“I'm not convinced yet of a Toronto style, but I consider myself genuinely open to the discussion. In some ways, I'd love it if I could with confidence state that I love the "Toronto style" of buildings. However, nothing in the thread has convinced me yet that such a style exists.â€

I agree. I think there is a definite Toronto ‘sensibility’ when it comes to architectural design, but I have yet to be convinced that there is a definite ‘Toronto style’ that can be clearly defined.

“The best example of Toronto style architecture would be the 50's thru 70's, modernist and brutalist towers in the park. These were local takes on a style that had allready existed for 30 years or so in Europe, but the result is something that is unique to the city, and, it is worth noting, also influenced other cities across Canada. It is one of the traits of Canadian cities that makes them very easy to recognize, and this does constitute a style that is unique to Toronto.â€

What ‘local takes’ were common to these buildings that were not found in the buildings built 30 years earlier in European cities? Are there any common elements from these buildings of the 50's thru 70's that Toronto architects are currently incorporating into new Toronto residential buildings?

Perhaps these are the elements that we should be looking at...
 
I remember when the rendering for the Four Seasons Hotel was released a while ago, and some of us discussed who the architect might be. Alvin thought Diamond, I thought KPMB ... and it turned out to be Clewes! The point is, it went without saying that it was a distinctively 'Toronto style' building that had to be by one of several firms sharing the same visual language to express that style. On this thread, my random choice of three equally interchangeable projects - One Bedford, the Hudson, 18 Yorkville - makes the same point.
 
Point?

I believe the point you are making is that the buildings of one architectural firm in Toronto can be confused with buildings from another architectural firm. I don't think that anybody has argued otherwise, however, it brings us no closer to a shared understanding of the Toronto Style.

Others have pointed out, for instance, that they have seen buildings in other cities that strongly resemble the neo-Modernist structure you admire. In other words, they could see a building in New York or in Boston that to their eyes could also be designed by aA. That hardly seems to me to be a controversial observation.

However, it does pose a challenge to those who make the claim that some buildings "can be anywhere" while some are unique to Toronto.
 
Re: Point?

Not really. I think tudararms covered the point off off nicely in the final paragraph of his last post.

Another point he raises regarding "aesthetic signifiers and signs, and the shared historic, social and cultural phenomenon that inform them" strikes me as fundamental to understanding what sets our contemporary architecture apart from that in other cultural centres, since it tries to uncover the roots from which we have grown and flourished. Bogtrotter challenged me earlier, and I gave my interpretation of how some local conditions have helped create our "look" in buildings; Antiloop also made a glancing pass at the idea. I wish we could go further in uncovering just what it is that has set us apart from other creative centres.
 
Re: Point?

What ‘local takes’ were common to these buildings that were not found in the buildings built 30 years earlier in European cities? Are there any common elements from these buildings of the 50's thru 70's that Toronto architects are currently incorporating into new Toronto residential buildings?
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Well first off I did state that I do not think a full out Toronto style exists. There are elements emmerging, but nothing that represents a true movement or school of design.

As for buildings between the 50's and 70's, I can't make a precise evaluation since I am not currently in Toronto but the first thing that comes to mind is the materials used. Precast is used in Toronto buildings to a degree that no other city I can think of did at the time. And even amongst modernist buildings of that period that did use precast Toronto buildings tended to be more subtle in their shapes, opting for small variations on the rectangle with the occasional circular corner instead of some of the abstract expressions of shape that occured in many other places.

If you want defining characteristics of the more modern curtain wall clad building, this too is not too hard to see. In terms of form it is lacks the almost square dimensions of many British buildings, or the more horizontal expression in Dutch architecture. It does not attempt to use a variation of mullions to create distinct patterns in the curtain wall, instead sticking to the basics and using what you could call a 'straight from the kit' approach. It does not attempt to create complex geometry where none exists, instead sticking to its functional purpose.

I could illustrate my points much better with photos but since I don't have anyting suitable I won't continue to argue the point. I do think though that if you were to look at pictures of modernism from various cities and regions in North America and Europe and consider the points of materials, form, function and context you would see that what exists in Toronto is at the very least, more unique than you first considered.
 
Re: Point?

Perhaps we need to determine what we mean by a Toronto style or school? Is it an aesthetic that originates in Toronto, and is unique to here? Or is a Toronto style one that is simply in favour here, though not necessarily unique to here?

If we are looking at the former approach, then we are obligated to go outside of our own context, sizing up our buildings elsewhere as a sort of litmus test to determine whether or not they are sufficiently unique to Toronto? If we are looking at the later approach then we are able to be more self-referential, looking at the underlaying aesthetic values that inform and define buildings in Toronto. In other words, the former cares that the TD Centre could be anywhere, whereas the latter cares more about the aesthetic reasoning as to why it 'is' here in the first place.

My hunch is that looking for a style unique to Toronto will be problematic; a gauntlet dropped to deconstructionists out there everywhere! Indeed, I think it would be fairly problematic to try and assert a purely unique style for anywhere anymore: Things no longer evolve in isolation as before; architects here are just as likely to be influenced by foreign architects anymore as by other local ones. So when we talk about a 'Dubai Style" for example, to me we are talking less about an original form of architecture unique to Dubai that one cannot find elsewhere, and more about a preponderance of aesthetic values that inform the architecture there: love of the grand and frivolous; a demonstration of wealth and status, etc, etc.
 
The best example of Toronto style architecture would be the 50's thru 70's, modernist and brutalist towers in the park. These were local takes on a style that had allready existed for 30 years or so in Europe, but the result is something that is unique to the city, and, it is worth noting, also influenced other cities across Canada. It is one of the traits of Canadian cities that makes them very easy to recognize, and this does constitute a style that is unique to Toronto. The same could be said for the influence that Vancouver has played over the past 20 years. Glass covered, point towers on podiums are now a common fixture in all Canadian cities, but it was Vancouver that started this trend.

And we have seen how Toronto has taken this form, in some cases transplanted it as is, in others attempting modifications and variations. Inevitabley it will mix with Toronto's own unique stylistic cues, become more refined, and the result will be something similair to what we are seeing taking place with a strong movement towards Neo-Modernist architecture that as each year passes does take on a more distinctive form.
Click to expand...

Did Vancouver really start this though? I've seen a number of 70s 'slab' apartments on top of podiums (the one in the Annex just west of Spadina comes to mind instantly). It would seem to me that they updated the forumla.

Or would you say the 'Vancouver model' is an example of what is happening right now in Toronto?

This is one of the better discussions I've seen on this forum.
 
I forgot where I read this in the past few days, but I believe that when Mayor Miller was pressed to pick a favourite building in Toronto, he chose (I think--correct me if I'm wrong) the Saint James condo at the SE corner of Jarvis + King. Didn't that come into UT criticism lately for being martyr to too much un-Toronto School/Style retro-frippery?

Perhaps the lesson we can learn from this is: don't put too many eggs into the Toronto School/Style neo-Modern basket--there still may be a selective place for warm'n'fuzzy retro-urbanism a la Saint James; and warm'n'fuzzy helped get Miller elected, after all. (By comparison, Kyle Rae--latently the most "Toronto School/Style" municipal politician of them all--doesn't do good warm'n'fuzzy.)
 
Re: Toronto School and national / International comparisons.

I agree with Tudarams when he says "Perhaps we need to determine what we mean by a Toronto style or school? Is it an aesthetic that originates in Toronto, and is unique to here? Or is a Toronto style one that is simply in favour here, though not necessarily unique to here?". For me, I'm actually quite willing to allow the sin of narcissism here, as has been proposed, and accept that if there is a Toronto school it can be defined without reference to works in other cities. For me, there's both a practical problem with doing so - too many buildings in too many cities and not enough travel time. Also, I think that while its not exactly controversial to acknowledge international flow of ideas in architecture, especially over the past 100 years (One can generally recognize a building from 1965 vs. 1985 whether one is standing in Toronto, Los Angeles, Buenos Aires, Auckland or London) - that doesn't change the fact that there are regional variations, and as babel says, I think it would be possible and interesting to identify common threads that make ours unique.

On the other hand, I don't think Torontonians have the same rights towards neo-Modernism that Parisians have towards Second Empire. That would suggest to me that buildings in other cities could be described at Toronto School, but maybe I'm misinterpreting.

Re: Toronto School and Toronto buildings.

If we're not going to try and use the Toronto school to make observations about our own buildings vis-a-vis those in other cities, is the distinction still helpful when discussing buildings within the city? To what end? Can saying that this or that building is "Toronto school" (and by extension, this or that building is not) tell us something interesting about our built environment?

Clearly, for some, this is not the goal. When early in the thread I mischieviously proposed the historicist Morgan as a find example of Toronto style, I was cautioned. But when I proposed the Met, I was soundly ignored. For babel, "The work of second rate talents should always be excluded from discussions of excellence … Second rate talents form a hegemony of the irrelevant." I understand and am sympathetic to a strong focus on excellence, but it mistakes our conversation for something else. In fact, we are discussing a scheme for group together buildings into an arrangement of something coherent so as to say something interesting about them. If your definition of Toronto style cannot and does not acknowledge those buildings that fall without, pippydoos and all, then it can only be self-referential. That is, the Toronto style consists of the buildings that I prefer, and not those that I dislike. That's OK, but it certainly doesn't invite anyone else in. It's also a little convenient, allowing you to handpick the very small number of buildings that you find interesting, while letting you off the hook for defining your proposed Toronto school in such a way that it can address perhaps borderline cases and enrich our understanding of the whole.

It's not unlike going into a library and finding that the librarian's classification system consists of "excellent books" that have received extreme analytical attention and are visible on a single shelf, and the other 98% of dross uncatalogued and untouched in the back room. Not very helpful, and raises a lot of questions about which books end up where, and who decides.

I like Antiloop's and Tudararms attempts to get their hands dirty, so I'll try and continue that a bit. The Met, though without obvious historical reference and designed by Toronto architects, is nonetheless not a Toronto style building because it contains elements such as the round corner balconies that confuse the composition of the building and are essentially decorative structures. The Met isn't a re-interpretation of International Style, it incorporates some postmodernist impulses.

That doesn't mean the Met "could be anywhere", I hope we've abandoned our Toronto / non-Toronto efforts. It doesn't even mean the Met isn't a good, pleasing building that is a real addition to its site and the city. It merely means the Met doesn't meet a set of criteria to be called Toronto school. Like the St. James, a remarkable and wonderful non-Toronto-School building.
 
“So when we talk about a 'Dubai Style" for example, to me we are talking less about an original form of architecture unique to Dubai that one cannot find elsewhere, and more about a preponderance of aesthetic values that inform the architecture there: love of the grand and frivolous; a demonstration of wealth and status, etc, etc. “

Which is a kind of ‘sensibility’ towards architecture. Toronto has it’s own prevailing sensibility- a preference towards neo-modernist variations of the International style (Spire, Bedford, 18 Yorkville, Hudson, XCon...err B/A) All tempered, abstinent buildings that must have lines that meet at right angles. Is this not also about a ‘preponderance of aesthetic values’ as well. Couldn’t one also say that these buildings ‘could be anywhere’ more than say.. the Met- given the whole underlying principle behind the international style?

“Like the St. James, a remarkable and wonderful non-Toronto-School buidingâ€

Indeed.
 
Well unless anybody has any other strong considerations to the contrary it would seem that we are now refining our definition to one that favours a more self-referential purview.


"Perhaps the lesson we can learn from this is: don't put too many eggs into the Toronto School/Style neo-Modern basket--there still may be a selective place for warm'n'fuzzy retro-urbanism a la Saint James..."

This is an interesting point Adma, because if we are looking to define a Toronto style we cannot conveniently dismiss this "warm'n'fuzzy retro-urbanism" you mention; a populist style which potentially speaks just as loudly about aesthetic values in this city as any other. Moreover, as Archivist cautions, for a definition to truly be representative we cannot pick and choose according to what we like or to what we know to be superior...

For me, however, the major consideration that would rule out Retro-urbanism from our definition is that this style tends to refer to aesthetic values (values that emerge from, and coalesce around various dominant social, cultural and historic patterns) that predate the second world war. Conversely, I would submit that the Toronto style we speak of now is a style whose roots emerged from post-war aesthetic values.

Now, the Met...

" The Met, though without obvious historical reference and designed by Toronto architects, is nonetheless not a Toronto style building because it contains elements such as the round corner balconies that confuse the composition of the building and are essentially decorative structures. The Met isn't a re-interpretation of International Style, it incorporates some postmodernist impulses"

I think I would disagree here Archivist. Although the building does incorporate some postmodern impulses, it seems to me that they still remain essentially submissive to the overall defining minimalist modernism of the building. Also, as for the balconies, I do not think we should dismiss all ornamentation from the definition altogether. Instead, we should be looking closer at what informs it: though I would agree that exuberant or gratuitous ornamentation - or pippypoos - would speak fundamentally to a former defining aesthetic that valued elitist displays of wealth and status; I do tend to feel that restrained ornamentation, that is essentially functional here anyway, and that seeks to veer slightly from the strict confines of 'the box" should be permitted, and in fact would be essential to the definition of the Toronto style.
 
Thanks, Bog. I've suspected that the presence of curves signifies a death-knell of neo-Modernism (notwithstanding aA's subtly curved Optima or Core Architect's Players Club or Pantages).

While I agree that the presence of curves is probably enough to render a building not neo-Modernist, I do have issue with the idea that the presence of curves alone prohibits a building from being "excellent".

Edit -- Tudar -- our posts overlapped and I need to actually work, so I won't respond right now but I will.
 
turdarms:

This is an interesting point Adma, because if we are looking to define a Toronto style we cannot conveniently dismiss this "warm'n'fuzzy retro-urbanism" you mention; a populist style which potentially speaks just as loudly about aesthetic values in this city as any other. Moreover, as Archivist cautions, for a definition to truly be representative we cannot pick and choose according to what we like or to what we know to be superior...
Click to expand...

But of course we can dismiss it - not necessarily saying it is good or bad architecture - but as a form that doesn't fit into our definition of Toronto-style. By limiting the range of expressions, one might actually create a definition that is more representative and meaningful - just as Bay-n-Gables as a definition does not preclude defining buildings done in other styles during the time period in question.

Another definitional aspect of Toronto-style could be architects responsible, the design hertiage as well as materials used.

re: Met

I would also count this one out from the Toronto-Style, given the weakness of its' "rectilinearity" - which stands as one of the key defintional elements.

AoD
 
Taking up a point Archivist made earlier, I think the fact that buildings by our leading local firms ( the ones who win all the awards, get the plum commissions, are regularly shortlisted at open competitions, are regularly featured in the professional journals etc. ) are producing work that is practically interchangeable in style does indeed bring us "closer to a shared understanding of the Toronto Style." Surely, it clarifies it rather well?

Also, styles are defined by the work of the avant garde best, not the also-rans. What secondary talents produce is beside the point, and the St. James, the Morgan and the Met are clearly outside that definition of Toronto Style. When has warm and fuzzy populism ever been a substitute for innovative thinking, in architecture or any other branch of the arts?

Archivist's disliked "Toronto style consists of the buildings that I prefer, and not those that I dislike" mode is problematic since it falls into the trap of assuming that all opinions are of equal weight and that critical evaluation based on quality should be set aside in favour of the "I don't know much about art but I know what I like" approach.

For me, the Toronto Style is more about accepting our connection to, and grounding in, a strongly Modernist post-WW2 tradition - and how it informs our present. For others, it appears to be about "compare-and-contrast" with similar buildings produced in other cities as a way of negating the value of what we do here.
 
The question is not whether our leading local firms are producing work that is practically interchangeable in style, because they are, and its neo-modernism. The question is whether they are producing neo-modernism (an international style) with any identifiable and distinct elements that could be classified as Toronto-centric.
 
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