Trump Tower Toronto (Talon, 57s, Zeidler)

[Ed007Toronto]

It's gonna suck working in Scotia Tower for the next few years. With Bay-Adelaide rising to the North, and Trump next door, they're gonna have to put up with lots of noise, dust, and the eventual loss of views.

If you're a construction geek like me this will be the best time to work there.

[Canuck 36]

Oh of course, I directed my comment towards those unlike us... you know, 'Normies'.

[Oliver Tweed]

I don't understand why so many people crap on this project. If it didn't have the name Trump on it everyone would be loving it. The man himself has little to do with this project. Besides, he's trying to do one of the most ambitious projects ever proposed in this city. Typical (and unnecessary) Toronto negativity.

I think it will be a gorgeous building.

It's ridiculous to think you can envision what the actual structure will look like by some five inch drawing drawn from one angle. Anyone who's been on this forum long enough to see something go from rendering to completion should know better.

[SD2]

I don't understand why so many people crap on this project. If it didn't have the name Trump on it everyone would be loving it. The man himself has little to do with this project. Besides, he's trying to do one of the most ambitious projects ever proposed in this city. Typical (and unnecessary) Toronto negativity.

I agree. It may not be the greatest design ever, but I don't see anything wrong with it. If this were going up in another city many would be saying something like 'Why is Toronto so boring? Why can't we get a tower with some flair? Why do we just get boring boxes?'

[AndrewJM3D]

%70 sold very nice.

[fiendishlibrarian]

Ed brings up a good point. Assuming this building will begin construction (and I too am *very* skeptical), just think of the controlled chaos that will be in the core south of King c. late 2007 and into 2008:

- Trump
- BA
- RBC
- Ritz
- Telus
- MLS (2 towers)
- Success Tower (and who knows, maybe even the fourth tower)
- ongoing CityPlace construction (Neo, Montage, Luna and who knows what else)
- Union Station reconstruction (?)
- London Condos (2 towers)
- Hummingbird (possibly)
- Festival Tower (possibly)
- Shangri-La (?)
- under-the-radar filler projects (M5V, Glas, Victory, etc.)

Cripes. Someone driving along the Gardiner around this time next year could, perhaps, gaze out at no less than a dozen cranes in a tightly packed grid. The loss in terms of traffic capacity downtown will be huge. I wouldn't be suprised if part of the core becomes a de-facto car-free zone. You will have cement mixers, dump trucks and construction trailers on virtually block south of King between Spadina and Yonge down to the Gardiner. A cop, literally on every corner, directing traffic. And add to that any other road/TTC construction, and 2007 is shaping up to be a very interesting year indeed.

Dundas? Full streetcar track reconstruction, Metropolis and AGO.

Bay? Murano 1 and 2, RoCP 2, and Encore at Yonge and College. Possibly MLG Loblaws over at Church, and continuing expansion of Ryerson down the street.

And up at Bloor? From Jarvis to Avenue we will have, hopefully, the Bloor Street revitalization. X Condo over at Jarvis, the towers over at Four Seasons (hopefully), 100 Yorkville, Lotus, Crystal Blu, Uptown (maybe), completion of the ROM, RCM, New Varsity and maybe even that new "museum" tower, in addition to One Bedford in full swing.

Interesting times ahead.

[alklay]

I too like this building and I think its relatively handsome.

I will continue to be a bit negative though pursuant to hearing about pending ground-breakings. We have heard about many dates in the past and none have come true (this summer they were saying that the ground-breaking would take place this past fall) and to date, they have still not provided an exact date.

I would love to see this parking lot filled and this high end building is a damn good addition to the city. I will save my jumping up and down and 'wooohooos" for an actual ground breaking though.

[building babel]

John Bentley Mays did a rather good column on Trump, a while ago, that neatly picked it apart from the ground up as a mishmash of mismatched design elements.

[Ed007Toronto]

Imagine the density if this and Bay Adelaide goes up at the same time. And if Harry gets his act together there could be more cement trucks then cabs in the area for the next five years. Traffic will be a disaster at Bay and Adelaide.

[caltrane74]

I love the Trump design. I never saw mishmash that was sooo damn sexy before.

Maybe this is the start of a new trend in Toronto.

Sexy Mishmash.

[Bogtrotter]

I prefer this design over the original proposal with that Victorian turret. Anybody remember that one? Yikes- that was pretty strange looking. I like the fact that it doesn't have a flat roof, although I do agree that the peak does have potential to look tacky.

Surely the tower will show up quite prominently on the skyline in east west views?

[andreapalladio]

John Bentley Mays did a rather good column on Trump, a while ago, that neatly picked it apart from the ground up as a mishmash of mismatched design elements.

Being disliked by John Bentley Mays is almost universal sign of quality.

[Ed007Toronto]

The need for the DRL is going to grow stonger with all of this.

[building babel]

Oliver Tweed dismisses renderings, though several award winning graphic representations of this building have been produced. And we've all seen the model, so we surely have a pretty good idea of what is planned.

The Mays critique ( Dec. 31 2004 ) is also based on what he calls "the published renderings":

"At street level and for several stories above, the building is corseted inside an old-fashioned lattice of masonry. At around the 15th floor or so, the fussy, prim architectural corset comes undone, releasing the tower to continue upwards ( toward its bonnet, which sits above the Bay-Adelaide corner ) as a bundle of naked, uninteresting oblongs of glass and metal. The result will be a stylistic pastiche, with elements that appear to have been extracted from misty, wistful photographs of the grand hotels of la belle Epoque ( concentrated at the bottom of the project ) and from old architectural magazines illustrating the hottest ideas in slick glass boxes, circa 1975.

Toronto's Financial District ( where Trump will rise ) does not need any new pastiches or otherwise unimportant, derivative buildings. It's already got Edward Durell Stone's First Canadian Place - a gruesome white marble box - and it's got an appalling travesty of Miesian modernism in the Ernst & Young Tower."

He also has a go at the poMo penchant for silly experimental headgear on tall buildings - which this one exhibits. When contrasted to the Empire State Building, which "gracefully climaxes a whole series of dramatic sculptings and step-backs in the building shaft", Trump sits on a small site that doesn't permit such an approach; a hard, horizontal roofline might have been a better solution.

[Oliver Tweed]

I understand the skepticism; of course the more ambitious the project, the bigger the risk it won't get built.

I just don't understand why there isn't a bit more enthusiasm for the attempt.