[Archivist]

Tewder, I agree to an extent, but your description of "European Parks" is a bit broad. I find parks in London to be less formal and not so gravelly as those in Paris, but I've been in the Jardins Luxembourge on a hot sunny day when the dust and glare from those little pebbles everywhere gives me a headache. I often joke that the French aren't happy with a park until they've dumped a ton of gravel in it. I don't find this to be so much the case elsewhere.

 

[Urban Shocker]

Our parks, as Ladies Mile points out, are also part of who we have chosen to be - which is different from who Londoners or Parisians have chosen to be, or have been made to be by the land-owning class who developed their urban centres centuries ago. Ours, unlike many of theirs, aren't fenced in and put out of bounds after dusk for instance. London's Georgian squares have delightfully enticing green spaces that are actually gated gardens for the sole use of local residents. We're free of all that nonsense, thankfully: in ravines and in parks alike we simply run wild, run free.

 

[junctionist]

You can find a lot of any kind of park you're interested in "European cities". That's just too broad in terms of geography.

 

[kool maudit]

i find this all predictable and tiring. new york is boastful and unbalanced... london is dreary old hulk... paris is a tyrants necklace etc.

this obsessive sneering at the western world's great cities is so transparently aspirational, so terribly upper-middle.

 

[Urban Shocker]

No man is a hero to his valet.

 

[Hipster Duck]

London's Georgian squares have delightfully enticing green spaces that are actually gated gardens for the sole use of local residents.

Our more affluent homeowners have that privatized greenspace arrangement too. They're called backyards.

 

[Urban Shocker]

Private back gardens in Toronto don't present themselves as public parks, though. London's gated garden squares - Connaught Square, Bedford Square Gardens, Belgrave Square Gardens, Thurloe Square Gardens to name a few - are surrounded by vehicular streets and sidewalks that are as public as any Toronto's streets and sidewalks are; they're lovely gardens to look at ... but frustratingly out of bounds to the general public.

They're an approach that we avoided, thought Toronto was founded at about the same time that these key-holder garden developments were being built. Here, the administrative class were granted generous park lots in strips of land running between Queen and Bloor - later gradually subdivided and sold off, with the street grid sometimes awkwardly run through them.

 

[Oliver Tweed]

This is a fascinating thread. It's eaten up most of my afternoon but I can't stop reading. Lots of well thought-out posts.

Architecture is a reflection of the city in its buildings. Or, to put it another way, it's an expression of the city - its history, its function, its cultural makeup - in built form. You can learn a lot about a city - what goes on there, who lives there, which direction it's headed - by looking at its buildings. A city that cares about its architecture is a city that cares about itself. It's confidence, self-assertion, pride. It's the same on an individual level; appearance is directly related to confidence. I suggest that Toronto is just beginning to care about itself in this way. London, in contrast, was brimming with confidence as the mothership of the immensely powerful British empire when many of the seemingly endless grand Victorian buildings there were built.

Toronto has been described as a teenager - awkward, still discovering its identity, but full of tremendous potential. I wholeheartedly agree with this metaphor. It's starting to understand its strengths and how it fits in. It's also starting to look more polished and confident, but it's not there yet. That's fine with me. It's a greater feat to have a genuine understanding of who you are - faults and all - than it is to have a misguided sense of self-importance brought about by insecurity. To thine own self be true...

The mere fact that this in-depth discussion on Toronto's architectural identity is taking place is an example of Toronto's burgeoning maturity. I sense that many of us can pick out some themes or sensibilities in our architecture that make us stop and realize that there are legitimate, tangible examples of a Toronto style. It may not be fully formed, and it may be difficult to articulate, but it's there. And we should discuss it, debate it, argue it, flip it upside down, rotate it and occasionally slam it down in frustration. It's all part of the process.

I suggest that part of Toronto's style is this idea of "brick to glass" mentioned in earlier posts; the gleaming new growing out of the old and paying homage to Toronto's industrial past. Also present is this idea of understated, modest highrises. What some call boring others call clean and sleek. The Bay-Adelaide Centre is an example. The TD centre is arguably one of our greatest buildings and it's just a "boring box". I also suggest that the idea of form following function is part of Toronto's style, too. The Four Seasons Centre is primarily focused on what goes on inside, not outside. The RBC Dexia building would also fall into this category. (Although it's also pretty stunning on the outside if you ask me.) It's apparently an absolutely gorgeous place to work - open, airy and full of natural light. Let's not forget that the way a building looks from the outside is only a small part of what it is. How it looks, feels and works from the inside is arguably much more important.

This is obviously a very incomplete list, but these are a few things that jumped out at me.