I really like it (and oddly enough, I hate Casa2; go figure), but I can't figure out the south elevation. Is it actually undulating, or is that just an artifact of the lighting in the render? It looks like it's got a really subtle Marilyn to it
 
Grimace said:
this design is an ode to Eaton's Centre but done in a contemporary style.
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I'm not clear how the tower is of a more "contemporary style" than the Eaton's tower itself. Perhaps there are details that are unclear in the render, but it looks like there is nothing in the tower design that is more "contemporary" than 1977.

I suspect any attempt to take design cues from the old bank tower would have ended in disaster.
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You're right, and I should have written more thoughtfully -- I would prefer that the design be more harmonious with the bank building, rather than aggressively at odds with it. Five St. Joseph is an example of a tower that is more in keeping with the elements of its heritage base. I just think that the very specific time period invoked by this design (namely, the disco era) does not serve the base well. A more timeless aesthetic would clash less.

Mongo said:
the two buildings at their base, while attractive in their own right, are almost invisible at any distance, whereas 250 Yonge is much more prominent, and will inevitably be more important in determining the context of Massey Tower.
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Very true -- the tower is ultimately the most important feature. I suppose my main complaint is simply personal aesthetic, in that I'm not a fan of the '70s era "white building with curved corners" trope, especially when it seems to be adhered to so faithfully, and without any contemporary update or other interpretive elements. Of course, this is all based on one render. (I'd feel differently, for example, if the white panels were actually heavily-fritted glass, rather than metal cladding.)
 
Tulse:

There is nothing particularly "in keeping" about the tower portion of Five St. Joseph to the street-level structures; not in materiality nor design (unless you count it being boxy and having right angles everywhere), and there is nothing particularly timeless about it either (vis-a-vis a Miesian X clone). In this case I am actually glad they didn't try to refer to the heritage structures - unless you give it to someone like Robert Stern, the end result will invariably looks awful. Better to create a sort of dialogue with its' peers than try (and fail) at the impossible task of reconciling it with structures that it has no business comparing itself to.

AoD
 
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AlvinofDiaspar said:
There is nothing particularly "in keeping" about the tower portion of Five St. Joseph to the street-level structures; not in materiality nor design (unless you count it being boxy and having right angles everywhere).
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I suppose you're correct in that I overstated the case. That said, I think it certainly is the case that the angularity of the basic modernist tower is more "in keeping" with the historical base than other possible designs -- I think we would agree that putting Absolute World on top of the street-level buildings would have been less "in keeping", no?

In any case, this isn't a hill I'm willing to die on, as I don't claim to be an expert on either architecture or how to integrate new buildings with historical structures. Again, this is likely largely just my own personal dislike of the tower's aesthetic.
 
can't say i dig it yet... the podium is very awkward, and the rooftop too.. i guess it's sort of lacking texture, i'm sure it's just the render..

and why is balcony spam all of a sudden invading toronto? not saying it's a horrible thing, but seriously, where's the sleek curtain wall facade?
 
steveve said:
can't say i dig it yet... the podium is very awkward, and the rooftop too.. i guess it's sort of lacking texture, i'm sure it's just the render..

and why is balcony spam all of a sudden invading toronto? not saying it's a horrible thing, but seriously, where's the sleek curtain wall facade?
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I'm with you on this on Steveve. Also, my initial reaction was that the tower had a top heavy look. I had a brief image in my head of a German Normandy bunker.
What's up with this 70's retro Eaton Centre tower homage stuff. When did that thing suddenly become a thing of beauty worthy of emulating.
 
Looking at it gives me the funniest sensation - as if the '70's is being put back in Yonge Street. Bow-chicka-bow-bow! It's like the one residential building that was never built then, has suddenly appeared.

Kinda glam, kinda ordinaire...but I rather like the seamless curved top. I hope the base has a bit of a re-do.
I don't know if it's exactly an Eaton Centre homage. Myself, the first thing that sprang to mind was Lauren Hutton!
 
freshcutgrass said:
I wish they would have kept this...





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Yes, an art podium for the tower would have been swell.

http://www.mercerunion.org/archive95/277.html
 
Personally I would much rather see a return of the 1970s than continue to live in the dim half-light of the 1980’s. The odd zombie-like persistence of the ziggurat motif—the sine qua non of hackneyed postmodernism—in architectural hairballs like 1 King West and Residences on College Park; and the cheap and ugly cornball historicism of clunkers like Trump, The Uptown and 88 Scott are far more dated, passé and provincial-looking than this apparently very elegant looking and intelligently considered Massey Tower.
 
Don't like the design of the tower at all, but what I do like is that the podium seems mostly to stay out of the way of the existing bank buildings. I think that's the sensible way to go. On the one hand, the style of these buildings could not be incorporated into the tower in any appropriate way and, on the other hand, the huge scale of the tower threatens to overwhelm the bank buildings into insignificance. So, if a giant tower really must go here, keeping the whole works at a respectable distance in the background is a good idea.

Having said that, the tower proposal looks like a giant magnification of some consumer tech product that was considered "cutting edge" in 1976.

And, further to that, the whole project is a disappointment. 197 and 201 Yonge have so much more potential as buildings in their own right. To consign them to the ignominious fate of mere appendices to a condominium is akin to the solution of someone in "imagination jail" as Apple used to put it.
 
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The massy podium, stepping down in stages to Yonge Street looks like has enough angular heft to mediate interestingly between the two bank buildings without overpowering them.

I'm almost tempted to suggest that this might have been a rare instance where a fancy little hat might have worked, a Classical pediment to signpost the two Classical bank buildings below and summarize them - much as Casa's flat hat summarizes the stacked, wraparound balconies below ... and the holy Ice condo hat summarizes the holy Ice podium below. Almost ... but not quite, since the tower has a sort of pediment that summarizes the tower itself quite nicely enough.
 
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