Ladies Mile
Active Member
A general observation.
It is my opinion that Toronto architecture punches far above its weight: is, in fact, probably the greatest urban ensemble in North America. It is also my opinion that most people, including Toronto natives, are either unaware of this or dismissive of the fact in the face of glittering hyper-projects and desiccated landmarks from elsewhere.
Alas, my argument led to a threadjack in the World Photos forum , so I thought I would start this thread as a way to discuss opinions relating to this topic.
My fear is that we are poised as both a society and an economy to lose our special distillation of Modernism—something rooted in Mies but with its own scale and agenda—in chasing after big budget scaleless wonders like the AGO façade and the Alsop project, neither of which, I submit, is a particularly useful or beautiful structure now let alone 30 years from now.
Do we have a built environment worth defending and developing as a unified approach to space, function, time and art? Or are we destined to become famous for the big foreign thing in the front yard a la Sydney, Australia?
It is my opinion that Toronto architecture punches far above its weight: is, in fact, probably the greatest urban ensemble in North America. It is also my opinion that most people, including Toronto natives, are either unaware of this or dismissive of the fact in the face of glittering hyper-projects and desiccated landmarks from elsewhere.
Alas, my argument led to a threadjack in the World Photos forum , so I thought I would start this thread as a way to discuss opinions relating to this topic.
My fear is that we are poised as both a society and an economy to lose our special distillation of Modernism—something rooted in Mies but with its own scale and agenda—in chasing after big budget scaleless wonders like the AGO façade and the Alsop project, neither of which, I submit, is a particularly useful or beautiful structure now let alone 30 years from now.
Do we have a built environment worth defending and developing as a unified approach to space, function, time and art? Or are we destined to become famous for the big foreign thing in the front yard a la Sydney, Australia?