grey
Senior Member
There's a big picture of it on the poster wall for PCL construction in the Skywalk.
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- Thread starter Mike in TO
- Start date
syn
Senior Member
So?
Why can't office buildings just look like office buildings and nothing else?
Whoaccio
Senior Member
syn
Senior Member
I'm asking UrbanShocker that question because he'll routinely ask it himself when people complain that a certain building is underwhelming architecturally or aesthetically.
Urban Shocker
Doyenne
All of the downtown office buildings look like office buildings. Nobody would confuse any of them for an airport, or an oil oil derrick, or a bungalow. The TD Centre and Commerce Court look like office buildings. They have been designated by the City, and recognized internationally as excellent examples of the work of their elite architects. This reflects positively on our city as a home for good design. What counts is how well something is done, and none of the office buildings that have been built since, in the downtown core, have achieved their status.
TrickyRicky
Senior Member
Forget about international architects. The concerning issue is where are the Toronto based corporate giants and industrial titans with the balls to burn money on architectural exuberance? Dreaming of commercial tower architectural expression first is like putting the cart before the horse.
Bertie Wooster
New Member
Toronto looks like a dump back then. Obviously the waterfront was an industrial wasteland though. Unfortunately, although it's developed, it's not nearly as good its potential.
egotrippin
Senior Member
I don't understand why many people here bemoan Bay-Adelaide being an unimaginative box, yet something like Commerce Court West is brilliant. Don't get me wrong, I still like it, but it's just a box. The most simple and boxiest of boxes.
adma
Superstar
2008 vs c1970. WZMH vs Pei. And in the newer case, an arbitrarily-tacked-on older facade...
Dichotomy
Banned
In some ways 'post modern' design has become an amalgamation of earlier trends. To some, those designs look confused or jumbled.
The beauty of Commerce Court and other '60s designs was there simplicity and the cleanliness of their lines. Although I like art deco, I find a lot of 'classic' designs to be too 'busy.' I've never been a big fan of Victorian and Edwardian designs, so IMO, if a lot of buildings from the '30s backward were pulled down, I wouldn't lament their loss.
The Scotia tower is the only downtown tower I love that has been built since the '70s. The BCE place (or whatever those twin attrocities are on the east side of the core) are the ugliest of the tall towers, IMO.
Under the category of It Has All Been Done Before, architecture, along with fashion, has become a rehash of earlier styles.
I mean really: after the minimalist designs of the '50s and '60s, what was left to do? Like the miniskirt (then gawdawful 'hot pants), there was nothing left in fashion in the '70s but to go gawdy again.
In Toronto, we got a heap of boring, faceless condos and office towers (like the boring crap built along Carlton, east of Yonge) and the glass travesties along Bay St. (like the ones near St. Joseph that look like they ran out of the same colored glass) all through the '80s.
There seems to be a bit of a renaissance in condo design now, but I am not sure companies are willing to go the extra mile with offices in this city.
I guess a lot of one's point of view depends on whether you lived it (elephant pants and platform shoes) or are looking back on it.
egotrippin
Senior Member
Great points, and I guess looking back is different than experiencing buildings like CCW newly built. I can only imagine how astounding it was, especially for Toronto, at the time. And of course I don't want to slander I.M. Pei or Mies, because I like a lot of modernist office towers, especially their work in Toronto. I just wouldn't call the actual building designs brilliant. I find their skills and cleverness to be more with the use of space and arrangement. Buildings like Scotia or the TD Canada Trust tower are a lot more creative and interesting in terms of actual design work, in my opinion.
However, I've always been partial to classical and and neo-classical architecture, so I suppose I'll never fully understand modernism without experiencing it at its height. There's room for everything though, perhaps most of my "beef" is because the development in the 60s and 70s destroyed way too many of Toronto's best historical corporate buildings, which shouldn't have been allowed.
Peepers
Banned
These pictures remind us that the GREATEST decade for development in Toronto's history was the 1970's. During this short time we saw the completion of the TD Centre, Commerce Court, Royal Bank Plaza, First Canadian Place, and the CN Tower, i.e. the MAJOR elements of Todays Skyline. The 80's gave us 2 more gems in the form of Scotia Plaza and BCE Place. Everything that has followed since ( over a period of 20 years) is nothing more than infill.
Urban Shocker
Doyenne
I agree with egotrippin that the "use of space and arrangement" in situating the TD Centre and Commerce Court West buildings is an important part of their power. Mies considered other spatial arrangements for the towers and banking podium before settling on what we now see.
And let's not forget that he had a blank slate to work with, once most of the other buildings on the site were levelled; the same goes for Pei, to a lesser extent.
Pei used the same proportions as the TD towers, but placed his tower at 90 degrees to the two largest of them. He clad it with shiny metal rather than matte black metal. That created a harmony based on similar shapes but contrasting finishes. When you see photographs of the downtown core just after Pei's tower was finished, the TD towers look like a neutral background for the star attraction - Commerce Court. As an ensemble they had harmony, and a strongly sculptural quality as pure and unadorned shapes, yet Pei used a subtle visual one-upmanship over Mies. No other building added since has done that - though I think First Canadian Place attempted to. Royal Bank Plaza came close - it used to look great from the lake on overcast days with the TD towers behind it, but that view is gradually being eroded by new construction south of Front Street.
As Dichotomy indicates, you had to be there in order to appreciate it, without the additional visual distraction and layering that all the other towers that have gone up since have added.
And let's not forget that he had a blank slate to work with, once most of the other buildings on the site were levelled; the same goes for Pei, to a lesser extent.
Pei used the same proportions as the TD towers, but placed his tower at 90 degrees to the two largest of them. He clad it with shiny metal rather than matte black metal. That created a harmony based on similar shapes but contrasting finishes. When you see photographs of the downtown core just after Pei's tower was finished, the TD towers look like a neutral background for the star attraction - Commerce Court. As an ensemble they had harmony, and a strongly sculptural quality as pure and unadorned shapes, yet Pei used a subtle visual one-upmanship over Mies. No other building added since has done that - though I think First Canadian Place attempted to. Royal Bank Plaza came close - it used to look great from the lake on overcast days with the TD towers behind it, but that view is gradually being eroded by new construction south of Front Street.
As Dichotomy indicates, you had to be there in order to appreciate it, without the additional visual distraction and layering that all the other towers that have gone up since have added.
Dichotomy
Banned
The contrast at the corner of King and Bay, 30 years ago was visually stunning: the black towers on one corner, the tall, silver spire on another, then the chalk white B of M tower. However, First Canadian Place is aging badly.
Girl, get yourself to a plastic surgeon!
Girl, get yourself to a plastic surgeon!
Translude15
Frank the Tank
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