in this city. No wonders things are the way they are.
 
Pfloyd said:
The point of the thread was to show a city that is very similar to us in a societal and geographical sense, but that in contrast to us, has a very long tradition (since the late 1800's) of great architecture and good urban design.
Is that so difficult to understand? If you knew the place I guess you would...
Your "collages" and "cynics" comments are out of place.
Click to expand...
They're not out of place. junctionist was totally correct. Anyone can throw together a collage of pics that make Toronto look fantastic and clean OR dirty and ghetto. Same with Chicago. Don't get me wrong; I'm appalled by the condition our city is in, and agree that Chicago has much higher standards, but that thread of intentionally flattering pics was not a terribly valid example.
 
Does anyone else get annoyed at the constant Chicago worship on this board? Most of their recent high rises are uninspiring - they have quite a few newly built towers that are a lot worse than the worst I can think of in Toronto, ROCP. And then there's their waterfront, much of which is inaccessible and isolated. You literally have to go through dark tunnels under an expressway and when you get to the water it's nothing more than a path sandwiched between the expressway and the lake.

And that's not even mentioning their endless slums...
 
Pfloyd said:
The point of the thread was to show a city that is very similar to us in a societal and geographical sense, but that in contrast to us, has a very long tradition (since the late 1800's) of great architecture and good urban design.
Is that so difficult to understand? If you knew the place I guess you would...
Your "collages" and "cynics" comments are out of place.
As I mentioned in previous posts in this thread, every building is an opportunity to turn things around in this city in order to improve the built environment, but it seems this mediocre mentality is stubbornly ingrained in the minds of many in this city. No wonders things are the way they are.
Click to expand...

I don't know if that describes you, but many the collage comment applies to many of the cynics.

I want to see every building to make a positive contribution, but do you realize that a lot of them do? We have some great architecture of various styles. I hate mediocre buildings, I'd rather see development move at a slower pace but with better buildings. I'm not ready to deny the many quality buildings and that we have to completely turn everything around. I am aware of mediocre buildings in various "great" cities across the world but do not think less of those cities because of them.
 
Coruscanti Cognoscente said:
Unmitigated travesty? Huge insult to Torontonians? Are you being serious? :confused:
Click to expand...

Absolutely. This thing is the ugliest lump of metal imaginable, and anyone who would argue that it's just a platform for ads is part of the problem.

Pen Equity could have hired architects to design this place (buildings are normally designed by architects), and those architects would likely have given us something that features

1) High Quality Cladding befitting a building of this size and location: even though the cladding is meant to sit back from the ads, it is not invisible (although I wish what they picked was); appropriate cladding would be complimentary, the way a proper frame enhances the painting it surrounds. Poor quality stuff will only ever look like a mistake that was covered up with ads to hide it, and it will never look like a gallery for the ads like it should.

2) A Discernible Style, and maybe even an eye-engaging pattern on the exterior, achieved through a repetition of shapes e.g. an alternating grid of window and ad space all akin to a crossword puzzle: it needs at least something that looks like there was a grand plan to it all.

3) No fake fans.

Instead of the showplace we could have had, we have the world's largest backyard shed with some signs tacked onto it. If it were bombed you wouldn't be able to tell. My kid could paint that, and I don't have a kid. Were they to give this building a signature smell, they would also have to build vomitoriums to catch the flying chunks. Osama bin Laden is likely hiding in it. This building wouldn't voom if you put 4 million volts through it. This is an ex-building.

42
 
My, my.... aren't we the loudest moderate (moderator) on UT? A good martini will do that.

I'm suprised by your lack of vision... Picadilly Circus (and to some degree Times Square) created their advertising orgy on top of buildings with some architectural merit...

We can slap anything on Toronto Life Square (there will be a dazzle or two to mitigate the present backlit cheap-out within a year... yes, quote me) and all we are doing is welding some fireworks to a piece of crap that likely won't fall down.

The potential is enormous and the obstacles tiny....
 
I really don't think TLS looks that bad as it is now. I like the massing. Sure the ads are a little uninspiring, but I think that'll be solved over time. Especially as more eyes start looking in on Dundas Square.
 
This building horribly offends in some ways, is OK in others. All in all, I'd give it a failing grade, but that's not just because of its standalone architectural merit - it already has a cynically depressive prequel in Penequity's little Torch test.

Since the Torch project dubiously excited our good faith that somehow a building so awkward, unlikely and underdog-ish could succeed - only to see that little dream ruined - it's been hard to regard Penequity's urban and architectural agenda with much more than gimlet-eyed contempt.

The letdown of one depresses any good faith one might have in the other.
These stolid lumpenbilden, each a jagged, congealed heap of bad finishes, awkward proportions, cheap materials, quick-buck agendas, delayed construction, misleading promos, bottom-line advertecture and aggressive contempt for urbane niceties, entirely fail to inspire.

They do work well as cautionary trolls on multiple levels - an eternal warning against the use of corrugated brown-coated aluminum siding in the downtown core, as one example. Until "Shack-Chic" catches on, at least.

That said, I can't wait to go see a movie in the new theatres. I hope they're big!
 
I would point out that we probably shouldn't judge things until they are finished. I imagine this one still has plenty of little (or major?) details left that could make a considerable difference.

Probably isn't any point though, as most people have already (prematurely) made up their minds.

(I wonder if people were so critical of the eiffel tower while it was still under construction - it must have looked quite uninspiring going up...)
 
gei said:
I would point out that we probably shouldn't judge things until they are finished. I imagine this one still has plenty of little (or major?) details left that could make a considerable difference.

Probably isn't any point though, as most people have already (prematurely) made up their minds.

(I wonder if people were so critical of the eiffel tower while it was still under construction - it must have looked quite uninspiring going up...)
Click to expand...


"Famous French writer Guy de Maupassant hated the tower so much that he was hiding every evening in the only place, from which he could not see it, in the restaurant on the top of the tower itself."

Quoted from some article.

I'm not ready to pass judgment on Yonge-Dundas square quite yet, but she ain't no Eiffel Tower.
 
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