RC8
Senior Member
You're intentionally misunderstanding the point of heritage preservation. Heritage status isn't some kind of unqualified program to protect buildings indefinitely from now until the end of time. It's to prevent what happened in earlier decades where developers would buy up architecturally significant buildings and demolish them before anything could be said.
Saying there is some kind of obligation on anyone's part to 'accommodate' the heritage buildings is nonsense. M-G can make the case to City Council or the OMB that their proposal is worthwhile and that's that.
The ultimate judgement should include heritage concerns, including preservation, but it's not an absolute concern. Let's say M-G did accommodate the 4 heritage properties and we got the typical Toronto frankenstein facadectomy, the original structures would be 90% destroyed anyways, so it's a bit childish to suggest there is some kind of strict ban on altering heritage properties is childish.
I'm not.
I don't think it should be an absolute concern. But it's equally ridiculous to say Gehry should get a blank slate just because he is Gehry. Asking the developer to try and see what incorporating some aspects of the current buildings would look like appears like a reasonable thing to do from a planning perspective. Incorporating a facade into Calatrava's work paid off nicely, for example. It's a nice reminder of what stood there before.
At the end of the day I lean more towards having this thing built than not, but it's obvious that Mirvish is pushing the boundaries here, and an attempt from the city's planning department to incorporate it into a more coherent vision of the city only makes sense - even if the outcome ends up resembling the original proposal more than anything.
This is the most outrageous claim. To begin with, there's nothing even wrong with liking tall buildings. It's a perfectly reasonable thing to be impressed by, no less 'outrageous' than a liking a 100 year old building. More importantly though, you're intentionally avoiding all the other reasons why so many people think M-G is an improvement on the status quo and are reluctant to have some humdrum warehouses, of which there are thousands in North America, grafted onto it like some kind of barnacle.
You're ignoring that people find the architecture drastically more impressive. You're ignoring that people find the street presence better (e.g. handicap friendly...). You're ignoring that people find the proposed uses (e.g. OCAD space, Mirvish Gallery) to be better than a dinky Tim Horton's and some low quality office space. You're neglecting that people like the idea of mixed use projects. You're neglecting that most agree with the idea of creating more homes downtown.
Nobody, NOBODY, is approaching this with the height fanboyism you seem to think.
Hang on there.
Did you see how the exchange started? Someone said old buildings had no feelings, I said that was not an issue, DtTO accuses me of being an anti-development elitist. I'm familiar with his posts and I have no time for him at this stage.
I want to see these warehouses developed, I just personally happen to think that any proposal here would be better if it involved the incorporation of some heritage components, and kept in line with the 40 story buildings around it. This is debatable, it's just my take based on my personal understanding of how cities work. It is not, however, elitist, and it has nothing to do with me not wanting more people moving into the neighbourhood.
Well, great. Thank god we don't build cities around the unsupported personal biases of random internet people.
Haven't people given up on this kind of quest for the Fukuyaman end-of-urban-planning? A city thrives with many different built forms.
No, we build cities around the unsupported personal biases of city planners, engineers, and developers. Meanwhile, councillor Vaughan and the City of Toronto's city planners actually agree with me regarding this project... so there you go.