[mburrrrr]

Taken Jan 20 & 21

 

[ushahid]

I get the design of the taller one but what's with the design of shorter one. It's a mess.

 

[old boy]

" City of the Arts " - I cringe every time I see this title.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

The short tower is like a sad, cheap imitation of One Bloor with that balcony treatment.

If only. The short tower looks like a love-child between RAW, GC and CS.

AoD

 

[AlbertC]

 

[TheKingEast]

God awful.

 

[tripwire]

I don't understand why the two towers have different design "gimmicks". (West with the circles via balcony glass, east with with the different balcony lengths).

 

[Lachlan Holmes]

I don't understand why the two towers have different design "gimmicks". (West with the circles via balcony glass, east with with the different balcony lengths).

A few posts above linked a YouTube video of a speech the architect of this project gave on architecture and talked about this project. If I'm remembering correctly (watched the video few weeks ago), the reason for these gimmicks were to give the buildings interesting architectural detailing but without significant cost. Also, she mentioned that both tower designs were chosen because they fit into the 'City of the Arts' theme - one of them a ripple effect with frosted glass (which IMO would look pretty good if they had gone full wraparound balcony with frit a la Casa 2) and one a rhythmic pattern which is plain awful in execution. It's a video worth the hour or so of your time it runs.

 

[condovo]

^^^ In that video, Pina Petricone, the architect, basically revealed, despite herself, that Daniels demanded something cheap, cheap, cheap, and then cheap some more, so she and her team strived to create some sort of design interest via cost-conscious "balcony architecture," with little success as we all can see.

 

[tripwire]

They definitely went cheap, because it looks like the inner side of each tower have nothing going on. It would've been better if:

1. they just stuck to one gimmick for both towers, and applied on all sides
2. the west sides of both towers had one gimmick, and the east sides has the other (same for north/south)

For #2, the view from the east (per images above) look extra bad because the taller west tower is a terrible background - it offers no continuity to the alternating balcony length of the east tower.

 

[kweku]

What a terrible project

 

[Redroom Studios]

these 2 towers are absolutely appalling to witness in person. banal and cheap beyond belief! again, the office portion was somewhat inspired... why not pick up on some of the style and materials it used and continue them in the towers?

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

these 2 towers are absolutely appalling to witness in person. banal and cheap beyond belief! again, the office portion was somewhat inspired... why not pick up on some of the style and materials it used and continue them in the towers?

It would have been nice, but cost...

AoD

 

[Dr. Snoot]

U-G-L-Y
These ain't got no alibi
They UGLY.

 

[junctionist]

It would have been nice, but cost...

AoD

10 years ago, some people here said that if developers charged at least $1000 psf, we'd have beautiful buildings. But there's just no demand for that. Now, that's the norm, and we're seeing stuff that looks worse than what went up 10 years ago like these towers. They make a lot of CityPlace look sleek and elegant in comparison.