If you are going to do something, do it right, or don't do it at all.
OK so next time the developer and City should agree simply to tear down the whole building. I am sure the developers will be happy to have this huge construction and design burden gone. Five St. Joseph would look so much better with a 5 meter window wall podium. Same with Westinghouse at King & Blue Jays. Same with 65 King East. Same with Market Street. /s
You’ve missed his point entirely... keeping a facade isn’t conting as preservation surely? I’m gong to preserve my Porsche by only keeping the front section. (And have it mounted and built around) note this is half a pourche now not a car at all. It’s a decoration piece. Useless and preserved/preserves nothing.that being said I can appreciate all the work that goes into what they are doing. Currently. But I wouldn’t define this as preservation. Now what they did with Massey towers “podium” that you can define as preservation. Or close enough to.
A car isn't a building and the analogy fails. In fact I think it works against you. A lot of classic car restoration is about taking an old car and gently repairing or replacing damaged parts, and in many cases putting in an entirely new engine and undercarriage, while retaining part of all of the original body work and details of the car. Sure, some classic car restorations are totally faithful and use only original parts, etc., but just as with buildings there is a spectrum of ways to restore a car including facadeplasty or should we say bodyplasty.
(As an aside, facadectomy is the wrong word for this kind of preservation, as -ectomy means removal. In this case the facade is
not being removed and reconstructed, which would be an -ectomy. This is more of a -plasty? Taking an existing facade and building up a new building behind it? Facadeplasty? Open to suggestions on this).
I am not sure how you can look at the public face of a building -- the only part of the building that 99.9% of the public ever saw -- being retained
in its original location at great expense and complexity and say with a straight face "I wouldn't define this as preservation". There are different degrees of preservation, for sure. This is different from retaining an entire building. But it is also what allowed the block to be redeveloped and to bring economic development, new architecture from HPA, new office space, new services and back-of-house facilities, etc., to an old building well below its highest and best use. Plus the existing heritage facade will be facelifted, cleaned, repaired, and refreshed to be enjoyed for another century or more. To complain about how this project is not "real" preservation without recognizing all the many benefits that come from this approach strikes me as a deliberately narrow view. Preservation is part of a spectrum of objectives for urban life, not a theoretical concept in a classroom. It has to be balanced against the rights of property owners, public policy objectives such as retaining and growing employment uses proximate to booming residential density, etc. It is my view that retaining the facades of this building in situ, and integrating them thoughtfully into a new development, strikes an appropriate balance.
Also to your point that "You've missed his point entirely...", I remind you that his entire point was "Another pretend preservation project in this city." which really wasn't much of a point at all, but just a vague complaint.
