[condovo]

If we are ever to get out of an endless cycle of destroying, on entirely arbitrary grounds, buildings that we simply find out of fashion, it has to start now.

I've explained quite clearly why I don't like TRL and it has nother to do with fashion but, rather, to form and function. The form of the building is ugly and it fails in it's function of enhancing the streetscape.

The reference library won a Governor General's Award for Architecture, for instance. On that grounds alone, it stands above the mock Victoriana that you apparently wish to erect in its place.

I don't care how many awards the cultural elite in Canada bestow upon themselves. The building still sucks for reasons I explain here and in my previous post.

I do feel that the building could be more user friendly to the street, but I find your attitude disturbing and misplaced. Myself, I am willing to forgive the library it's somewhat unfriendly visage on Yonge...

It is your attitude that I find disturbing, namely the acceptance of mediocrity.

Moreover, I am sympathetic to the building simply on the basis that it represents part of our cultural heritage.

Could not a superior building become part of our cultural heritage?

Can you explain to me how, for instance, the side walls of the Old City Hall are more engaging than the TRL? Or, perhaps an even better example would be the Canada Life building on University, with its heavy iron fence keeping people away. Hardly inviting.

Unlike TRL's boring expanses of flat, orange brick, the stone sides of Old City Hall and iron gates at Canada Life have texture, variety, and craftsmanship that are engaging and delightful the eye.

 

[Archivist]

"fails in it's function of enhancing the streetscape" - I guess you've never been inside, or perhaps in your view, the inside just doesn't count since you've not mentioned it.

"The building still sucks for reasons I explain here and in my previous post." - Yes, I definitely prefer the carefully measured tone of your emails to those who carefully consider and justify their reasons for deciding awards.

"Could not a superior building become part of our cultural heritage" - not if it's ripped down 30-50 years after it's built, which is when buildings are at their most vulnerable. The former addition to the ROM, for instance, was also the receipient of awards. I believe in looking to the past judgement of people as a way of moderating trends in design. Perhaps if people had turned a more sympathetic eye to the Victoriana you cherish and made an attempt to understand it, more would be around today.

"texture, variety, and craftsmanship which are engaging to the eye" - ie., they are old. Moreover, your inclusion of some old Victorian pile really undermines your argument, unless you can make an argument for that specific building apart from it's ancientness. I suspect you can't - it's just old and that will do. I do take your point with old city hall, but I find walking past Canada Life frankly creepy - it keeps me thinking that if I don't scurry, someone in a tophat is going to come out whack me with a cane and then charge me with some crime.

That doesn't mean that I feel qualified to judge the building and indicate that it ought to be ripped down.

But your charge of accepting mediocrity - I find that amusing. How many buildings in the city meet your exacting standards, I wonder, and how many more might need to be destroyed before you are satisfied?

 

[adma]

Condovo, tell us what your idea is of "superior"--*in our time*, as opposed to 75 or 100 years ago?

Because AFAIC, something like this

epitomizes hicktown mediocrity far more so than Toronto Reference, or 4SC, or whatever...

 

[condovo]

I guess you've never been inside, or perhaps in your view, the inside just doesn't count since you've not mentioned it.

I have been inside TRL and I'm no fan of it's interior either, both functionally and aesthetically. But that has nothing to do with its street presence, which is what I find most objectionable.

Perhaps if people had turned a more sympathetic eye to the Victoriana you cherish and made an attempt to understand it, more would be around today

I don't appreciate Yorkville Town Hall merely as a piece of Victoriana. I also admire it as a fine-looking building.

"texture, variety, and craftsmanship which are engaging to the eye" - ie., they are old.

Huh? How do texture, variety, and craftmanship equal 'old?' I find these qualities in KPMB's RCM expansion and Mies' TD Centre too, amongst others.

How many buildings in the city meet your exacting standards, I wonder, and how many more might need to be destroyed before you are satisfied?

Few buildings in this city, or most other cities for that matter, meet my exacting standards but that doesn't mean that Toronto should be flattened. Mundane buildings serve their purpose too. However, it does mean that the most egregiously ugly prominent buildings, like TRL, FCP, and RoCP, should be replaced sooner rather than later.

 

[condovo]

Condovo, tell us what your idea is of "superior"--*in our time*, as opposed to 75 or 100 years ago?

My architectural tastes are pretty eclectic but here goes. Any of these would do.

(c. 2004)

(c. 1991; I don't object to POMO.)

(c. 1996)

 

[interchange42]

Well, with rather divergent Seattle, Chicago, and Paris all on your playlist, you're right - your taste is eclectic, and there is really no way to encompass in a few words what you like on not looks-wise, or in regard to the functionality of these very different layouts.

I'd say you just don't like TRL while others find it likable, and leave it at that.

Can't we all just agree to disagree?

42

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

condovo:

You do realize that all the examples of good library architecture you've listed are from the 90s to the early 2000, right? And when was the reference library built?

And let's not even talk about the functionality of Dominique Perrault's Bibliotheque Nationale de France.

AoD

 

[Hipster Duck]

To get to the Bibliotheque Nationale you have to walk along a railway embankment, then go across a bridge, then walk along a rather desolate road. There are some entranceways, but you have to find them and then go through a metal detector. If you can figure out how to make it to the roof, you are afforded a very fine view of Paris but it's pretty deserted up there. I should also mention that the entire complex is about the same size as a convention centre. It's almost as if Perrault decided to honour LeCorbusier's dying wish for Paris.

In terms of a building with a warm and inviting street presence, it is about as bad as it gets.

 

[condovo]

I knew that citing examples of libraries I like would invite people to shoot holes through my arguments against TRL. Suffice it to say, I chose these buildings for their beauty and grandeur, as befitting a great city or national library. Of course, each one has it's problems/drawbacks. Nothing created by humans is ever perfect. And I wouldn't want exact copies of these here anyway. What's important for me is the spirit they convey, which is what I'd want for TRL and for our city in general. Toronto's an important place and our public (and private) buildings ought to reflect that. The current TRL, ugly as it is, does not.

 

[Archivist]

condovo, may I ask if you've been to Seattle's library rather than just browsed it on the web? In fact, the building is exquisite, I have visited it twice and both times felt actually moved close to tears. Here's the catch - I've been moved by the interior. The exterior is actually quite unegaging, it acts like a big huge blob of nothing in the city. It's actually hard to find the door, even. You may not know this, but the good citizens of Seattle forced the architect to change many aspects of the outside of the building, and he is quite unsatisfied with it.

Yet, I love love love this building, perhaps as much as any modern building around. I can forgive its ungainliness outdoors for the exquisite pleasure of being inside.

But let's return to Canada Life, since you like walking past this. This building was to be much taller, with a series of setbacks, and was scaled back. As a piece of Beaux Arts architecture, it's scale and the heaviness of the base make it an awkward sell. There is this big huge lump of stone at the street level that peters out far too quickly into unusable space above. It's really not hard to criticize, and would make no one's list of good buildings from that period.

It would not have been hard in say, 1965, to acheive its demolition. At that time, it's architecture would have been dramatically out of style, and all our arguments that are applied to the Reference Library apply as equally to Canada Life - it is a flawed building.

Thank God that didn't happen. I don't like Canada Life, especially, but imagine it gone! What a loss to the city, even in its imperfect state.

I have no argument with you disliking the Reference Library and I think some of your points about how it meets Yonge Street are quite valid - but I do take issue with you urge to knock down, I think this is exactly the kind of thing that we must get away from. Finally, I think you are not being entirely honest with yourself in terms of your "exacting standards".

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

I knew that citing examples of libraries I like would invite people to shoot holes through my arguments against TRL. Suffice it to say, I chose these buildings for their beauty and grandeur, as befitting a great city or national library. Of course, each one has it's problems/drawbacks. Nothing created by humans is ever perfect. And I wouldn't want exact copies of these here anyway. What's important for me is the spirit they convey, which is what I'd want for TRL and for our city in general. Toronto's an important place and our public (and private) buildings ought to reflect that. The current TRL, ugly as it is, does not.

There are quite a few things not "befitting" of this city - from the current state of Union Station to the subway. Sure, I want a Hauptbahnhof too, but who's paying for your spirit? Beyond that, given the limitation of resources, you haven't made a very convincing argument as to why the perfectly functional TRL should be abandoned and a new library be built to exacting architectural standards, when such resources, even if available within the current library system, shouldn't be invested in other manners that serves the actual mandate of the organization? By the way, for the record - the TPL is actually one of the most successful library system in North America. Seattle might have something pretty to show, but when it comes to the actual spirit of library usage, they have something to learn from here.

Oh speaking of great libraries befitting of a great city, I am surprised you didn't mention THIS one - which is probably one the greatest to ever grace the face of the Earth. I bet you can't tell it is, considering, gawd forbid, how similar it looks to TRL.

AoD

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

Hipster:

It's almost as if Perrault decided to honour LeCorbusier's dying wish for Paris.

Or Mitterand's - your reference to LeCorbusier's Voisin Plan is cunning

AoD

 

[adma]

Condovo, you're suffering from an overly earnest amateur architectual conoisseur's overwrought gee-whiz envy of what's pushed as state-of-the-art spectacular around the world. Like, we *must* keep up. *Must*. *Must*. And the fact that you're so caught up in the "must" part that you're overstating TRL's negatives proves the kind of amateur you are.

One other example yet to be mentioned is Vancouver's library

Personally, I prefer Toronto. And it's not because of Vancouver's "dated" Postmodern aesthetic, but because it, being a product of the era when public institutions just *had* to be mall-i-fied/Starbuck-i-fied, lacks Toronto's serenity.

Heck, even our so-called "ugliness" somehow compliments the serenity--indeed, I'd rather frame Moriyama's brown chocolate chunk in terms of "homeliness" rather than "ugliness". How perfect--it's a Lisa Loeb in librarian's hornrims. Don't dis a Lisa Loeb type because she ain't Heidi Klum or Gisele Bundchen...

 

[Sir Novelty Fashion]

Lisa Loeb without the hornrims is like Jeff without the magic hat.

I recognize that building, adma. Isn't it on Caprica?

 

[junctionist]

The interior architecture is epic:

.

Fortunately, anyone can walk in and appreciate that, what with it being a public library. It also lets in a lot of natural light.