[adma]

It seems for whatever reason, after catching up on this discussion nearly a year later, that Adma seems to have a certain distaste for the theme park industry and entertainment destinations in particular.

To make it clear, like it or not, no one was playing in the Forum when Wonderland built Kingswood….and wouldn’t reestablishing the prime concert venue downtown be the ultimate goal which the Molson Amphitheatre clearly did?

It should have worked easily in Ontario Place’s favour, as a concert ticket meant free admission, and there was (and still to this day) no reasonable restaurants nearby, that one was captive to spend money on the grounds of Ontario Place.

You do speak of playing in the playground at High Park attended by parents, and I’ve always asked, what makes my experience so much different when my mother and I walked to Norton Place Park here in Brampton three decades ago? I’ve been trying to read your posts as others have and you seem to think that all children just magically appreciate architecture.

It's not just a matter of "appreciating architecture"; it's a matter of appreciating a sense of place and the richness of the world. And beyond the fact that the urban scale around Norton Place Park is different from that around High Park, the thing is--for me, it wasn't just about walking west to High Park and back; that was only a chosen example. It was also walking north to Loblaws/Towers and back, or to other such places not obviously "child-geared". And not just walking, but driving and taking transit, my looking out the window and following along--so hypothetically for you, that equivalent "development of scope" ought to have involved Norton Place Park, *and* Bramalea City Centre--and maybe even downtown Brampton or other lay-of-the-land coordinates. A window-onto-the-world perspective on Brampton and even points beyond that wasn't simply bound to the child-geared--almost like, one is never too young for a kind of gateway to "civic consciousness" and the insatiable curiosity that comes with it.

So it's not a distaste for "the theme park industry and entertainment destinations in particular"--it's a distaste for that as a ***single-loaded, perspective-skewing be-all and end-all***. It's tantamount to Neil Postman-style "amusing to death"--and even worse when it informs a notion of childhood as being all about entropically kid-centric "amusement". Or, the kitschification of childhood, as non-kitsch is deemed to be too adult-table "challenging".

Look at it this way: already for me, when it came to childhood trips to and from the Ontario Science Centre, "getting there was half the fun"--that is, as terrific as the Science Arcade and everything was, I engaged to and was fascinated by the process of our getting there, whether by way of Eglinton or Don Mills or Overlea or the DVP or whatever other artery, the various coordinates and cross-streets and landmarks. I was aware of it as part of "something bigger", including Edwards Gardens some distance to the north where I *also* spent a lot of childhood visits. And as part of "something bigger", *all of this* became something richer. But it wasn't just about my precocity; it's almost as if I intuited something *any* child could have--and indeed, really *might* have had back then, or at least it was something generally easier to come by in an era before "in-car entertainment" a la Disney or Nintendo served as an en-route distraction.

Whereas if for you, a childhood trip to the Science Centre (or Ontario Place) would have been as disconnective as if you were transported there by ambulance, then I'm sorry--you were a lot more deficient than I was, particularly if you're still going to fall upon that deficient perspective as a "default".

And that's how "entertainment destinations" as an end in themselves become both a crutch for the deficient, and fuel for further deficiency. Thus Great Wolf Lodge as the Thing That Ate Niagara Falls, at least as far as "family visits" go. (Then again, I speak as someone who, even in my single digit years, actually actively *preferred* to go to the Falls and back by way of the Lakeshore and Old Hwy 8 than by the QEW, engaging to the Grimsby-Beamsville-Vineland-Jordan sequence of places--because for the healthy, curious kid, it's visually interesting and stimulating. Whereas Great Wolf Lodge implicitly caters to idiot-disconnective "Are we there yet? This trip sucks!" kids, or at least to idiot parents eager to offer their kids something "better" than their own idiot-kid "Are we there yet? This trip sucks!" memories of Niagara.)

 

[UtakataNoAnnex]

Honestly, OP4A has a small chance to win this. Though even if they did, the government might just use the notwithstanding on it.
I cant see Ford taking the L on this and giving up

...who needs The Constitution anyways. /s

 

[mistersg1]

It's not just a matter of "appreciating architecture"; it's a matter of appreciating a sense of place and the richness of the world. And beyond the fact that the urban scale around Norton Place Park is different from that around High Park, the thing is--for me, it wasn't just about walking west to High Park and back; that was only a chosen example. It was also walking north to Loblaws/Towers and back, or to other such places not obviously "child-geared". And not just walking, but driving and taking transit, my looking out the window and following along--so hypothetically for you, that equivalent "development of scope" ought to have involved Norton Place Park, *and* Bramalea City Centre--and maybe even downtown Brampton or other lay-of-the-land coordinates. A window-onto-the-world perspective on Brampton and even points beyond that wasn't simply bound to the child-geared--almost like, one is never too young for a kind of gateway to "civic consciousness" and the insatiable curiosity that comes with it.

So it's not a distaste for "the theme park industry and entertainment destinations in particular"--it's a distaste for that as a ***single-loaded, perspective-skewing be-all and end-all***. It's tantamount to Neil Postman-style "amusing to death"--and even worse when it informs a notion of childhood as being all about entropically kid-centric "amusement". Or, the kitschification of childhood, as non-kitsch is deemed to be too adult-table "challenging".

Look at it this way: already for me, when it came to childhood trips to and from the Ontario Science Centre, "getting there was half the fun"--that is, as terrific as the Science Arcade and everything was, I engaged to and was fascinated by the process of our getting there, whether by way of Eglinton or Don Mills or Overlea or the DVP or whatever other artery, the various coordinates and cross-streets and landmarks. I was aware of it as part of "something bigger", including Edwards Gardens some distance to the north where I *also* spent a lot of childhood visits. And as part of "something bigger", *all of this* became something richer. But it wasn't just about my precocity; it's almost as if I intuited something *any* child could have--and indeed, really *might* have had back then, or at least it was something generally easier to come by in an era before "in-car entertainment" a la Disney or Nintendo served as an en-route distraction.

Whereas if for you, a childhood trip to the Science Centre (or Ontario Place) would have been as disconnective as if you were transported there by ambulance, then I'm sorry--you were a lot more deficient than I was, particularly if you're still going to fall upon that deficient perspective as a "default".

And that's how "entertainment destinations" as an end in themselves become both a crutch for the deficient, and fuel for further deficiency. Thus Great Wolf Lodge as the Thing That Ate Niagara Falls, at least as far as "family visits" go. (Then again, I speak as someone who, even in my single digit years, actually actively *preferred* to go to the Falls and back by way of the Lakeshore and Old Hwy 8 than by the QEW, engaging to the Grimsby-Beamsville-Vineland-Jordan sequence of places--because for the healthy, curious kid, it's visually interesting and stimulating. Whereas Great Wolf Lodge implicitly caters to idiot-disconnective "Are we there yet? This trip sucks!" kids, or at least to idiot parents eager to offer their kids something "better" than their own idiot-kid "Are we there yet? This trip sucks!" memories of Niagara.)

The thing that gets me is why do you think my time growing up was that much different from your time growing up.......it seems you mentioned my liking of Nintendo Power Pod as being problematic, but I mentioned this because I have always had a liking for video games (not so much now) but you get my point. Like it or not, video games have become cultural items nowadays, older ones I mean, there's a map you can easily find online which redoes the TTC subway diagram into a Mario 3 map. I've noticed some NHL teams, even the Ottawa Senators employing sounds from video games, as they use the Zelda series famous "discovery sound" when someone gets released from the penalty box. I know this is a bit of a tangent, but I'm sure the biggest age demographic of those who own a Nintendo Switch were probably in their late 20s and 30s.

My mentioning of the Power Pod is more or less curious, with how big Nintendo is, and yet almost no information on the internet existing about it. I can easily tell you everything else we did that day like the Children's Village, and that water play area. Let's not also mention the west island attractions.

A trip by car in my day was not different from a trip by car in your day....maybe the only potential was having a Walkman, but of course I never had one. A trip to Canada's Wonderland, I could tell you that we drove down Queen Street (Hwy 7), made a left on Hwy 50, and a right on Rutherford...I may have not known the names of these streets originally being 5 or 6, but I had visual memory of where these turns were. Particularly, I remember the intersection of Rutherford of Hwy 27, if heading east, you climbed a much more winding hill then it is today. The point I'm making is that there was no personal distractions in my day that a kid could occupy himself with. Nintendo or Disney were things that clearly happened at home, to paraphrase what you said. I would eventually become what is known in some circles as a "roadgeek", but this was my own personality, I'm not sure any 10 year old even back then could tell you how to get back from Niagara Falls without taking the QEW.

As for how you enjoyed the Science Arcade in your day, did you really enjoy it and learn something, or were you just "amused" by the different exhibits they had in there. The wiki article even suggests the original slogan was "Come see what would happen if Albert Einstein and Walt Disney had gotten together.", meaning it was always meant to be an "attraction" in itself.

Great Wolf Lodge didn't "eat" Niagara Falls, not by a long shot.....just as Marineland didn't many years ago. Most people go to see the falls and we easily understand that, Great Wolf Lodge is far from the falls themselves. Although there is a Great Wolf Lodge in Niagara Falls, it's incredibly naive to think that it's the main attraction there now.

 

[adma]

The thing that gets me is why do you think my time growing up was that much different from your time growing up.......it seems you mentioned my liking of Nintendo Power Pod as being problematic, but I mentioned this because I have always had a liking for video games (not so much now) but you get my point. Like it or not, video games have become cultural items nowadays, older ones I mean, there's a map you can easily find online which redoes the TTC subway diagram into a Mario 3 map. I've noticed some NHL teams, even the Ottawa Senators employing sounds from video games, as they use the Zelda series famous "discovery sound" when someone gets released from the penalty box. I know this is a bit of a tangent, but I'm sure the biggest age demographic of those who own a Nintendo Switch were probably in their late 20s and 30s.

My mentioning of the Power Pod is more or less curious, with how big Nintendo is, and yet almost no information on the internet existing about it. I can easily tell you everything else we did that day like the Children's Village, and that water play area. Let's not also mention the west island attractions.

A trip by car in my day was not different from a trip by car in your day....maybe the only potential was having a Walkman, but of course I never had one. A trip to Canada's Wonderland, I could tell you that we drove down Queen Street (Hwy 7), made a left on Hwy 50, and a right on Rutherford...I may have not known the names of these streets originally being 5 or 6, but I had visual memory of where these turns were. Particularly, I remember the intersection of Rutherford of Hwy 27, if heading east, you climbed a much more winding hill then it is today. The point I'm making is that there was no personal distractions in my day that a kid could occupy himself with. Nintendo or Disney were things that clearly happened at home, to paraphrase what you said. I would eventually become what is known in some circles as a "roadgeek", but this was my own personality, I'm not sure any 10 year old even back then could tell you how to get back from Niagara Falls without taking the QEW.

As for how you enjoyed the Science Arcade in your day, did you really enjoy it and learn something, or were you just "amused" by the different exhibits they had in there. The wiki article even suggests the original slogan was "Come see what would happen if Albert Einstein and Walt Disney had gotten together.", meaning it was always meant to be an "attraction" in itself.

Great Wolf Lodge didn't "eat" Niagara Falls, not by a long shot.....just as Marineland didn't many years ago. Most people go to see the falls and we easily understand that, Great Wolf Lodge is far from the falls themselves. Although there is a Great Wolf Lodge in Niagara Falls, it's incredibly naive to think that it's the main attraction there now.

Though as per my point, maybe it's not just about super-specifically *kid*-oriented attractions. Like, when you speak of re going to Wonderland at 5 or 6, I could just as well speak of re going to *Yorkdale* at 5 or 6--and there was a symbiotic getting-there and once-there pleasure to *that*.

Remember: I'm not denying that the "entertainment value" was a big part of the Science Arcade's appeal (or that of the OSC in general)--and yes, it was part of that Sesame Street-era ethos of learning and being entertained at once. But just because it was *meant* to be an attraction in itself, didn't make it, or indeed the whole OSC complex, a vacuum. There was IMO an intuitive comprehension by even the youngest visitor of "something Moriyama-higher", much as there would have been of "something Zeidler-higher" re OP--maybe less so in the Science Arcade part (which, after all, was but a concrete warehouse), but certainly in the sequence of approach. Or, think of it as a micro-version of the "getting there is half the fun" principle--crossing the bridge, descending the escalator from the rotunda part, etc. It was the subtle secret to its success.

However, if you're to speak of Wonderland-type trips, rather than of, well, Yorkdale-type trips (or just everyday-shopping and similar accompanying-the-family trips), that might say something about my Neil Postman "amused to death" point; or how the common barometer for the experiences kids are party to became overly "ergonomic" by the 80s and 90s--like, enveloping them in a patronizing "kidspace" to a fault, almost by way of soothing them and inoculating them from the trauma of the Big Bad Boring Adult World. By comparison, the kids of the Rocky & Bullwinkle generation tended to have one fruitful foot in the grownup world. I did have kid stuff, but I was also party to family newspapers and other "grownup literature" (including maps, which helped my ability to "follow along" on trips). Heck, not only would I have memorized (like you) the route from Brampton to Wonderland by 5/6, through doing my map-reading-and-beyond homework I would have insisted upon taking different routes there by 9/10 and *not* insisted upon "the most direct way" (and knowing my mother, she probably would have sought out interesting Italian bakeries or whatever as an alibi--so, once again, it would have been a latently richer trip than one simply devoted to quick-there-and-back "amusing the kids").

It's like I said: it's not even just about the walk to High Park, but also about the walk *within* High Park--the play area, and the Zoo for that matter, as part of a bigger entity, of trails and paths to follow here, there, and everywhere: ones which might not be super-specific kid-oriented, but are kid-enriching all the same. But according to the "kidspace" mentality, that everything else is an afterthought.

And yes, I was the kind of 10 year old who could figure out a non-QEW way to and from Niagara Falls--but that's in part because we *did* go momentously off-QEW at least once and I "internalized it"; plus, there was still the carryover legacy of older highway maps that showed Hwy 8, and Hwy 2/Lakeshore remained a going concern until the Mike Harris era. (Of course, family experiences are important; and if the parents never took the off-QEW way to and from the Falls in the first place, of course the kids wouldn't internalize it. The most efficient way to "other" a route is to not take it, or to not imply that it even exists as an option--and paradoxically, such timidity's often born out of a reluctance to "upset the kids".)

And come to think of it, it's not like the QEW didn't hold its own youthful fascinations for me for all the weird archaic 1939isms that remained extant into later times--yes, somehow or another, I engaged (positively, transfixedly) to *that* element; like the highway version of weird 1967 psychedelia...

 

[mistersg1]

Though as per my point, maybe it's not just about super-specifically *kid*-oriented attractions. Like, when you speak of re going to Wonderland at 5 or 6, I could just as well speak of re going to *Yorkdale* at 5 or 6--and there was a symbiotic getting-there and once-there pleasure to *that*.

Remember: I'm not denying that the "entertainment value" was a big part of the Science Arcade's appeal (or that of the OSC in general)--and yes, it was part of that Sesame Street-era ethos of learning and being entertained at once. But just because it was *meant* to be an attraction in itself, didn't make it, or indeed the whole OSC complex, a vacuum. There was IMO an intuitive comprehension by even the youngest visitor of "something Moriyama-higher", much as there would have been of "something Zeidler-higher" re OP--maybe less so in the Science Arcade part (which, after all, was but a concrete warehouse), but certainly in the sequence of approach. Or, think of it as a micro-version of the "getting there is half the fun" principle--crossing the bridge, descending the escalator from the rotunda part, etc. It was the subtle secret to its success.

However, if you're to speak of Wonderland-type trips, rather than of, well, Yorkdale-type trips (or just everyday-shopping and similar accompanying-the-family trips), that might say something about my Neil Postman "amused to death" point; or how the common barometer for the experiences kids are party to became overly "ergonomic" by the 80s and 90s--like, enveloping them in a patronizing "kidspace" to a fault, almost by way of soothing them and inoculating them from the trauma of the Big Bad Boring Adult World. By comparison, the kids of the Rocky & Bullwinkle generation tended to have one fruitful foot in the grownup world. I did have kid stuff, but I was also party to family newspapers and other "grownup literature" (including maps, which helped my ability to "follow along" on trips). Heck, not only would I have memorized (like you) the route from Brampton to Wonderland by 5/6, through doing my map-reading-and-beyond homework I would have insisted upon taking different routes there by 9/10 and *not* insisted upon "the most direct way" (and knowing my mother, she probably would have sought out interesting Italian bakeries or whatever as an alibi--so, once again, it would have been a latently richer trip than one simply devoted to quick-there-and-back "amusing the kids").

It's like I said: it's not even just about the walk to High Park, but also about the walk *within* High Park--the play area, and the Zoo for that matter, as part of a bigger entity, of trails and paths to follow here, there, and everywhere: ones which might not be super-specific kid-oriented, but are kid-enriching all the same. But according to the "kidspace" mentality, that everything else is an afterthought.

And yes, I was the kind of 10 year old who could figure out a non-QEW way to and from Niagara Falls--but that's in part because we *did* go momentously off-QEW at least once and I "internalized it"; plus, there was still the carryover legacy of older highway maps that showed Hwy 8, and Hwy 2/Lakeshore remained a going concern until the Mike Harris era. (Of course, family experiences are important; and if the parents never took the off-QEW way to and from the Falls in the first place, of course the kids wouldn't internalize it. The most efficient way to "other" a route is to not take it, or to not imply that it even exists as an option--and paradoxically, such timidity's often born out of a reluctance to "upset the kids".)

And come to think of it, it's not like the QEW didn't hold its own youthful fascinations for me for all the weird archaic 1939isms that remained extant into later times--yes, somehow or another, I engaged (positively, transfixedly) to *that* element; like the highway version of weird 1967 psychedelia...

But taking the longer way isn't necessarily the parents want to do either. Especially my father, he was always adamant on getting places quickly. Heck, I was more of the explorer that you describe, I didn't even drive across Eastport Drive across Burlington Bay until I could drive myself. I was not reliant on GPS but did look at maps,, if not official, Microsoft Streets and Trips so I could study maps in my spare time. So it wasn't in my case the "kids fault" but that of the parents.

The pre 1997 Highway system was actually easy to follow and we all understand that, sure "downloading" could have happened, but for goodness sakes, the route shields should have remained in place, it may not officially be Hwy 11 anymore in Toronto, but they should have at least kept the shields, as it forms a route.

 

[adma]

But taking the longer way isn't necessarily the parents want to do either. Especially my father, he was always adamant on getting places quickly. Heck, I was more of the explorer that you describe, I didn't even drive across Eastport Drive across Burlington Bay until I could drive myself. I was not reliant on GPS but did look at maps,, if not official, Microsoft Streets and Trips so I could study maps in my spare time. So it wasn't in my case the "kids fault" but that of the parents.

And I think that's often the case, particularly these days: a sort of "accidental cultural throttling", often under the well-meaning notion that it's actually *beneficial* to the kids.

But again, it's also in how totally-immersive, safe-play-zone entropic and inert--even beyond Science Arcade/Sesame Street conceits of the 60s/70s--a lot of "assigned" kid culture has become in recent times; as if to insulate them from fruitful encounters with something "bigger than themselves". Which is why a lot of modern-day "kidcore" culture seems weirdly barren: cubbyholed warm & fuzzy liminal nostalgia for past food courts and McDonaldland play areas and the like, as if those were the only real-world environments kids were even *allowed* to engage to--and it also reminds me of how, in garage-saleing w/my mother in recent times, we made a point of avoiding anyplace laden with 1980s-onward "kid stuff". Like somewhere along the way, kids became kitsch.

Some of the consequences of that "art, or entertainment?" kitschscape-immersion climate are delineated here

https://glasstire.com/2018/10/01/how-do-you-solve-a-problem-like-meow-wolf/

By comparison, it'd seem to me that growing up, *this* sensibility was "in the air", even if I, myself, wasn't directly party to it.

Fifty Years of “Learning from Las Vegas”

The cool appraisal of Denise Scott Brown and Robert Venturi’s revolutionary book has a lot to inspire the architects of today.

www.newyorker.com

And as far as kids becoming kitsch goes: a lot of that might be due to *who* was having kids in an era when having kids became more of an opt-in than a universal rite of passage--and by the time we got to the 80s, we were edging into an era when so-called "breeders" were seen by all too many as "not knowing any better".

Indeed--and especially apropos of this whole culturally-bereft OP/OSC debate--Premier Ford himself might as well be the epitome of the breeder-not-knowing-any-better class.

 

[adma]

Indeed--and especially apropos of this whole culturally-bereft OP/OSC debate--Premier Ford himself might as well be the epitome of the breeder-not-knowing-any-better class.

And to elaborate on the culturally-bereft POV: let's remember that Ford's a jock. He views things through the prism of sporting and entertainment venues as "infrastructure". It's a realm where stadiums serve for 30 years before being imploded, once something "newer" and "fresher" takes its place.

But whether accidentally or not, he reflects how that's been the trend for *everything* over the past 3rd of a century or so. Some of it is a neoliberal "fast fashion" attitude; but some of it also echoes how the digital age differs from the analog age, where things are in a constant state of update. Or, to hang on to a "dated" concert or sporting facility might be viewed as being as silly as hanging onto older Windows platforms.

Thus the retrospective puzzlement among younger cohorts over why the loss of the OP Forum was something to be lamented has to be viewed in those kinds of terms. Like, it was old and dated, so...why not? Wasn't that doing the *right* thing?

But in that light, it's *also* worth noting that the Molson Amphitheatre/Bud Stage has *outlived* the Forum...and yet I can't imagine *any* grassroots save-the-Bud-Stage rally taking place, along the lines of what the Forum was greeted with. And it's not just about its being alien to the original Zeidler concept; it's because that's all it was conceived as--functional entertainment infrastructure. It's not *meant* to inspire preservationist rallies; all it is is a venue for entertaining people.

And let's remember, way back when this whole Doug Ford Ontario Place thing started, the *only* element exempt from provincial earmarking was...the Bud Stage. Which to those who were concerned about the fate of Zeidler's ensemble, came off like a bunch of philistine goofs in power getting the whole "value" thing inside out...

 

[mistersg1]

And to elaborate on the culturally-bereft POV: let's remember that Ford's a jock. He views things through the prism of sporting and entertainment venues as "infrastructure". It's a realm where stadiums serve for 30 years before being imploded, once something "newer" and "fresher" takes its place.

But whether accidentally or not, he reflects how that's been the trend for *everything* over the past 3rd of a century or so. Some of it is a neoliberal "fast fashion" attitude; but some of it also echoes how the digital age differs from the analog age, where things are in a constant state of update. Or, to hang on to a "dated" concert or sporting facility might be viewed as being as silly as hanging onto older Windows platforms.

Thus the retrospective puzzlement among younger cohorts over why the loss of the OP Forum was something to be lamented has to be viewed in those kinds of terms. Like, it was old and dated, so...why not? Wasn't that doing the *right* thing?

But in that light, it's *also* worth noting that the Molson Amphitheatre/Bud Stage has *outlived* the Forum...and yet I can't imagine *any* grassroots save-the-Bud-Stage rally taking place, along the lines of what the Forum was greeted with. And it's not just about its being alien to the original Zeidler concept; it's because that's all it was conceived as--functional entertainment infrastructure. It's not *meant* to inspire preservationist rallies; all it is is a venue for entertaining people.

And let's remember, way back when this whole Doug Ford Ontario Place thing started, the *only* element exempt from provincial earmarking was...the Bud Stage. Which to those who were concerned about the fate of Zeidler's ensemble, came off like a bunch of philistine goofs in power getting the whole "value" thing inside out...

We seem to be constantly going around in circles, so I'm not sure how much I can engage on this topic as what's the point of dealing with stubborness.

Structures, especially institutional structures built during that period in the 1970s are seen to most people as hideous, what we know as "brutalism" and to a lesser extent "post modernism". Brutalism, what's the root word there, "brutal", and that's quite what a building that's mostly just a concrete slab is, very uninviting and just looks awful. This does not mean that architecture and design prior to the 1970s is bad or outdated, quite the contrary in reality.

Here are some examples around the city. Ask anyone familiar with University of Toronto to mentally think of the campus, and even those who never attended there like myself would probably envision the Hart House. No one is imagining Robarts Library as the defining structure of that place because it is in fact hideous, there's no question about it.

Think of the Toronto subway, there's a certain elegance to much of the system, how the stations and subsequent extensions all had a design criteria for the platforms, the (originally vitrolite) tile and I-beam stations. However, when they got to the Spadina subway extension, they designed stations with this very 1970s almost brutalist style that looks incredibly dated and awful. Particularly the stations which are in the median of the Allen are the worst, with Wilson taking the top spot. It's also funny that nearly 30 years later after Downsview opened, it is still a beautiful station.

You used some thing about analog and digital to try to make a point. If anything, Toronto City Hall is a place where a giant digital clock would fit in. As that's the kind of feeling I get with it. Unlike the elegant clock tower and building design next to of it of Old City Hall. Heck, even Brampton City Hall constructed in the 1990s conjures an image of one would think when they imagine a City Hall building.


As for ballparks, Atlanta's situation is an outlier more than a norm, but what happened with the design of ballparks in Major League Baseball is similar to this whole thing we're discussing. This same era was the rise of the multi-purpose stadium, which were known infamously as "concrete donuts" or "giant ashtrays", generally round buildings to host both MLB and NFL, The fan experience for either sport was bad as you couldn't have ideal sightlines for both. Similarly, this is like the analogy used regarding the futon that a certain YouTuber uses. As we know, the Skydome was the last of these kind of stadiums built.

Oriole Park in Baltimore which opened just over 30 years ago utilized a classic design, incorporating the historic rail depot in the outfield, changed the way how baseball stadiums are designed. The key here is that it was a classic design, away from that brutalism concrete designs of the 1970s, and well, every team tried to get some sort of version of this kind of ballpark. Amazingly, 30 years later with Oriole Park now actually being one of the oldest ballparks in MLB, it still ranks among the top of the lists usually of best MLB stadiums. I'm also willing to bet that Oriole Park will still be active 30 years from now. CitiField, the home of the Mets, the exterior of the stadium is clearly based on the exterior of the long gone Ebbets Field, home of the Brooklyn Dodgers that was demolished in 1960. There is nobody who would ever want to bring back Shea Stadium's aesthics and exterior, the former home of the Mets.



One last topic though about the Children's Village, McMillan I didn't realize was the father of soft play, and soft play is what those play structures that were built in the 1980s and 1990s were clearly an evolution of. Discovery Zone was a chain that had a giant soft play structure and charged admission. At its core, what makes the Children's Village less off a "kiddieland" than say Discovery Zone or the McDonald's Playplaces (same istructures but smaller) of the 1990s? Is it because one was owned by the public sector while the other was the private sector.

 

[adma]

We seem to be constantly going around in circles, so I'm not sure how much I can engage on this topic as what's the point of dealing with stubborness.

Structures, especially institutional structures built during that period in the 1970s are seen to most people as hideous, what we know as "brutalism" and to a lesser extent "post modernism". Brutalism, what's the root word there, "brutal", and that's quite what a building that's mostly just a concrete slab is, very uninviting and just looks awful. This does not mean that architecture and design prior to the 1970s is bad or outdated, quite the contrary in reality.

Here are some examples around the city. Ask anyone familiar with University of Toronto to mentally think of the campus, and even those who never attended there like myself would probably envision the Hart House. No one is imagining Robarts Library as the defining structure of that place because it is in fact hideous, there's no question about it.

Think of the Toronto subway, there's a certain elegance to much of the system, how the stations and subsequent extensions all had a design criteria for the platforms, the (originally vitrolite) tile and I-beam stations. However, when they got to the Spadina subway extension, they designed stations with this very 1970s almost brutalist style that looks incredibly dated and awful. Particularly the stations which are in the median of the Allen are the worst, with Wilson taking the top spot. It's also funny that nearly 30 years later after Downsview opened, it is still a beautiful station.

You used some thing about analog and digital to try to make a point. If anything, Toronto City Hall is a place where a giant digital clock would fit in. As that's the kind of feeling I get with it. Unlike the elegant clock tower and building design next to of it of Old City Hall. Heck, even Brampton City Hall constructed in the 1990s conjures an image of one would think when they imagine a City Hall building.

And on that Joe Blow historically-boneheaded mediocre-amateur architectural judgment note, I think you've blown yourself out of the argument--particularly relative to the forces rallying on behalf of *both* Ontario Place *and* the Ontario Science Centre.

Oh, and BTW, even if the setting's "hostile", a couple of those Allen Rd median stations are by Arthur Erickson. (Then again, you probably haven't even *heard* of Arthur Erickson, or at least care enough for that to be in any way meaningful for you. Which is but further underpinning for your philistinism to be written out of any productive discussion here.)

 

[adma]

One last topic though about the Children's Village, McMillan I didn't realize was the father of soft play, and soft play is what those play structures that were built in the 1980s and 1990s were clearly an evolution of. Discovery Zone was a chain that had a giant soft play structure and charged admission. At its core, what makes the Children's Village less off a "kiddieland" than say Discovery Zone or the McDonald's Playplaces (same istructures but smaller) of the 1990s? Is it because one was owned by the public sector while the other was the private sector.

If anything, it's about its having more of a "integral and fluid extension of the Ontario Place concept" element to it--and as I suggested re the water features as some kind of "beginning of the end" moment, the *original* Children's Village had a reassuring come-as-you-are, leave-as-you-are quality, not requiring a bathing suit change or anything. And in so being, it wasn't all *that* fundamentally different from other children's playgrounds (water pads notwithstanding) in that they were less like sealed sanctums and more like extensions of a broader parkscape/cityscape.

Indeed, a lot of that 70s "playground idealism" had that breaking-the-sanctum, micro-playland-as-part-of-a-macro-playland element about it--including the Adventure Playground that once roosted on Bathurst Quay as sort of an extension of Harbourfront back when it was just a whole lot of ad hoc repurposed industrial gunk and connective path and all the more thrilling and exciting for the fact. (Or even, pre-70s, Centreville and the maze within Centre Island--though maybe *somewhat* qualified in that most of what surrounded it was largely dull grass and parterres.)

Once we get to the Discovery Zones and Playdiums et al in the 90s, there got to be a "sanctumizing" of the experience. (And maybe it's also because, post-Star Wars, especially, immersive sanctum universes really did come to steal the thunder of the prosaic real world for many a youngster.)

 

[generalcanada]

Aww no more funny memes on the blackboard

 

[kotsy]

Aww no more funny memes on the blackboard

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There is still some across from the trillium park entrance. Surprised they didn't put these panels up there too but there is much less traffic there