CapitalSeven
Senior Member
Filmport! Shedport! Sorethumbport! Whateverport! I mean that in a good way. Sensibilities awoken and astirr. If the only consensus is that argument is better than simple acceptance, so much the better.
jeicow
Active Member
Isn't that what the "Searchlight" Sculpture outside of the ACC and the super enlarged Picasso sculpture in Chicago are made of? In which case, I don't think this building will really stand out as much as the rendering seems. I'd rather they just painted it a bright red (which I think the Sharp Centre has for the colour splothces) since it would make it more eye catching. This Cor-Ten steel is nice and all but it will never make this building live up the the reputation that the rendering gives it.
I'd honestly rather see The Cloud get built. It was weird, out there, some would say butt ugly, but it'd be the kind of building that people would actually talk about and would get attention. But then again, TO shouldn't be the city of left overs (like the Music Garden).
Urban Shocker
Doyenne
Have you ever been there? Boston's loss was very much our gain, as was Alsop's setting up an office here.
caltrane74
Senior Member
wow! this is an amazing project.
jeicow
Active Member
I've been there (actually I got caught in the rain there yesterday) and while it is a great park, the idea for it wasn't "meant" for Toronto, it was a Boston idea from the get-go. If the plans fall through for the current Spire Tower in Chicago and they decided to relocate it to TO, I wouldn't really see it as a "Toronto" project. It was meant for Chi-town and if the city doesn't want it, it shoudn't be put somewhere else. I see it that projects should be built for a city , not a city built for a project (like I find Dubai is doing). It's like if the giant Maple Leaf island that West 8 proposed suddenly gets built in Vancouver, it would be a great addition for them, but really, we all would know it wasn't "Vancouver", it was Toronto project that ended up there.
What's so Chicago about the Chicago Spire outside of its name and the city it will be built in? It would most certainly would be Toronto if built here and not in Chicago.
Urban Shocker
Doyenne
There is nothing inherently Bostonian about the concept for the Toronto Music Garden, which is a visual interpretation of Bach's First Suite for Unaccompanied Cello by landscape designer Julie Moir Messervy in collaboration with Yo-Yo Ma. Boston does not spring to mind when you visit the place.
Jdot
Active Member
I disagree with that. If a good or great project falls through for whatever reason - financial, change in outlook, etc etc, a good projet is still a good project and should come to realization. Just because it was originally designed to be built somewhere else, doesnt mean that it wont work in another city. After all, a city does not make that building, nor that building make a city. I wouldnt look at the Chicago Spire and say "Wow, that is SOO CHICAGO" but then look at it in Toronto and say "Wow, that is SOO CHICAGO". 99.99% of the population wouldnt know that, and would look at it on it's design principles alone.
The ROM's crystal could fit into any other city just as much as Toronto. The Alsop Filmplort design could fit into any other city as well as Toronto... so it a project originally designed to be built somewhere else gets built in Toronto instead, then so what?
The ROM's crystal could fit into any other city just as much as Toronto. The Alsop Filmplort design could fit into any other city as well as Toronto... so it a project originally designed to be built somewhere else gets built in Toronto instead, then so what?
alklay
Senior Member
If the Music Garden is somebody's leftovers, send us your leftovers!!
ganjavih
Senior Member
Amen.
Yes on the Cor-Ten questions you've asked. I'm not sure why the renderings make it look quite so red, or why Alsop says red as opposed to orange. Maybe some new formulation of Cor-Ten allows for some tint differences.
If you'd like to see some orangey Cor-Ten pics, check out this article. Otherwise, there's always the darker stuff pictured in an informative bit in the Wikipedia.
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wyliepoon
Senior Member
Anybody know where exactly the site of the Alsop building will be? I hope to make a model of it on Google Earth/Sketchup ASAP.
wyliepoon
Senior Member
Architectural Record
Link to article
Lights, Camera... Alsop!
August 13, 2007
by Alex Bozikovic
The British architect Will Alsop doesn’t do quiet buildings, so it’s fitting that his latest North American project will be an icon for an equally bold development project: a plan to build one of the largest film studios on the continent in Toronto.
Unveiled last week, Alsop’s design calls for a cantilevered 280,000-square-foot building that will function as a gateway to the new Filmport complex, now being constructed in the city’s port area. The tower, like much of Alsop’s work, employs a bold vocabulary of forms and materials: it is a giant arc, its inner face wrapped with a glass curtain wall and the outer face with Cor-Ten steel punctuated by a series of bulbous window openings. The building “curves as it rises,†explains Alsop, who won the Stirling Prize, the highest award in British architecture, in 2000 for London’s dramatically cantilevered Peckham Library. “It bends over and gives cover to what will be a very lively, public square.â€
The Filmport tower will house offices, production facilities, and retail space; a three-story glass bubble, tucked under the main curve, will serve as an atrium and restaurant. It’s likely to be the first major project completed in a broad redevelopment of Toronto’s industrial port land. The entire site, designed by Toronto’s Quadrangle Architects, is being billed as the largest studio in North America outside of California. Plans include 550,000 square feet of production space, including a one-acre soundstage designed to lure the biggest Hollywood movies to the city’s already booming film industry.
Alsop says that creating public space in the emerging neighborhood is an explicit goal of his building—and so is attracting tourists to the area. His atelier is a natural choice in that regard: it is well known in Canada for the Sharp Centre at the Ontario College of Art and Design, whose box-on-stilts form has made it one of the city’s most recognizable buildings since it was completed in 2004. Alsop says that, according to Toronto’s mayor, the Sharp Centre has increased tourism to the city by 2.3 percent. “Though I don’t know how they calculate those numbers, I’m happy to take credit,†he adds.
Link to article
Lights, Camera... Alsop!
August 13, 2007
by Alex Bozikovic
The British architect Will Alsop doesn’t do quiet buildings, so it’s fitting that his latest North American project will be an icon for an equally bold development project: a plan to build one of the largest film studios on the continent in Toronto.
Unveiled last week, Alsop’s design calls for a cantilevered 280,000-square-foot building that will function as a gateway to the new Filmport complex, now being constructed in the city’s port area. The tower, like much of Alsop’s work, employs a bold vocabulary of forms and materials: it is a giant arc, its inner face wrapped with a glass curtain wall and the outer face with Cor-Ten steel punctuated by a series of bulbous window openings. The building “curves as it rises,†explains Alsop, who won the Stirling Prize, the highest award in British architecture, in 2000 for London’s dramatically cantilevered Peckham Library. “It bends over and gives cover to what will be a very lively, public square.â€
The Filmport tower will house offices, production facilities, and retail space; a three-story glass bubble, tucked under the main curve, will serve as an atrium and restaurant. It’s likely to be the first major project completed in a broad redevelopment of Toronto’s industrial port land. The entire site, designed by Toronto’s Quadrangle Architects, is being billed as the largest studio in North America outside of California. Plans include 550,000 square feet of production space, including a one-acre soundstage designed to lure the biggest Hollywood movies to the city’s already booming film industry.
Alsop says that creating public space in the emerging neighborhood is an explicit goal of his building—and so is attracting tourists to the area. His atelier is a natural choice in that regard: it is well known in Canada for the Sharp Centre at the Ontario College of Art and Design, whose box-on-stilts form has made it one of the city’s most recognizable buildings since it was completed in 2004. Alsop says that, according to Toronto’s mayor, the Sharp Centre has increased tourism to the city by 2.3 percent. “Though I don’t know how they calculate those numbers, I’m happy to take credit,†he adds.
CanadianNational
Senior Member
Steel frame of Filmport rising (not the Alsop building)
urbandreamer
recession proof
^Power Plant will make an awesome wannabe-Tate Modern someday. 20 years from now? I hope they do the neighbourhood planning correctly--ie mixed uses with residential too.