Like the Union Station trainshed, whom some consider to be worthy of complete protection. (Not the station building, of course).
 
Let's form an historical destruction society to oppose the excesses of the preservationists.

Our mission would be 1) to establish credible opposition to forces that attempt to preserve the worst of the old (the Union Station train shed is a perfect example), and 2) to promote contemporary architetural solutions when faux-historical plans are threatening to hold sway (and the north market might fall into this categorey).

We would need a real knockout of an acronym for a name, so brilliant that we dazzle the media with it upon our first press release, and we need an erudite, charismatic spokesperson to attract attention to our noble cause.

Finally, now that my imagination has overtaken my good sense, we could come up with some really cool initiation rites, and meet monthly in someone's treehouse. Who's got a treehouse?

Damn, I always scuttle my own ship.

42
 
I couldn't agree more with Interchange. I tried to come up with a cute acronym. It didn't work. My own society might be:

SDREIHB. Society for the Destruction of Recently Erected Imitations of Heritage Buildings.

Also, here's a snap of Barcelona's market. My first option is for open canopied space as suggested earlier, but my second option would be for a cool crazy market.

Barcelone.jpg
 
If French Quarter's on the hit list, I'd become a probationary member. What other faux buildings would be eliminated?
 
Actually, I've suggested before that if the Union Station trainshed were moved elsewhere (say, the Portlands), it might make a nifty and even "acclaimed" public facility...

But we're not talking about that--we're talking about the "bridge" that once (until 1954, I believe) connected the St. Lawrence N + S Markets. Which, unlike the Union sheds, didn't just serve paying passengers--it was an in-your-face urban landmark.

Now, imagine if it (and presumably the original N market as well) had survived into the mid-70s--almost certainly, I'd imagine, it would have been restored together with S St. Lawrence. And it'd be beloved today (of course, restored and spiffed-up, it wouldn't seem anything as harsh and ungainly as it did in that ancient linked image--but that's what old B&W photographs can do).

Conversely, had UT existed 30 years ago, I'd imagine a (maybe not just) andrepalladioesque sentiment against keeping/restoring even S St Lawrence--y'know, just a big gloomy barn in public-works Edwardian, with an undistinguished clumsy chunk of the Old Old City Hall in the middle of it all; what's the point, except to appease the "hysterical types"?

Heck, even now, one might maybe claim such sentiment to be "vindicated", i.e. that the restoration was a typical Toronto "failure of imagination" as opposed to something bold and new and spectacular, and the Market Gallery is a taxpayer-drain white elephant, bla bla bla...
 
You're wrong, of course. I love the south market. But that doesn't make that ugly canopy over Front Street loveable. Or an idea that should be repeated.
 
"What other faux buildings would be eliminated?"

The Uptown condos...oh wait...they have not been built yet. Well then, how about some pre-emptive action?
 
I love the south market.
Remember: part of my point is that if we were to transpose you and your sensibility into the early 70s; well, judging from your pattern thus far, you probably *wouldn't* be loving the south market, and be very much glad to see it go, just as certain sorts would be glad to see the NPS walkways go today.

As for the canopy, if it were around today, it wouldn't be considered get-rid-of-it ugly. Period. (Especially allowing for the likelihood of restoration in the interrim.)

OTOH if *this* is what you're fearing; no, I'm not advocating *resurrecting* the canopy, either, nor is anyone else--not even "hysterical types". What's gone is gone; and yes, I agree, a resurrected canopy would be a horrific faux nightmare.

Sometimes, it seems to me, that some of you are getting an anti-faux-historicism paranoia get to your heads, without thinking more carefully about the deeper "what ifs" out there--which have absolutely nothing to do with so-called pure aesthetic judgment calls...
 
The Chedington. Blewed up good.
TheChedingtonN.jpg

At least the NY Towers appear not to take themselves seriously, and can be read as a sort of stand-up comic alongside the 401. The Chedington is dead serious.
NYTowersProject2.jpg
 
Ew- that's pretty fugly. The French Quarter makes me cringe as well- dreadfully tacky. But I do like classical elements in modern buildings- for instance Robert Stern's buildings can be quite elegant. But it is a rarity that it is done well.
 
I refuse to be transposed to the 1970s, what with its bad hair, bad music and bad design.

Bog - Stern's about a million levels above the designer (thankfully anonymous) of things like the NY towers. That kind of hack sort of understands the vocabulary of historic design, but not the grammar. Stern understands both the vocabulary and the grammar, and uses it to make something new, not a pastiche of what's gone before.
 
Archivist:

I'd say the roof of the Barcelona market owes a debt to Gaudi's Sagrada Familia School:

www.gaudiclub.com/ingles/...coles.html

Closer to home, no signs yet of faux retreads of earlier Toronto buildings, other than X condo's tip-of-the-hat to the TD Centre. I wonder when we'll see our first faux Prii?
 
I've always thought of 360 Bay, the Thomson Building and the TD/Starbucks as the faux or poor man's TD Centre.
 
The squished together, Richmond Adelaide Centre buildings have a similar feel.
 

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