[Traynor]

I wasn't born, but it doesn't make sense to tear down a 2nd great building because we tore down the 1st.

I never said nor intimated that idea.

It's amazing how the written word is useless on the Internet. No amount of precise wording will stop people from jumping to the most extreme conclusions. I only tried put the Van der Rohe podium in its proper perspective. All too often certain buildings are vaulted to the pantheon of architectural perfection. They are perceived as unblemished icons that all others should aspire to. When in fact, they may have a dark side, such as in the case of the old Toronto Bank building, as well as the old Bank of Montreal building which stood directly across the street. Neither HAD to be torn down to make way for progress... And by progress I am speaking about the need to replace them with much larger office towers for much needed commercial space... because neither were replaced by towers at all, just low-rise podia to house bank branches.

What tore them down was hubris and ego by the architect and developers. That is: "I don't want any old buildings to block my vision of perfection and everyone's view of it."

If Mies were alive and designing today, with his love of modernism, he would have had to find a way to incorporate the old building in his vision of the TD Centre and I am sure he would have done a bang up job at it too. If he had done that and not simply did a Block-Buster demo job... In my eyes, that would have vaulted him to the level of esteem that most people give him now. THEN he would deserve that much praise. Now in my eyes he is only great.... Not perfect.

I find historic teardowns to be worth it if it is replaced by a building that defines the city. The Dominion bank complex is one of the most beautiful places in the city, and far and away better than whatever the beaux arts building could have ever given to this city.

Nice sentiment... I am sure that is exactly what the most people said in 1964 about the old Toronto Bank Building. So be careful how easily you throw that idea around... Because soon someone may come up with a development which puts that corner and perhaps the whole complex to a much better use. It IS old enough and beloved enough to be consider historic, to use your example ... They may mow down the whole core to put up a Spaceport or some such nonsense because what the new thing gives to the city is way more than any old glass box could have given to the city.

I know... Heaven forfend!!! It may be hard to believe, but who can say what value future people will hold of Mies or any of our architecture? Nothing is a Sure Thing.

 

[DtTO]

Yes, the TD and FCP "podiums" definitely need to be developed. It is especially annoys me that the FCP podium actually replaced a beautiful highrise that could've easily been saved (without even altering the FCP tower).

 

[rpeters]

^ agreed.

I know we're way off topic but in the future I'd like to see a large building that actually draws a little from the fact that we're a Canadian city, and people associate Canada with snow and the arctic. I ,know the glacier has been done by the ROM, but we could always do an iceberg concept. One cool way to pull it off would be if you had a property on both sides of a street, and based it the design on one of those icebergs with an arch that would cross over a street and form it's own overhead link that actually fits with the overall design.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/aa/Iceberg_with_hole_edit.jpg

Even an inukshuk might look decent.

 

[innsertnamehere]

I never said nor intimated that idea.

It's amazing how the written word is useless on the Internet. No amount of precise wording will stop people from jumping to the most extreme conclusions. I only tried put the Van der Rohe podium in its proper perspective. All too often certain buildings are vaulted to the pantheon of architectural perfection. They are perceived as unblemished icons that all others should aspire to. When in fact, they may have a dark side, such as in the case of the old Toronto Bank building, as well as the old Bank of Montreal building which stood directly across the street. Neither HAD to be torn down to make way for progress... And by progress I am speaking about the need to replace them with much larger office towers for much needed commercial space... because neither were replaced by towers at all, just low-rise podia to house bank branches.

What tore them down was hubris and ego by the architect and developers. That is: "I don't want any old buildings to block my vision of perfection and everyone's view of it."

If Mies were alive and designing today, with his love of modernism, he would have had to find a way to incorporate the old building in his vision of the TD Centre and I am sure he would have done a bang up job at it too. If he had done that and not simply did a Block-Buster demo job... In my eyes, that would have vaulted him to the level of esteem that most people give him now. THEN he would deserve that much praise. Now in my eyes he is only great.... Not perfect.



Nice sentiment... I am sure that is exactly what the most people said in 1964 about the old Toronto Bank Building. So be careful how easily you throw that idea around... Because soon someone may come up with a development which puts that corner and perhaps the whole complex to a much better use. It IS old enough and beloved enough to be consider historic, to use your example ... They may mow down the whole core to put up a Spaceport or some such nonsense because what the new thing gives to the city is way more than any old glass box could have given to the city.

I know... Heaven forfend!!! It may be hard to believe, but who can say what value future people will hold of Mies or any of our architecture? Nothing is a Sure Thing.

I am in no way advocating for mass obliteration of historic buildings, but rather I am trying to say that you must look at what the proposed replacement adds to the city. I would never advocate for the removal of the current TD plaza as it is a toronto icon. The old beaux arts building was far from one. One must look fairly at the benefit ratio for the city. Building a 50 floor condo tower on top of a historic restaurant row? He'll no. Tear down a couple of rather boring historic warehouses to build a new art gallery, university space and 3 new toronto icons? Yes please. Very rarely does a building come along that I find worth tearing down a historic building for, in fact I can only think of a few in Toronto's history, but when that building does come along every 2 or 3 decades we shouldn't be afraid to embrace it.

 

[Hipster Duck]

I know... Heaven forfend!!! It may be hard to believe, but who can say what value future people will hold of Mies or any of our architecture? Nothing is a Sure Thing.

I disagree with this. I think some things should be sure things. I think there are buildings whose presence should be assured as long as Toronto, as a settlement of any size, still exists. I think Europeans are capable of grappling with this, but we aren't, and I think it distinguishes them from us. I don't think Parisians would ever tear down Notre Dame, despite the fact that it occupies prime real estate, constantly requires costly upkeep and hardly any Parisians go to church anymore.

There are a few buildings like this in Toronto. The TD centre is one. Before we think that it should be replaced - and, yes, I know you're not advocating this, but other, less mature forumers that follow you are - we should recognize that not only is it a sublime example of a Miesian ensemble, but that the reason why the modern financial district exists; the reason that we have a collection of large format, grand office towers with daring public space components designed by the world's most recognized architects and not just some old buildings that could be in Dayton, Ohio, is because 46 years ago one bank decided to go daring and introduce this monolith, twice as tall as the next tallest building and sheathed in this alien black glass that basically told everybody that saw it that this was a city and a country that people should start taking seriously.

 

[Traynor]

Originally Posted by Traynor

I know... Heaven forfend!!! It may be hard to believe, but who can say what value future people will hold of Mies or any of our architecture? Nothing is a Sure Thing.

I disagree with this. .

I disagree with it too... But that doesn't make it something that WON'T happen. I am a realist and pragmatic. Just because I want or wish something to be be so, doesn't it make it real. A whole LOT of somebodies have to want and wish it to be so and even then, the best plans of mice and men... Someone with more money than brains comes along and whoosh, it's gone.

 

[DtTO]

less mature forumers that follow you are

Are you suggesting that every opinion besides your own is invalid? Yeah, we should all be taking "maturity" lessons from you.

I don't think anyone was suggesting that the TD Centre be torn down. The "podium" is another story, as it is a waste of space that actually takes away from the towers' aesthetics by blocking them from view at street level ("The Pasture" is the best place to view the complex from). Anyways, who says a replacement wouldn't embrace the Mies style? If anything, I would love to see that plaza destroyed and another tower resembling the rest of the TD towers built in its place.

 

[RC8]

Are you suggesting that every opinion besides your own is invalid? Yeah, we should all be taking "maturity" lessons from you.

I don't think anyone was suggesting that the TD Centre be torn down. The "podium" is another story, as it is a waste of space that actually takes away from the towers' aesthetics by blocking them from view at street level ("The Pasture" is the best place to view the complex from). Anyways, who says a replacement wouldn't embrace the Mies style? If anything, I would love to see that plaza destroyed and another tower resembling the rest of the TD towers built in its place.

Fantastic job reinforcing Hipster Duck's point.

 

[SkyJacked]

Perfect time for a strange OT post.

 

[Hipster Duck]

Are you suggesting that every opinion besides your own is invalid? Yeah, we should all be taking "maturity" lessons from you.

Well, if you don't recognize that the TD Centre's brilliance comes from the fact that it incorporates all of Mies' designs: tower and podium, rather than just tower (Seagram) or just podium (Neue Staatsgalerie) then you have a different sense of aesthetics, but that doesn't mean you lack maturity.

However, if you think that great buildings are fleeting and should be torn down because the simple land economics of the site could warrant an even greater building then, yeah, you are immature because you haven't thought your own logic through: (1) the site is high value partially because a great building is there and other buildings are feeding off of it so, if we tore it down, the site might lose value and the urge to redevelop something greater there would be diminished. (2) if we lived in a society where we knew that buildings would be torn down the second they didn't meet simple economic rationale, there would be no motivation to design great buildings in the first place because we would know they would only be temporary.

 

[T.0.isthebest]

Perfect time for a strange OT post.

As you usual SkyJacked - very nice. The last one in particular is eye catching. You can make that into a post-card and sell that....

 

[Razz]

Taken February 18, 2013:

 

[DtTO]

Well, if you don't recognize that the TD Centre's brilliance comes from the fact that it incorporates all of Mies' designs: tower and podium, rather than just tower (Seagram) or just podium (Neue Staatsgalerie) then you have a different sense of aesthetics, but that doesn't mean you lack maturity.

However, if you think that great buildings are fleeting and should be torn down because the simple land economics of the site could warrant an even greater building then, yeah, you are immature because you haven't thought your own logic through: (1) the site is high value partially because a great building is there and other buildings are feeding off of it so, if we tore it down, the site might lose value and the urge to redevelop something greater there would be diminished. (2) if we lived in a society where we knew that buildings would be torn down the second they didn't meet simple economic rationale, there would be no motivation to design great buildings in the first place because we would know they would only be temporary.

Your insistence on calling me "immature" is ironic, while the rest of your retort is plain illogical.

1) Are you really going to assume that the only reason a developer would want to develop a prime piece of downtown real estate, in the heart of the financial district, is because of proximity to the TD Centre podium? Ahaha

2) did you read my previous comment? I am 100% against the demolishing of the building that was replaced by the FCP podium, even though demolishing an old structure might've been more economical. As for the TD podium, there are many reasons why I am in favour of its demolition, and economics is not one of them. Aside from the fact that it is a major street wall killer, it does not contribute to the overall function of the financial district.

I actually find your comment quite funny. You claim that I'm only insisting on the development of the podium for economic reasons, when I clearly mentioned "The Pasture" favourably. From my point of view, anyone that supports a lowrise structure that has no public uses, and little function other than to "look pretty" in the heart of the financial district is "immature," as you put it.

 

[Hipster Duck]

1) Are you really going to assume that the only reason a developer would want to develop a prime piece of downtown real estate, in the heart of the financial district, is because of proximity to the TD Centre podium? Ahaha

First of all I said "partially" so I don't know where you get "the only reason" from. Secondly, I would argue that the TD centre, being the first modern Grade A office tower in the Financial District, probably contributed more to that area's high value and growth than you're willing to admit. It set the stage for the other big 5 banks to come into the area and build flagship office towers of their own.

Also, if you want to prove your maturity, you might do better than to end a sentence with a cackle of laughter.

2) did you read my previous comment? I am 100% against the demolishing of the building that was replaced by the FCP podium, even though demolishing an old structure might've been more economical. As for the TD podium, there are many reasons why I am in favour of its demolition, and economics is not one of them. Aside from the fact that it is a major street wall killer, it does not contribute to the overall function of the financial district.

I actually find your comment quite funny. You claim that I'm only insisting on the development of the podium for economic reasons, when I clearly mentioned "The Pasture" favourably. From my point of view, anyone that supports a lowrise structure that has no public uses, and little function other than to "look pretty" in the heart of the financial district is "immature," as you put it.

I was kind of hoping you'd say you were basing your reasons on economics because "a major streetwall killer" is a pretty asinine reason to demolish a perfectly functional, beautiful building. It does have a function other than to "look pretty". You can go there and take out a mortgage, deposit something in a safety deposit box or do private banking. You do it amidst beautiful surroundings. I used to know a guy whose job was to handle private banking for very wealthy individuals at CIBC and it was done at the base of Commerce Court North because of that building's ornate hall. If you do your private banking at TD and you want to take out a certified check for $250k to buy your Bentley continental GT, chances are you do it in Mies' pavilion.
The pavilion is the flagship bank branch for TD and therefore the face of a corporate bank to the public. You can't put a dollar value on that. Even banks, which assess the value of everything in monetary terms, know that.

 

[nathdesign]

Hi Udo, the pictures are really cool.
I was wondering if I could use these in brochures for one my employer's clients. They specialise in balcony glazing in Finland and these views would be perfect for their Canadian branch.
Are they free to use and would you have the hi res?
Many thanks in advance