Urban Shocker
Doyenne
Like that Chinese basketball player. Get three more, and you've got a great set of caryatids.
catcher_of_cats
Active Member
Women's College Hospital makeover a step closer
Community council okays the hospital's renovation plans, final approval up to city hall
February 10, 2009
Donovan Vincent
CITY HALL BUREAU
Plans for the massive redevelopment of Women's College Hospital, which include the demolition of the main building on the site, took a big step closer to getting final city hall approval.
The project got the go-ahead from Toronto and East York community council yesterday.
Approval from city council is required before proceeding with redevelopment, which would introduce to the site a state-of-the-art ambulatory care facility by the time it is complete, around 2015.
The plan also calls for teaching and research facilities and outpatient clinical services, catering primarily to women. The hospital would not have an emergency wing receiving ambulances from across the city, and would not provide in-patient services.
The hospital would run from roughly 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. five days a week, with perhaps some extended hours for clinics, officials say.
In all, the block bordered by Grenville, Bay and Grosvenor Sts. and Surrey Place, will be redeveloped.
The project will cost "hundreds of millions" of dollars, and funding will come from the province.
A call for proposals will go out in May to seek a consortium that will design, build and maintain the facility, said Gregory Colucci, of Diamond and Schmitt Architects, a firm behind the project.
It's hoped construction could begin next spring. A new, seven-storey structure spanning from Grenville to Grosvenor will later connect to a new, six-storey structure to form one building.
The project also calls for the demolition of a 1920s-style mid-rise rental building on Grosvenor.
Some members of the public voiced anger at yesterday's community council meeting over the fact the neo-Georgian-style building – listed on the city's inventory of heritage properties – is slated for demolition.
Councillor Sandra Bussin, who sits on the community council, called for further discussion on finding a way to work the apartment building's façade into the project.
"It's a travesty this structure is going to be demolished," Bussin said, calling its architecture an impressive part of Toronto's history.
Her motion failed.
The community council heard the apartment's façade doesn't work with the design of the new hospital or the other buildings in the area.
Plus there are several similarly styled apartments in other spots downtown, Michael McClelland, an expert on architecture and building conservation, told the community council.
Instead, designers will look into ways to incorporate features of the apartment building, such as columns and arch windows, into the hospital project.
Toronto Star
Community council okays the hospital's renovation plans, final approval up to city hall
February 10, 2009
Donovan Vincent
CITY HALL BUREAU
Plans for the massive redevelopment of Women's College Hospital, which include the demolition of the main building on the site, took a big step closer to getting final city hall approval.
The project got the go-ahead from Toronto and East York community council yesterday.
Approval from city council is required before proceeding with redevelopment, which would introduce to the site a state-of-the-art ambulatory care facility by the time it is complete, around 2015.
The plan also calls for teaching and research facilities and outpatient clinical services, catering primarily to women. The hospital would not have an emergency wing receiving ambulances from across the city, and would not provide in-patient services.
The hospital would run from roughly 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. five days a week, with perhaps some extended hours for clinics, officials say.
In all, the block bordered by Grenville, Bay and Grosvenor Sts. and Surrey Place, will be redeveloped.
The project will cost "hundreds of millions" of dollars, and funding will come from the province.
A call for proposals will go out in May to seek a consortium that will design, build and maintain the facility, said Gregory Colucci, of Diamond and Schmitt Architects, a firm behind the project.
It's hoped construction could begin next spring. A new, seven-storey structure spanning from Grenville to Grosvenor will later connect to a new, six-storey structure to form one building.
The project also calls for the demolition of a 1920s-style mid-rise rental building on Grosvenor.
Some members of the public voiced anger at yesterday's community council meeting over the fact the neo-Georgian-style building – listed on the city's inventory of heritage properties – is slated for demolition.
Councillor Sandra Bussin, who sits on the community council, called for further discussion on finding a way to work the apartment building's façade into the project.
"It's a travesty this structure is going to be demolished," Bussin said, calling its architecture an impressive part of Toronto's history.
Her motion failed.
The community council heard the apartment's façade doesn't work with the design of the new hospital or the other buildings in the area.
Plus there are several similarly styled apartments in other spots downtown, Michael McClelland, an expert on architecture and building conservation, told the community council.
Instead, designers will look into ways to incorporate features of the apartment building, such as columns and arch windows, into the hospital project.
Toronto Star
Tewder
Senior Member
I find the Kenson to be quite handsome when appreciated for the sum of its parts rather than for the details. Its heavy dinginess and clumsy yet somewhat endearing attempt to spruce itself up with columns and trim work somehow manages to work for me. Hey, you can only appreciate 'Brad Pitt' pretty-boy perfection for so long. Sometimes a broken nose and the character of imperfection are a little more interesting.
Urban Shocker
Doyenne
I'm so glad Michael McClelland tried to talk these poor people down. A glimpse of a Greek column or two and they can lose all sense of decorum. Perhaps the abnormally enlarged portico can be parked off in a corner inside the building, covered with a trendy living wall, and quietly forgotten?
u2: Pippypoos and doodads are extraneous ornamentation - rather than integral expressions of the building's design. Cheddingtonistas trowel them onto their McMansions with abandon in the hope that an excessive use of historical ornament will bestow status value and suggest "good taste". Prii, however, used sticky-out bits on the north side of his beloved and revered 77 Elm Street to emphasize the staggered nature of the building's plan when seen from the street, and the sticky-up bits ( at the roofline of that narrow west wall, for instance, and with the vertical molding of the concrete there ), and with the horizontal molding beneath the windows, to emphasize the play of verticals and horizontals that forms the building.
Sometimes it's difficult to figure it out, though - what to make of the two terrifyingly gargantuan bronze nipples on the south exterior wall of Commerce Court North, for instance? I think they're legit - an expression of the spirit of the age that produced them - art deco - after all.
u2: Pippypoos and doodads are extraneous ornamentation - rather than integral expressions of the building's design. Cheddingtonistas trowel them onto their McMansions with abandon in the hope that an excessive use of historical ornament will bestow status value and suggest "good taste". Prii, however, used sticky-out bits on the north side of his beloved and revered 77 Elm Street to emphasize the staggered nature of the building's plan when seen from the street, and the sticky-up bits ( at the roofline of that narrow west wall, for instance, and with the vertical molding of the concrete there ), and with the horizontal molding beneath the windows, to emphasize the play of verticals and horizontals that forms the building.
Sometimes it's difficult to figure it out, though - what to make of the two terrifyingly gargantuan bronze nipples on the south exterior wall of Commerce Court North, for instance? I think they're legit - an expression of the spirit of the age that produced them - art deco - after all.
adma
Superstar
To repeat my earlier point: the best argument against the Kenson might be that even in supposedly more "heritage-sympathetic" jurisdictions out on the other side where the grass is greener, it'd be deemed expendable for a project like this.
That said, I remain with Tewder in that the Kenson has its charms nevertheless, principally through 80 years of lovably unadulterated old-world patina--who cares if it's clumsy. But not to the point where its loss would be tragedy. Bittersweet, perhaps, but not a tragedy--and maybe it's better to dispose of it than to awkwardly "facade" it or parts thereof in the pseudo-name of heritage.
The present architectural star of the block, anyway, remains the original Deco wing of Woman's College (is that also a total loss?). And such is my catholicity of scope that I even don't mind the brown-brick sloped-sill vocabulary of its 70s additions--though again, not to the point that I'm clamouring to save *that*. (But I did once perplex some E.R.A. types in defending that kind of "70s hospital modern".)
That said, I remain with Tewder in that the Kenson has its charms nevertheless, principally through 80 years of lovably unadulterated old-world patina--who cares if it's clumsy. But not to the point where its loss would be tragedy. Bittersweet, perhaps, but not a tragedy--and maybe it's better to dispose of it than to awkwardly "facade" it or parts thereof in the pseudo-name of heritage.
The present architectural star of the block, anyway, remains the original Deco wing of Woman's College (is that also a total loss?). And such is my catholicity of scope that I even don't mind the brown-brick sloped-sill vocabulary of its 70s additions--though again, not to the point that I'm clamouring to save *that*. (But I did once perplex some E.R.A. types in defending that kind of "70s hospital modern".)
confusion
Active Member
Well said.
adma
Superstar
Though when I think of it, in our age of recycling (including architectural recycling), creative reuse of elements might not be *entirely* out of the question--though more like a missing link between facadist fakery and the spirit of spolia. Maybe somewhere inside, or even off-site (though preferrably not gallingly present-yet-unmarked, like the McGill/Granby arch on Yonge...)
Sometimes, I feel our present phobia t/w anything from facadectomies to pippydoodads might be crimping the possibilities of what, potentially, we can do with our discarded architectural stuff that isn't mere landfill...
torplanner
Active Member
It is. I believe the phased development will save its demolition for a few years, but it will eventually go the way of the wrecking ball.
confusion
Active Member
So the deco portion may go the way of the wrecking ball. As long as the new development of the WCH preserves that history in some form, either through a history room or the architecture somewhere in the building with a plaque, I do not feel there is a loss here. We are not talking about a new development, we are talking about an institution who is very proud of their history and I would be very surprised if they did not respect that history in some form.
androiduk
Senior Member
It's a very friendly little building with nice scale and an inviting air about it. I always give a good look over whenever I pass it and wonder what the apts. inside are like. The lobby is very quaint and I'm sure it's a pleasant place to live with lots of long term residents who all probably know each other and watch out for each other. Maybe from a dry technical viewpoint it is somehow lacking architecturally and aesthetically but it fulfills many things that people want and like about a building as a resident and as a passerby. And for that reason, I will be sorry to see it go.
syn
Senior Member
I agree with Archvist. I can see why the Kenson isn't exactly a masterpiece, but I wouldn't want to see it gone either.
confusion
Active Member
This thread is suddenly somewhat shorter.
I want to keep this thread to discussion of the actual Women's College Hospital redevelopment, as stated in the thread title, so posts of a more esoteric nature, namely those discussing the aesthetic component of museum collectables for example, have gone of to a new thread in the Buildings, Architecture, and Urban Design section called "Heritage Preservation and Aesthetic Judgment". If you want to continue on with that, please look for it. Otherwise, please keep this thread more specific to this project.
Thx.
42
I want to keep this thread to discussion of the actual Women's College Hospital redevelopment, as stated in the thread title, so posts of a more esoteric nature, namely those discussing the aesthetic component of museum collectables for example, have gone of to a new thread in the Buildings, Architecture, and Urban Design section called "Heritage Preservation and Aesthetic Judgment". If you want to continue on with that, please look for it. Otherwise, please keep this thread more specific to this project.
Thx.
42
Mike in TO
Senior Member
The city has approved the expansion project (back in February) and the hospital has announced that the three groups that will be asked to bid on the project. The first phase of the redevelopment will take place on the 51 Grosvenor Street apartment site, due to a requirement from the Ministry of Health that regular hospital operations not be interrupted by the redevelopment. The project will include a number of new structures up to 14 floors and intends to achieve LEED certification, is being designed by Diamond + Schmitt Architects.
Three groups have been short-listed to bid on the construction of the project:
Three groups have been short-listed to bid on the construction of the project:
- Women’s College Health Partnership—Innisfree, Acciona, Infrastructure Canada, Aecon Concessions, Adamson Associates, Kasian Architects, Angus Consulting Management Services Inc.
- Integrated Team Solutions— EllisDon Construction, LPF Infrastructure Fund, Fengate, Parkin Architects, HOK Architects, Honeywell Ltd.
- Women’s College Partnership— Bilfinger Berger, Perkins Eastman Black, IBI Group, The Walsh Group, Bondfield Construction, Black & McDonald, HSG Zander