[Urban Shocker]

The comments don't even mention minimalism or specific design aesthetics per se but talk instead about context, the blending of elements like heritage, and the sensibility of an architecture reflecting city values. Is it any wonder the Ballet School feels so right in an urbanistic way rather than just looking pretty or interesting?

Yes, "feels so right" nails it. It is impossible to "care for" any building - or, in the example Tewder quotes, an assemblage of buildings by different architects - without there being something there to care for in the first place that presents itself with an aesthetic wham! And if the magic ingredient that raises something beyond the functional to the "feels so right" level isn't present, no amount of dithery rearranging of categories ( let's include Cheddingtonista 'cause there's tons of it / no let's not / let's drop Casa 'cause it doesn't nuzzle up against a 19th century heritage building / no let's include it after all etc. ) can fake it. With this thread, and this issue, we seem to be forever locked in this sort of quandry.

 

[ProjectEnd]

I am quite happy to acknowledge all of this, and I am also quite willing to throw less-contextual, more freestanding buildings like Casa into the mix. Having said that, I find that calling it Toronto Style is unnecessary and adds nothing to my understanding or appreciation of it, while at the same time introducing uncomfortable and unprovable assertions about its definition as a style, or its uniqueness to Toronto.

BOOYA!

The other day, when this thread/debate first sprang up, I had a chat with Drew Mandel (an architect with several excellent homes around Toronto who has in the past worked at both KPMB and MJMA) about the existence of a 'Toronto style' and he found the notion laughable (he also thought the SOM building was remarkably KPMBish, and he would know). He explained that the relationships among Toronto architects and their firms are usually quite amiable, but almost all of them disagree with their piers somewhere. It reminded me of the Urban Design Awards about a month ago, when Peter and the Context team were receiving an award for Spire and a few of Diamond's cronies, who were behind me, kept shouting that it shouldn't have won because it wasn't contextual. It started off as a fun joke between firms, but they continued deriding those on stage at increasing volumes until someone from the city asked them to stop. Embarrassing really, but Jack was too busy annihilating the buffet to comment.

 

[Tewder]

I don't think all designers in Toronto have to march in lockstep with one another on all things. As US says, when it comes to a Toronto Style it's about a critical mass of a creative output happening moreso than an established and strict 'school of thought'. We label Monet, Manet, Renoir et al impressionists but their work is as different as it is similar, yet with the objectivity of time and distance we can understand and witness that there was an overarching style and sensibility at work there, for some more than others, and whether they would have perceived it in this way themselves or not.

We can get lost in the nomenclature, and whether you like the term Toronto Style or not is neither here nor there really (with apologies to Archivist who is an archivist I presume?). Thoughtfully contextual buildings that reflect a philosophy of being sensitive to and grounded in a meaningful sense of the 'local' in different forms and ways is being practised here. It is a perspective that is announcing itself loudly in the city and shaping the city in a way that probably hasn't been seen to this degree in Toronto before. Is this trend unique to Toronto? No, not necessarily. How it plays out in Toronto will be though and this is indeed an interesting thing.

 

[Urban Shocker]

Brahms and Tchaikovsky hated one another with a passion and felt they had nothing in common, but today we see them linked as Romantic era composers. Regardless of what Drew Mandel thinks of other firms, or what a bunch of guys in different firms linked beneath the Toronto Style umbrella shout at one another at an awards show, those with eyes to see can find common cause in what they produce as participants in the great design venture now afoot in our city.

 

[Ladies Mile]

There is a significant difference between Toronto and american cities. Mainly that Toronto lacks the entrepeneurial exuberance that usually leads to the most monumental buildings in american cities. Toronto's economy only really took off when the banks moved there from montreal, and the skyline reflects that. Aside from TD, the banks built pretty plain buildings. They are conservative insitutions. And the TD center at that only really exists because of the Bronfman families influence with Mies. They also funded the seagram building in New York.

Compare, if you will, to Pittsburgh's US steel tower. The Carnagie and the Mellon famiy's influence can be seen throughout the city. The cathedral of learning wouldn't exist without Mellon's help. Other american cities bear similar architectural developments. They owe their splendor to absurdly successful businessmen who wished to build monuments to themselves.

You can look at Toronto and ask where exactly is this? Failed projects like the weston tower are examples of why toronto remains conservative. Maybe it's too much red tape, a stronger municipal government that doesn't want eccentric billionaires running amok with the cityscape, or maybe it's the generally much less successful and much more conservative business culture in Toronto that leads to monuments of mediocrity like the Rogers building instead of a unique skyscraper.

The architects don't fund the projects. There's only so much they can do with so much money. They are ultimately subservient to their clients. If their clients don't want something impressive or decadent, it's not going to be built.

Sigh.

 

[Archivist]

Perhaps I can end this, by suggesting that we all maintain our own sense of what "Toronto Style" is. For some of us, it is simply buildings we like, or a subset of building by certain practitioners. For some of us, it is buildings that show a certain relationship to their context, be it a historical context or industrial. For some of us, it may be nothing. I think I've made my point clearly enough - a simple assertion that such a style exists because it must is not very satisfying to me - clearly it is for others. Other attempts to actually define what is meant have been more satisfying. In the end, no one is going to put me over the rack and hold red hot pokers to my feet until I come on board.

US's point is a good one: in some years to come, with the benefit of hindsight, all may become clear. We may see a certain collection of buildings as stylistically informed by each other to a degree that they merit their own designation as a particularly Toronto-centric instance of a style. Even if it becomes generally acknowledged, it's fringes will always be vague and undefined. Those who pretend to know with certainty where it begins and ends will be the fools in this debate. We may find that what we are seeing now is the early days in the emergence of a Toronto Style that is clearly and unambiguously ours.

Tewder, I call myself, these days, a "former archivist". I admit a certain passion for categorization, with a strong and clear awareness of what is gained and lost in such an endeavour. You are quite right that whether I am about to accept the existence of a style is pretty much irrelevant - Murano is what it is, Clear Spirit is what it is, regardless of what we call it, and hopefully we will find ourselves on the receiving end of more, not less, of these thoughtful buildings so completely of their time.

 

[Urban Shocker]

I can sign on to those sentiments - what an even-handed way to end this thread!

But, of course, it won't end there.

 

[adma]

The old question: what's more "Toronto"? District Lofts, or the Morgan? Or does it matter?

 

[old boy]

The old question: what's more "Toronto"? District Lofts, or the Morgan? Or does it matter?

It emphatically does not matter. Who cares if we can't define the undefinable. The city is morphing all the time , just try to put your finger on it. Toronto takes it all in, all the time. I like that quote about flying in from Boston and seeing all those hitherto " boxes " organizing in unexpected ways. It all depends on momentary points of view in this most fascinating place. Like photography implying an art film.

 

[Tewder]

Just to keep the dialogue going...

For me, this is a good example of the Toronto Style as defined by a philosophy of regional or local contextuality.

This project defines some major features of design in Toronto:

- A valuing of local context which in this case translates to the heritage structures and streetscapes, their scale and how they meet the street in a way that encourages vitality. This informs a sensibility that tips the scale in favour of retaining the original buildings, even where other options would be less complicated and less expensive.

- Faced with the mandate to preserve the buildings a fundamental part of the design is how the new structure will integrate with the original ones. Light and glassy minimalist modernism provides a nice counterpoint to the red-brick heritage materials, the addition nicely contrasting and complimenting the original buildings and vice versa. In this sense the sensitivity to context actually informs the design.

- This design response has further significance in a wider city context by addressing the height and density issues of typically low-rise streetscapes surrounding the downtown core without compromising the valued heritage roots mentioned above. This building design response then is also informing urban development. It is a design response that is literally rebuilding vast swaths of the city, emerging where possible along already established streetscapes everywhere here, new in-fill projects also taking their cue from it, mixing new brick bases aligned with heritage streetscapes with point towers or multi-storey glass elements that increase height and density. The examples are everywhere from Jazz on Church to the Distillery to Yorkville to all along Queen and King Streets.

This picture illustrates the impact of this Toronto Style in terms of the direction of urban development in established areas. Here we see an emerging streetscape of new development integrating contextually with the existing built form to create a new city of increased height and density.

All things considered this design response is informing development in a way that City Place or the development of new tracts south of the rails doesn't. It is a more Jacobs-inspired organic evolution of the built form of the city that feels contextual to Toronto, which is not to claim that this type of response is not seen elsewhere but the issue is to what degree? In Toronto it is transformative, defining city development to a degree that is not the case elsewhere.

If looking for an elusive Toronto style doesn't this have more meaning than looking for some theoretical aesthetic novelty to emerge that will come to define Toronto and capture the imagination of the world? At the end of the day people will come to this city and will get an overwhelming impression of how Toronto is developing in the critical mass of its buildings and along its streets that will make the city unique in their eyes.

 

[AnnetteMeetsJane]

Layman utterance....

Regardless of who the client and the architect is, all Toronto buildings have to meet planning guidelines as laid down by the city (or OMB) and by code. The same is true of Boston, Chicago, New York, London, Sydney etc. etc.
(1) How much is "Toronto style", "Boston Style" "London Style" etc. simply a product/reflection of the differences in planning guidelines in a city at any one time?

(2) If (1) does play a critical role, to what extent are city planners etc. a product of a single (university?) educational institution? Is it possible that the style in a city reflects a couple of professors who have had a particular impact on their students, who go on to have successful careers in city planning?

AmJ

 

[Tewder]

Yes, I would agree that those are contributing factors to what we see emerging today.

Re: point 1- City codes etc. are to some extent the result of the specific demands/circumstances of the city in question, which is to say a part of the context, and so will be different from city to city. Older historic cities like Boston, Montreal or Quebec City will likely have a different perspective regarding heritage preservation and the codes surrounding development that will arise from that perspective than Toronto due to the critical mass of that heritage, for example. Cities with unique geographic features like Vancouver or San Fran may also have unique perspectives on these things. One of the main issues facing Toronto is that of a need for increased height and density. Large parts of the city were built before it experienced substantial growth and expansion, and so are more low-rise than what you may find in other important cities.

Re: point2- I think this is part of US's argument and another reason why design responses and/or how they are expressed in Toronto will be different from other cities because there is just such a community of academics, designers, urban planners etc working here, exchanging ideas, contributing to the local discourse, being informed by, inspired by and educated by the same local institutions and media and so on. Of course ideas will come from outside the local community too and they will either work or not, or be adapted to local contexts or not, but will inform part of the local discussion nonetheless.

 

[pman]

le vrai style torontois

I agree with Tewder that Toronto's style - to the extent it has one - is organic and messy. Haussman would have been run out of this town on a rail. Or a flatbed truck given realistic transport options around here. Tewder also gives a couple of hopeful examples of core area redevelopment that are probably somewhat different from what you would see in Chicago or Boston. There's a lot to like in the evolution of residential and institutional architecture here.

However, I would suggest that Toronto's style is as much about the public realm as it is about private architecture - streetlights, massed overhead wires, frontier-town wooden hydro poles, narrow sidewalks, street furniture, undermaintained squares and parks. There's certainly no coherent design for any of these elements aside from the new street furniture. There's no political will to reduce the over the top visual clutter, or perhaps there's simply no general awareness of how bad it is. Our public spaces are almost uniformly more shabby than those of our competitor cities, and it seems that a large number of the politicians who are responsible either don't care or actively oppose anything that could be construed as city building. For the people who make and manage our public spaces, Toronto style seems to begin with facilitating the rapid movement of car traffic, and end with spending as little as possible on building or maintaining truly urban, non automobile-related, public spaces.

 

[Hipster Duck]

I don't believe in a characteristic Toronto architectural style, but I will concede that our deplorable streetscapes with their drunken telephone poles, cluttered signage and sloppy asphalt pavement jobs is somewhat iconic.

Our messy streetscaping is such a recognizable feature, in fact, that in the few cases where Toronto has opted to put effort toward decorative streetscaping I found myself not recognizing the place. I remember one time I saw a photo of the Junction shortly after the hydro wires were removed and black lights installed - and I thought I was looking at a picture of Chicago! What this tells me is that the everyday buildings of Toronto's commercial streets are rather indistinguishable from those of other North American cities and identity, where it exists, is defined more by streetscaping. This would not be the case in those cities that have a more defined style. If you took a neighbourhood in central Paris or Hong Kong or Manhattan and photoshopped in Toronto telephone poles and street clutter, you'd still probably identify it as a streetscape in Paris, Hong Kong or Manhattan.

PS: I'm not particularly proud of our messy streetscapes and I wish that we had more aesthetic improvements like what took place in the Junction. Slowly but surely we're getting there, with incremental improvements happening all across the city- but what's happening along Bloor, St. Clair West and parts of the Waterfront is not a unified design movement and, as a result, will not be characteristic of the city as a whole.

 

[golodhendil]

What this tells me is that the everyday buildings of Toronto's commercial streets are rather indistinguishable from those of other North American cities and identity, where it exists, is defined more by streetscaping. This would not be the case in those cities that have a more defined style. If you took a neighbourhood in central Paris or Hong Kong or Manhattan and photoshopped in Toronto telephone poles and street clutter, you'd still probably identify it as a streetscape in Paris, Hong Kong or Manhattan.

While I also don't tend to think there is a distinctive Toronto style, in the case of the other cities, how much of it is due to familiarity / unfamiliarity? For one I'd say that large swathes of Manhattan, except for its extent and perhaps height, are not that different from parts of other old east coast cities like Boston or Philadelphia. As for Hong Kong, of course the areas outside the CBD are not going to look like Toronto (or for that matter any North American cities), but how much of its distinctiveness is unique to HK and how much is due to a North Americaner's unfamiliarity with other less photographed southern Chinese cities? For example, which of the following pictures are from HK, which are from Guangzhou, which from Macau and which from Taipei?

Interesting thing is, some of the photos are even mislabelled by their (Westerner) photographers.