UrbanFervour
Active Member
The city from Dundas north to Bloor is already banal and horrid. Why does someone who doesn't share your appreciation for concrete need to be ignorant?
You've written it off as a "crappy grey bunker" and you think it's ugly. It is, in my opinion, not a bunker, but has continuous, elegant bands of horizontal fenestration. It is not a slab, but is rotated 45 degrees and has cut away moments wherein the external terraces are. There is a consistent pattern on all the external walls that is,to my knowledge, not found in other building in the city. Mostly, the building formally unique and represents an age when architects used concrete as a building material in original ways that they did not do before and have not done since. I like it, I think it is an interesting building and think it gives the city an extra layer of built history. But this must just be me spouting out someone else's opinion, right Traynor? I must be a conformist academic elitist for believing such things.
Many people thought old Victorian building in toronto were shabby, squat and fussy (and applauded when they were torn down in the middle of the 20th century). The city lost much of its historical built fabric and people lamented it later when they realized that buildings of that nature would not be built anymore. Tearing down well-conceived, interesting concrete buildings is born of the same blindness... and future generations will lament the loss of something original and interesting. And yes, I do think many people are ignorant of the value of these 20th century brutalist buildings. As traynor said, some are good (and I believe this is one of them).
Those are my reasons. You all can insult me and call me an elitist and insecure and snobbish and whatever other expletives you like. But until you can offer a reason for why this is a bad building (you've offered none except for that you, personally, don't like it aesthetically) then I will continue to support the opinion of obnoxious architectural 'elitists' who can assess the building in a more comprehensive way, over your aesthetic opinion (you don't think it's "beautiful").
Raw populist anger and name-calling doesn't really sway me. You can call me an elitist all you like, but I'm not an academic. I'm merely an architect.