That second post stands in as a pretty good definition of contrarian.

Now, when you say "ugly" you mean not good, r
adma said:
Yup--directly or indirectly, vested interest, all right. Kissy-kissy to the "buildings as a business" crowd; cheerleading and upholding philistine insensitivity by presenting those who call it out as "unwavering, unrealistic, extremist". And from past evidence, just plain *stupid* when it comes to beholding our comprehensive pre-existing urban form except through the filter of commercial real estate economics--or if not stupid, just uninterested, because what to you are the "extremists" have taken over that particular asylum. And that probably goes for a NYC or London no less than a Toronto: you'd look at it all through the dry, dreary "real estate economics" filter, and anything other way of seeing and absorbing the city is clingy, "unrealistic" urban dilettantism. And not only that, but the more, er, "militant" so-called urban dilettantes like myself probably poison the well from which we are force-feeding you the water from.

I mean, it's been clear all along that you never *knew* any pre-existing architectural importance here, you never *knew* any pre-existing urbanistic importance, you were *never conditioned to know or have any preemptive curiosity* about the same, and you never cared to know because your preferred commercial-real-estate-economics auto-filter just sees something old and dated and requiring freshening-up/investment-maximizing, in which "caring to know"--and what's more, those unwavering-unrealistic-extremist types who force the caring-to-know argument--just gets inconveniently in the way like topless FEMEN protesters or something. Thus, you exist in the same kind of silo as the kinds of residential real estate professionals who feel that HCDs were the death of Rosedale.

Look: when you get to the bottom of it and pare away the fancy flourishes, my stance on the Simpsons Tower *isn't* extremist--I mean, I can seriously picture anyone from Dave LeBlanc to Alex Bozikovic on down sharing my view of this as a gross, insensitive, and disastrously shortsighted disfigurement, not to mention a condemnation of the raw real-estate-economics alibi you're offering. And unlike you, they *are* inherently aware of the backstory--and indeed, of how such "backstory awareness" is critical to sensitively understanding this or any city. (Oh, and they're not exactly "extremists" either, i.e. unlike a lot of hardcore preservationists, they'd likely let bygones be bygones and lay a degree of due praise upon the masterfully chewed-up-and-regurgitated Concourse Building façade.)

LeBlanc/Bozikovic vs maestro: no contest. And if you disagree with my educated hunch, prove otherwise.
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Typical. Another bloated rant that avoids any reasonable solution except total replacement of the precast panels. Perhaps you're still in denial that these facade panels can't be rehabilitated. Yeah, I'm just so insensitive or unappreciative of the architecture because I have a mature perspective of the costs of things unlike, for example, a child. I'm not aware of any billionaires stepping forward to DONATE tens of millions to recreate the original look either. That's was the failing facade's only hope.

It's your combative, unrelenting preservationist stance that is holding people back from learning to appreciate the architecture they currently dismiss. They don't take you seriously. You're downright laughable to me. Extremism is like an addiction . I'm not surprised by your blatant denial of this.
 
Hey both; please back away from the ad hominem.

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maestro said:
Typical. Another bloated rant that avoids any reasonable solution except total replacement of the precast panels. Perhaps you're still in denial that these facade panels can't be rehabilitated. Yeah, I'm just so insensitive or unappreciative of the architecture because I have a mature perspective of the costs of things unlike, for example, a child. I'm not aware of any billionaires stepping forward to DONATE tens of millions to recreate the original look either. That's was the failing facade's only hope.

It's your combative, unrelenting preservationist stance that is holding people back from learning to appreciate the architecture they currently dismiss. They don't take you seriously. You're downright laughable to me. Extremism is like an addiction . I'm not surprised by your blatant denial of this.
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I notice you didn't get, much less acknowledge, my LeBlanc/Bozikovic memo. Speaking of which, note this tweet
https://twitter.com/alexbozikovic/status/808107976758296576
Note this article which said tweet refers to
https://www.thestar.com/life/homes/...-custom-renovation-in-time-for-christmas.html
Note this Facebook thread
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?....248321979568.176684.523179568&type=3&theater
I guess you can say the thread-responding likes of Shawn Micallef, John Shnier, David Topping, Bert Archer, Adele Weder, Lloyd Alter, Elizabeth Renzetti et al--not to mention those who spurred "more clickthroughs than anything in the entire history of [Marc Weisblott's] 12:36 newsletter"--are "extremists" just like me.

Though, to play devil's advocate here, keeping in mind that all that hand-wringing does *not* acknowledge some of the inconvenient nitty-gritty; that is, that the house was reportedly in near-unsalvageable condition when the couple acquired it (echoes of your "mature perspective of costs of things" et al argument re Simpsons), as well as the fact that we're given no indication whatsoever of the previous house's designer, provenance, et al. That is, according to your logic, it plays out as an emotional argument, and not without an element of aesthetic elitism, playing and shaming the perpetrators as destructive-philistine "design deplorables" of a sort, etc. (Indeed, 12:36 subsequently reported: "McMansion wife says she's been cyberbullied. After some Toronto Star coverage of a Windsor-area couple’s renovation (which Globe and Mail architecture critic Alex Bozikovic called “Maybe the worst home design story, and project, I have ever seen") brought new followers to Leslie Biggley’s Instagram, snark about her “Mid Century to French Country” remodel was sure to follow. But she praised her husband, Matt, for stepping in to swat away the haters: “He gets so fired up when people troll me.”)

Which in its way, feeds into how, in your knocking of my so-called "unrelenting stance", you're essentially skating over the broader *design* argument here: that is, the concept of the proposed Simpsons redesign is clumsy hackwork, the kind of insult-to-injury thing that practically *begs* such stances. And all the more insulting given the location. That is, if you *have* to do this kind of makeover/update, in this kind of location, do it a better, more sensitive way.

But I guess you're the sort whose "mature perspective" would side with the Biggleys over Bozikovic; that is, it's their property, it's their right to do what they want with their property, they shouldn't be forced into bankrupting themselves because of a few cyberbullying design Nazis, and all in all it's better for the neighbourhood and for land values and all of that than a rotting, unsalvageable eyesore, if the design Nazis like it so much why don't they buy it etc etc. And it doesn't matter if the replacement's schlocky-kitschy "French Country" or a Shim-Sutcliffe original, it beats the decrepit status quo.

Oh well...
 
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Please get back to me today with how long you'd like to be banned for the ad hominem comments. You'll both be on holiday for a month unless I get a good explanation as to why not to ban you for that long… or, if you go back into your posts and edit out the ad hominem jabs, you're welcome to continue posting.

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Yes. The cladding looks the exact same (colour and form) as the newer cladding on the old Zurich building on University. A bit of a grey/brown/taupe colour. This is a bit of a consolation as I thought/feared it would sea-foam green (albeit a small consolation).
 
interchange42 said:
Please get back to me today with how long you'd like to be banned for the ad hominem comments. You'll both be on holiday for a month unless I get a good explanation as to why not to ban you for that long… or, if you go back into your posts and edit out the ad hominem jabs, you're welcome to continue posting.

42
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You know what IC42, I love it when people on this site get a bit feisty; especially with the resident elitist with whom I've also had a run in. Propriety is all fine and dandy, but if all this website is to offer is dry facts it's missing out on it's potential, which is entertainment value. Don't ban these guys, let'em have their virtual fist fight. It's fun for all the people watching.
 
Victor1 said:
You know what IC42, I love it when people on this site get a bit feisty; especially with the resident elitist with whom I've also had a run in. Propriety is all fine and dandy, but if all this website is to offer is dry facts it's missing out on it's potential, which is entertainment value. Don't ban these guys, let'em have their virtual fist fight. It's fun for all the people watching.
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Then again, my "resident elitist" status sort of highlights what I'd label the "deplorification" of the UT Forum--that is, a decade or so ago it seemed to echo the happy-go-lucky and dynamic Torontopian hipster-urbanist mood in the air (Mayor Miller, the beginnings of Spacing, the final years of Jane Jacobs, etc etc), but now it seems like that dynamic's moved elsewhere, or if it's touched on UT it's more through the home page (which has become the flagship feature in lieu of the Forum) or certain threads like the Miscellany photo series or Rob Ford's Toronto. And by "deplorification", I mean that the Bozikovic-to-Renzetti hierarchy I raise above is of remote concern to those who remain, in much the same way that any number of celebrities or regarded luminaries couldn't budge enough voters to Hillary, at least in the places where it really counted. That I'm the "resident elitist" sends a message that "elites" aren't welcome here--those who remain can think for themselves, thank you, they don't need to bow to Bozikovic and his high-placed buds. They are, I guess, "virtuously indifferent" (and "indifferent" might be a more fitting word to convey their mindset than "ignorant").

Not that this place has gone *totally* in that direction--after all, this thread's still had its healthy share of condemnations of the proposed Simpsons design that are *not* by myself.
 
adma said:
Then again, my "resident elitist" status sort of highlights what I'd label the "deplorification" of the UT Forum--that is, a decade or so ago it seemed to echo the happy-go-lucky and dynamic Torontopian hipster-urbanist mood in the air (Mayor Miller, the beginnings of Spacing, the final years of Jane Jacobs, etc etc), but now it seems like that dynamic's moved elsewhere, or if it's touched on UT it's more through the home page (which has become the flagship feature in lieu of the Forum) or certain threads like the Miscellany photo series or Rob Ford's Toronto. And by "deplorification", I mean that the Bozikovic-to-Renzetti hierarchy I raise above is of remote concern to those who remain, in much the same way that any number of celebrities or regarded luminaries couldn't budge enough voters to Hillary, at least in the places where it really counted. That I'm the "resident elitist" sends a message that "elites" aren't welcome here--those who remain can think for themselves, thank you, they don't need to bow to Bozikovic and his high-placed buds. They are, I guess, "virtuously indifferent" (and "indifferent" might be a more fitting word to convey their mindset than "ignorant").

Not that this place has gone *totally* in that direction--after all, this thread's still had its healthy share of condemnations of the proposed Simpsons design that are *not* by myself.
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This was pretentious to the point of being nearly unreadable. I think you've invented a new language here. Can we just talk about the building?
 
Victor1 said:
You know what IC42, I love it when people on this site get a bit feisty; especially with the resident elitist with whom I've also had a run in. Propriety is all fine and dandy, but if all this website is to offer is dry facts it's missing out on it's potential, which is entertainment value. Don't ban these guys, let'em have their virtual fist fight. It's fun for all the people watching.
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You can have feisty without having ad hominem attacks, for goodness' sake. Fight about the buildings if you want feisty, don't attack other members.

42
 
Victor1 said:
You know what IC42, I love it when people on this site get a bit feisty; especially with the resident elitist with whom I've also had a run in. Propriety is all fine and dandy, but if all this website is to offer is dry facts it's missing out on it's potential, which is entertainment value. Don't ban these guys, let'em have their virtual fist fight. It's fun for all the people watching.
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This "virtual fist fight" has made this thread unreadable. People can have spirited disagreements without the childish insults. There are too many places on the internet to read that kind of nonsense.
 
I think much of this have to do with that rendering. Remember the Zruich relcad received pretty much the same response when it was just starting but that building turned out to be better than people had expected.

To be frank I don't think anyone is trying to create architectural masterpieces through re-claddings, more so a quick inexpensive change to bring their building in-line with mediocrity.
 
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