Lenser
Senior Member
Well said, freshcutgrass.
The Bay'n gabled streetscapes might be considered as having a collective iconic status. They've been around a long time, are very pervasive, and will continue to be, as we aren't ripping down victorian neighbourhoods any more. Their iconic status may become more pronounced as time goes by, because as Toronto becomes more and more of a major city in the world, they will be considered an oddity, as big cities just don't have that kind of inner-city victorian residential vernacular. A lot of Toronto's quaint victorian "small town" look will remain a distinctive part of what is a fairly big global city.
As for the myriad of condo towers that have been, and will be built, I don't see any collective or individual iconic status for them, any more than the huge numbers of rectilinear apartment blocks of the 60's & 70's are.
In fact, some might say that the critical mass of those rectilinear blocks makes them somewhat iconic to Toronto, along with the fact that you don't find this in quite the same way in too many other North American cities.
... and as for the rest of the high rise built form I think we could argue that a recognizable (if not yet quite 'iconic') form is emerging that may take on a more iconic status as it grows (I'm thinking of the work of aA and D&S, for example).
... though I agree there is an inconic highrise form in Vancouver, isn't 'vancouverization' about a certain blandness of form (i.e. a proliferation of nebulous green glass buildings that could be almost anywhere)?
When I think about the best of what aA does I feel it is very distinct from the Vancouver form, especially given the hallmark of its strong heritage/Toronto contextualism, as at the Distillery or Market Wharf in more traditional areas, or as with their iterations of post-war modernism such as at Casa and so on. In this sense, unlike the Vancouver form, these buildings feel like they belong in Toronto, which is sort of the opposite of vanouverism.
Some other factors that may shape this as an emerging form identifiable to Toronto:
1) The proliferation of other projects/designs with a similar approach (Five for example).
2) Toronto is experiencing a building boom at a time when other cities aren't. The resulting fabric of form will absolutely feel very different from what is found in other cities that are missing this boom.
3) The uniqueness of Toronto's central low rise form is creating unique design responses to increase density, and the proliferation of heritage building with glass scraper may come to dominate the Toronto streetscape in a way it doesn't in other cities.
As inconceivable as it may seem right now the combination of the above three factors may result in an acknowledged, recognizable Toronto form that at some point may become iconic.
I'm not a big highrise fan but I would tend to agree with Hipster. I just don't think that iconic is in our DNA. We also aren't a large imperial centre. Iconic is the realm of either global imperial powers or massive nations with huge domestic populations. The question of who would occupy and benefit from iconic architecture is more important than the iconic architecture itself.
Planners and architects are more apt to say that Toronto, or some other city, is "Vancouverizing" than they are to say that a city is "Torontoizing". It doesn't matter that, at the end of our boom, we will have built more of these kinds of towers than Vancouver and may have even had the chance to explore the form more fully. Vancouver got their first and that's what matters.
For starters, Vancouver was the city that invented the glass point tower, so the credit goes to them. This is not unlike an art or literary movement, where the first person to explore a theme gets the credit, not necessarily someone who came afterward and improved upon it. In that sense, I wouldn't say that Vancouver's condos could be "anyplace". Instead, I would say that those anyplace cities that build glass condos are paying homage to Vancouver.
Toronto quite clearly has a unique architectural style based around boxy concrete modernism.
As a non-native Torontonian the relationship between FCP, the 60s blocks, the brutalist concrete boxes (Sheraton, Four Seasons, Hilton), and the current glass boxes is glaringly obvious. The Bay and Gable neighbourhoods are equally unique.
I'm not particularly fond of boxes (I hate them with a passion in fact), but they are done very differently in Toronto than elsewhere, and it's been the case for at least 60 years.
In what real sense does what Vancouver builds, or claims credit for doing first, matter to what's happening elsewhere, or mean that homage is being paid to them?
Actually, I would disagree with you and see it the opposite way around: Vancouverism is a contextual response to the city and its values, Toronto's condo vernacular isn't.
As a non-native Torontonian the relationship between FCP, the 60s blocks, the brutalist concrete boxes (Sheraton, Four Seasons, Hilton), and the current glass boxes is glaringly obvious. The Bay and Gable neighbourhoods are equally unique.
The physical environment. NYC is confined to an island. Toronto has few barriers to outward expansion.