Groan. The opera-house-delivery-entrance-that's-supposed-to-look-like-something-else argument returns.

There's a big fancy mural by a famous American artist outside the back of the Princess of Wales Theatre and I've never ever seen anyone standing there looking at it.
 
Yes, we know, babel - but please understand that you're virtually alone, if not completely alone, in this opinion. Recognize your decidedly unpopular idiosyncrasy and quite pronounced contrarianism here.
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The point being that it is an opinion. If someone likes, wants to defend or sees nothing wrong with cinder block, so what? What is it contrary to? Are some rules of "correctness" being violated here? Who is setting these exacting standards?

So Urban Shocker has a different point of view and expresses as much? Should this place be a popularity contest about cinder block thoughts? Cinder blocks are cinder blocks, nothing more or nothing less. If some people hate them, then they hate them. If others like them, so what?
 
This thread, 22 Wellesley and 1 St Thomas have all raised the issue of how we ascribe cultural significance to buildings.

We each have a heirarchy based on our individual value system, and there will inevitably be conflict.

For some of us "quality finishes" are what counts the most most, for others it is mourning the demise of a feudal economic and social system that employed craftsmen at low wages to hand-carve large chunks of stone with ornate decoration, for some it is about providing economic opportunities for Flipper, for yet others it is about expressing contemporary values, while others value pure visual aesthetics for the trained eye above everything. Etc. Etc. We're a broad spectrum of people with different approaches to creating a ranking of what is important and what isn't.

And I'm the only one who knows what they're talking about :)
 
Hydrogen said:
The point being that it is an opinion. If someone likes, wants to defend or sees nothing wrong with cinder block, so what? What is it contrary to? Are some rules of "correctness" being violated here? Who is setting these exacting standards? So Urban Shocker has a different point of view and expresses as much? Should this place be a popularity contest about cinder block thoughts? Cinder blocks are cinder blocks, nothing more or nothing less. If some people hate them, then they hate them. If others like them, so what?
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To clarify: unique and contrarian opinions are often wonderful and valuable, if not critically necessary. Many of my heroes are staunch, hard-nosed contrarians and provocateurs. But I'm obviously not alone in finding Shocker's apparently ever-intensifying ideological dogma and relentlessly repeated opinions wrt contemporary buildings to be a bit much, both in terms of quantity and extremity. His chances of persuading anyone to begin to see things his way on this subject approach nil, yet he goes on and on and on and on and on with the same old thang, again and again and again and again. I don't know where the line is between trolling and knowingly, endlessly repeating a highly unpopular opinion, but Shocker is flirting with it. It's gotten old.
 
And the same goes for those who are constantly cry that the sky is falling every time they see a loading dock or parking lot that isn't tarted up like Belle Watlin's house.
 
But I'm obviously not alone in finding Shocker's apparently ever-intensifying ideological dogma and relentlessly repeated opinions wrt contemporary buildings to be a bit much, both in terms of quantity and extremity. His chances of persuading anyone to begin to see things his way on this subject approach nil, yet he goes on and on and on and on and on with the same old thang, again and again and again and again.
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As to Shocker not persuading "anyone," I think that's best left up to others to decide for themselves on such things. As for quantity and extemity, it's not like this place otherwise lacks extreme opinions. Very often, those opinions only appear to be "extreme" because the person deeming them as such also holds an "extreme" contrary opinion. And disagreement in opinion does not automatically result in a member being a troll.

That's just my opinion...
 
Quite franklly, I find nothing wrong with this backside of a building. Nothing at all. Nada. Zilch. I mean, what next? Are we to petition the management to tart the large garbage bin up with some sort of teak or limestone cladding, simply because if someone wants to, they can peak around the corner and spot that offending hulk? Or, shall we mobilize to ensure that the bike rack out front is used only by those with snazzy new titanium bicycles? What crock. The building is smartly done, and has an excellent parkette, to boot. A few square meters or so of painted cinderblock (which looks no different from some of the stone found on some of this city's older and supposedly finer buildings) does not immediately turn this finely proportioned building into the harbinger of Toronto's modernist architectural apocalypse.
 
Quite franklly, I find nothing wrong with this backside of a building.
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But THIS ISN"T THE BACKSIDE. This is prime space on Adelaide and on Church. I wouldn't have a problem with it if it faced an alley but it doesn't.

Spire-May12,07(13).jpg


Spire-May12,07(14).jpg
 
I guess the fact that Junglab thought it was the back of the building, kinda proves a point.

(btw, I like the name 'Junglab')
 
I think if you own there, it's a little more personal.

I have seen the careful attention to detail Context puts behind more of it's project, and Spire seems to have been neglected.

Even the lobby looks half-ass.

Spire's not a blemish by any means, but for such a big project, I am disappointed that Context did not put more effort in.

I think it's get an 8/10 for attractiveness/design, but Context was capable of making it a 9-9.5.
 
How is the lobby half-assed? I think they did a great job with the lobby, the gym, putting original artwork on every floor, a beautiful parkette...what more could they have done?
 
RJR123 said:
How is the lobby half-assed? I think they did a great job with the lobby, the gym, putting original artwork on every floor, a beautiful parkette...what more could they have done?
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Go to Pinnacle... Go to 8 York...

Got to any other condo where they put some serious effort into the lobby...

I know you don't live in the lobby, but you walk thru every day.

But hey, everyone is different...
 
What, specifically, could they have improved upon in the lobby? How are these other buildings that you are referencing superior?
 
By backside I was referring to the back of the building - which happens to face west in this case. With the parkette/podium to the north, and Church to the east, you certainly can't define those faces as a backside (driveway notwithstanding). The fact that the cinderblocks wrap around to the Adelaide and Lombard facades is perhaps the major issue here - and people can raise a hue and cry over it if they wish - but it isn't something I have a problem with. I reiterate - the painted blocks don't look all that bad - certainly not so bad as to merit the vitriol leveled at them. I, also, like the fact that this space includes a bike rack - a very public, and dare I say it, less refined use of space.
 
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