[scarberiankhatru]

The point is that I think it should (and you haven't stated your opinion or whether or not there is or should be room for improvement in the whole process). Who says I have no interest in the properties? It's my city, too. It even indirectly affects my finances.

 

[building babel]

We all have vested interests in the property because it is a real object that inhabits the same space that we do. We already have controls over what can be done with the building. And CityWriter, for one, suggests that it should be considered as a whole - inside and out - and that controls ought to recognize this. I can't see anything wrong with "listing" a building in this way if a case can be made.

 

[borgos]

Years ago, I had an office at 350 Bay Street. It's a handsome brick building but my goodness the low ceilings and cramped layouts made it a gloomy environment in which to spend my working hours. I have some sympathy for the owners of these buildings who must incur not insignificant expenses in the maintaining these buildings while not being able to charge "Class A" rents.

 

[Citywriter]

The point is that is doesn't work that way, regardless of what other people with no vested interest in the property may think.

It would work that way if this city had (and enforced) decent preservation laws -- say, half as strong as those in that anti-capitalist haven New York.

I'm surprised by your vehemence about this case, andreapalladio.

 

[andreapalladio]

I can't see anything wrong with "listing" a building in this way if a case can be made.

No one has made such a case for the Concourse building. There hasn't been one post here that says why the interior should be preserved for historic, heritage or architectural reasons.

I'm all in favour of historical preservation when there is a reason to do so. They're saving the facade of the building, which is well worth saving.

By the same token, why is there no tub thumping to save the entire, attractive, excellent example of its type '50s building that is going to be destroyed for the Bay Adelaide Centre? Surely if the Concourse Building must be saved intact, it should be also, as should the so-called historic interior of the building on Bay, the facade of which will be incorporated into the Bay Adelaide Centre.

And to use the New York example, I don't know of anyone on this board who traveled to Manhattan to chain themselves to the Hearst Building to protect the so-called historic interiors there before the Right Hon. The Baron Foster of Thames Bank, O.M., plonked his addition down into it.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

"Years ago, I had an office at 350 Bay Street. It's a handsome brick building but my goodness the low ceilings and cramped layouts made it a gloomy environment in which to spend my working hours."

 

[borgos]

Haha, one of my favourite movies. Thanks for reminding me. Maybe I'll rent it this weekend.

 

[tudararms]

Let New Yorkers debate their own heritage!

The fact is we may still be a little too close to the 1950s to know or appreciate what may be worth saving or not: who can pinpoint when something passes from simply out of date to becoming something that is considered heritage? That is not the case with the deco buildings of the 20s and 30s, however, which are now quite widely loved and quite rare in our city. Moreover, once a building is gone you cannot get it back, and lets face it the track record on this score is not great in Toronto and guy-shy preservationists would rather err on the side of caution than hastily deem something unworthy as some may say the interior of the Concourse Building is, or Bishop's Block for that matter. I sympathize that owning a Heritage-designated building can pose certain difficulties and impose certain constraints, but this *is* a free market. If you want to avoid those hastles then look for your properties in an industrial park in the suburbs! Good grief, I know towns and cities that limit floor heights, colour pallets, architectural styles and all kinds of things. Developers have it pretty good in Toronto when it comes to the heritage stock!

 

[andreapalladio]

The fact is we may still be a little too close to the 1950s to know or appreciate what may be worth saving or not: who can pinpoint when something passes from simply out of date to becoming something that is considered heritage?

I see. You favour preserving only what is fashionable, it appears. Can you tell us when the interior of the Concourse building became something that is considered heritage, and why?

 

[building babel]

A number of things come into play when considering heritage value, surely? Not all of them would require the passage of time to become apparent.

Something that is innovative, for instance, would have merit from the get-go - you don't need to wait 50 years to recognize when something innovates. And something of great aesthetic beauty and proportion would - one hopes - be enough of a standout to require preservation. Obviously, the category of scarcity comes into play only with the passage of time and the destruction of most other similar examples of a work - in which case you may end up scraping the bottom of the barrel just to have something remain from a particular era of design. Citywriter seems to suggest that this is the case with the interior of the Concourse.

Compared to England, where even homeowners can't replace a front door without running foul of some preservation ruling, property owners here do indeed appear to have remarkable freedom to do what they want to properties they own. The loss of the 2 Bloor West ceramic lobby artwork, which I mentioned in another thread recently, is a prime example of how little protection we afford to built forms that are from an "unfashionable" recent period ( in this case Modernist / Brutalist ) but have artistic merit.

 

[Archivistower]

I always thought our heritage legislation should make more distinctions between different types of buildings. Something like:

A - Don't change the curtains without calling us and be careful where you put that vase of flowers.
B - High value of interior and exterior, no chance of demolition, interior changes to be kept to minimum or some interior characteristics to be preserved.
C - Moderate value of exterior - you can do what you want to the interior, but the exterior must not be changed in appearance.
D - Keep the facade.
E - Important in built form and context only, you can replace this, but if it's a house you can't replace it with a 20 storey building.

I don't know if that's what Britain has.

Perhaps such a categorization also helps us to find common ground. I think AP is suggesting the Concourse is a D. I actually think that, present heritage laws aside, it's more of a C. I would prefer an approach to the building that, if it gutted the interior and made it into Class A office space, also did not allow the exterior to be overshadowed by a hulking tower. I think that a facadization that is obviously so distracts and essentially ruins the facade of a building, whereas interior renovations that leave the exterior of the buildings unscathed do not.

 

[borgos]

I would prefer an approach to the building that, if it gutted the interior and made it into Class A office space, also did not allow the exterior to be overshadowed by a hulking tower.

This is my chief complaint about the Jazz condo tower. Sure, they did a nice job preserving the heritage facade but it's completely overpowered by the hulking tower. The tower component detracts from the older building and contributes nothing of value. This could have been handled much more deftly.

 

[andreapalladio]

Brilliant scale, archivisttower - you're right, I'd list the Concourse as a D. I'd think it a C if the proposed addition weren't completely neutral.

 

[Citywriter]

No one has made such a case for the Concourse building. There hasn't been one post here that says why the interior should be preserved for historic, heritage or architectural reasons.

Let me say it again and clearly:

1. Preservation should account for the use of a building -- its social, cultural and economic past and and present. And even in Toronto, it does, at least sometimes.

Facadism of the BA kind shows faint respect for architecture and none whatsoever for urban form or the shape of the city.

2. Also, scarcity of a particular building type (as Babel says) should lead to extra-strict preservation. This building is of a rare type and deserves -- deserved -- extra breathing room.

andrea, you raise the '50s tower on Bay that's going as a comparison point. I'm sure many of us would like to see it preserved, so your argument is basically moot. But why no outcry? a) as usual, few of the general public would agree and b) there are, frankly, bigger fish to un-fry when it comes to modern preservation in this city.

I hate to go back to New York, but andrea, the old Hearst building had literally hundreds of comparables in Manhattan. And it was landmarked, and it was not a trivial process to get permission for the Foster redevelopment (in spite of its quality and the obvious case for intensification on 8th Ave.)

That kind of respect for historic built form is good for a city, and we have too little of it.

All this discussion kind of takes us nowhere, though. The city would have preserved the building if it actually had the legal power to do so. The BA plan was negotiated under the threat of an OMB hearing.

These days, things have changed -- at least if Council has the will to defend preservaiton, which we haven't really seen yet (certainly not with Inn on the Park, for instance). Today, there's no way the Concourse wouldn't be preserved.

Or am I wrong? any city hall insiders to clarify the current Heritage Act situation?

 

[mark simpson]

Facadism of the BA kind shows faint respect for architecture and none whatsoever for urban form or the shape of the city

AFAIK, the city's shape and urban form is still under development with the CBD destined to have some of the highest densities - unfortunately this can't be accomplished by preserving all the obsolete spaces of yesteryear

I hate to go back to New York, but andrea, the old Hearst building had literally hundreds of comparables in Manhattan. And it was landmarked, and it was not a trivial process to get permission for the Foster redevelopment

what about the hundreds of deco highrise apartment buildings/hotel that are being systematically destroyed one at a time for modern condo skyscrapers (and I wonder how much Foster's design had to do with the difficulty in 'getting premission' in architecturally conservative NYC)