Tewder
Senior Member
Maybe they can throw a couple masts and sails on the roof just for you.
Well that's sort of the other end of the spectrum in terms of completely ignoring the waterfront context or pandering to it. Neither are the right approach. There have to be better and more interesting ways, and there certainly are. That said, a square and squat business-park structure is definitely not the right way to go.
This building fits its context remarkably well with respects to the East Bayfront masterplan and it's midrise lakeside promenade. The fact that it is currently surrounded by nothing currently emphasizes its bulk and greyness.
I'm not necessarily criticizing the more quantifiable aspects of context here(building height, zoning, land use etc) so much as the more aesthetic and/or civic ones:
A) This building may be the right height etc. but its bulk makes it feel like a bunker. Its surfaces reflect outwards rather than drawing in. It is heavy and dark with no sense of lightness or movement that would echo the surrounding natural context of wind and water and air. Its aesthetic language screems 'keep out' rather than come by, come in and come through. It is grey, lifeless and dismal which does not in any way reflect the pleasure we feel and go to find collectively and culturally when we are by the shore.
B) Civically this building also disappoints. Torontonians have high expectations regarding waterfront rejuvenation, and rightfully so, anticipating more thoughtful design for this long under-valued and wasted asset. Creating what is essentially a bunker seems contemptuous of these aspirations. For a previous generation it would be akin to Diamond designing a Victorian wedding cake-structure for City Hall at NPS, completely ignoring the aspirations of the post-war generation in Toronto.
I like Corus Quay and think the criticisms have been a little too much about the sackcloth and ashes. But we do need to have something monsterously tacky and garish sitting in our skyline. It'll do us some good.
The issue of 'icons' or cheap tricks on the waterfront is misleading: not every building needs starchitecture-designed masts and sails to fulfill this aesthetic and civic context.
...They'll make a nice set, and look lovely together from the lake - the long horizontals of Corus and Pier 27 - with George Brown no doubt expanding the context they set.
Ladies with those figures shouldn't be wearing horizontal stripes