"Nope. All are in Chicago. I think the 'Toronto-Style" is a myth."

What's wrong with being self-referential? Or why can't buildings in Chicago be of the 'Toronto' style?
 
What makes it "Toronto Style" if its not unique to Toronto or originate here?
 
I agree with alklay... I saw plenty of "Toronto-style" in New York too.
 
Perhaps the "Toronto Style" should really be called the "Toronto School"- a group of architects and architectural firms that are from Toronto and design similar buildings. The early skyscraper designs in Chicago are more often identified as the "Chicago School" than a "style".
 
Chicago, New York, and Toronto do not share identical cultural and architectural histories, so their contemporary buildings are bound to be different stylistically, having evolved in unique ways. Toronto is a significant enough cultural centre and marketplace for ideas to have its own healthily independent style in all aspects of the arts: buildings, music, theatre, design, visual art, fashion, you name it. How could it be otherwise?

No doubt it would be considered a heresy by the architects involved, but I'd venture to suggest that, to all intents and purposes, the works of the leading Toronto architectural firms are practically interchangeable: 18 Yorkville, the Hudson, One Bedford, is there really that much difference between them? I think wylie's description of what is going on as a "school" is dead on. An identical creative hegemony - resulting in buildings identical to our dominant Toronto Style - hasn't taken over the architecture of major American cities, regardless of the occasional similarities in their buildings to some buildings here.

Incidentally, I see that the owner of Chicago's IBM tower, designed by the firm of Mies van der Rohe and completed four years after his death, is applying to have floors 3 through 14 converted into condos!
 
alklay,

To be honest, I don't think I'd ever mistake any of those examples you posted for "Toronto Style".
 
That is an interesting point SD2. So what would you consider 'toronto style', if there is even one?
 
The way I see it, in its lazy incarnations it is timid and boring, boxy minimalism; in its best incarnations it is elegant and restrained modernism which often provides a basic point of departure from which subtle variations may give a nod to deco, neo-gothic, mid-century modernism, or other styles. Fundamentally I also see the Toronto style as rarely frivolous, being a little more conscious of function over form. I think the FSC Opera House is a perfect example of the "Toronto School", and one of the reasons why it works so well and will no doubt come to be much loved by future generations here.
 
That is only one building. Where is the critical mass of buildings like that, that are unique to Toronto and which are produced better (and in high(er) numbers) here, than the thousands of other contemporary 'modern' buildings being built everywhere else in the world?

I have seen more examples of the above in New York (and I haven't yet seen Piano's new works yet), with the MOMA expansion being a much better example of "elegant and restrained modernism" than the FSC. "Elegant and restrained modernism" is not unique to Toronto.
 
"Elegant and restrained modernism"
Click to expand...

never thought of 'the leader' Clewes work or the early modernism of the 1950s/60s he's inspired from as elegant or restrained modernism
 
Look around you, alklay, they're cropping up all over the place in increasing numbers. I gave three examples in my last post.
Toronto's present dominant building style evolved from our own post-WW2 style of Modernism, and gathered steam as soon as PoMo bit the dust in the late '80's. It has expanded ever since.

From earlier expression - in civic buildings such as Kitchener City Hall - it has moved on to the ubiquitous condo tower, and has become our established style of expression: unlike our American cousins, we don't need to import Renzo Piano or Yoshio Taniguchi to show us how "elegant and restrained modernism" is done.
 
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