4SC/AGO/ROM Interior/Exterior Brouhaha

UrbanShocker, prepare to have your mind blown:

What do these three houses have in common (besides being low-brow)?




(they've all got their washrooms and ticket kiosks in the same place: http://www.medalliondevelopments.com/floorplan/cas_well50.pdf )

It's the same false choices over, and over, and over again: its either functional or 'spectacular', you either accept the aesthetic for what it is or you are calling for empty spectacle.

These false dichotomies should finally be retired.

Indeed. To dismiss programmatic requirements a "secondary" is to miss the point that they are at the very heart of good design - since they are the core of what a building such as the AGO "is". With the AGO, the failures of the earlier building, the spatial requirements of the Thomson bequest, and the opportunity to create a distinctive home for the contemporary collection are the very reason for the renovation and what the building expresses.

Urban Shocker said:

Indeed. To dismiss programmatic requirements a "secondary" is to miss the point that they are at the very heart of good design - since they are the core of what a building such as the AGO "is". With the AGO, the failures of the earlier building, the spatial requirements of the Thomson bequest, and the opportunity to create a distinctive home for the contemporary collection are the very reason for the renovation and what the building expresses.

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You have very low expectations for architecture apparently. A building can beautifully satisfy its programmatic requirements but still do it in a banal way; 4SC, maybe the AGO, Metropolis, those houses above. We shouldn't excuse banal architecture because it houses perfectly proportioned hallways.

The Four Seasons Centre has won more awards for Diamond and Schmitt than any other building they have designed - R. Fraser Elliott Hall is a gorgeous place to hear opera and people-watch, and the glowing beacon of the City Room on opera nights is stunning from both within and outside. They are perfect examples of the integration between content and form.

Which of those three houses do you live in, by the way? My guess - the one with the clip-on window mullions!

Urban Shocker said:

The Four Seasons Centre has won more awards for Diamond and Schmitt than any other building they have designed - R. Fraser Elliott Hall is a gorgeous place to hear opera and people-watch, and the glowing beacon of the City Room on opera nights is stunning from both within and outside. They are perfect examples of the integration between content and form.

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Wooo, girl. Awards! Them shiney things have shut me right up! Lord knows they don't give awards to any old glass shack!

Which of those three houses do you live in, by the way? My guess - the one with the clip-on window mullions!

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No way, I live in a stripped-back glass pavilion. I've been fretting over whether putting street numbers on the outside constitutes ornamentation. It's a very serious dilemma.

The Four Seasons Centre has won a wide range of professional awards for design excellence, urban design, structural and architectural innovation, use of materials, and using good design to improve the client's business. The aesthetic beauty of the hall and public spaces such as the City Room is only part of the story. The architect began by understanding what the client, performing artists and paying audience wanted - and then designed it for them. The result is a building that has enhanced Toronto's prestige among the operagoing community in Canada and abroad.

I think Toronto is having remarkable success with the crop of new cultural buildings - OCAD, the ROM, the Ballet School, the opera/ballet house, the Gardiner Museum, the Royal Conservatory, and the AGO - all of which appeal to somewhat different branches of the wider arts audience through unique design solutions.

Urban Shocker said:

The Four Seasons Centre has won a wide range of professional awards for design excellence, urban design, structural and architectural innovation, use of materials, and using good design to improve the client's business. The aesthetic beauty of the hall and public spaces such as the City Room is only part of the story. The architect began by understanding what the client, performing artists and paying audience wanted - and then designed it for them. The result is a building that has enhanced Toronto's prestige among the operagoing community in Canada and abroad.

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And yet it's still soul-bleachingly dull. This a case where the exterior of the building is bland because of budget constraints. We both know if they had more money they'd have done something more expressive. So why bother defending the envelope it has?

If it were a community centre, or a car showroom, we'd all applaud how lovely it was - but it's the home of the Canadian Opera Company. Everyone's all dressed up and 4SC rolls up in jeans and a blazer. How embarrassing.

And before you even start in on jeans and a blazer being the new casual uniform of the opera-goer, as it broadens its appeal. Those jeans it has on are plain, medium-wash affairs, with a brand-new never-faded crispness, and the blazer is at least wool, but the seam down the back is puckering big time.

The Four Seasons Centre certainly isn't "status quo" - it radically transformed the musical landscape for those who had to put up with hearing opera at the ghastly Hummingbird barn for all those years. If you get out more, you'll see that the people who are fully engaged with the cultural life of our city - including those who enjoy performances at the opera house - cover a broad demographic spectrum and don't fit your dreary, ancient stereotype.

Urban Shocker said:

The Four Seasons Centre certainly isn't "status quo" - it radically transformed the musical landscape for those who had to put up with hearing opera at the ghastly Hummingbird barn for all those years.

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So that's all the 4SC has to live up to? It just has to sound better than the Hummingbird? You're running into that problem of yours again; that inability to separate the successes of a building's program from the failures of its form.

If you get out more, you'll see that the people who are fully engaged with the cultural life of our city - including those who enjoy performances at the opera house - cover a broad demographic spectrum and don't fit your dreary, ancient stereotype.

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Other than a transparent attempt to make yourself look significant, I'm not sure what this has to do with the discussion. My arguments have largely come from an anti-ancient / anti-dogmatic stance.

There can be little doubt that, had the 4SC been built as a spectacle, there would have been a fairly sizable population who would have hated it just for that reason. Worse yet, had it been an excessive spectacle built in that location, it would have stood out like a sore thumb. As built, 4SC serves its purpose well - particularly on the inside.

But enough about 4SC.

While I like much of what is going on with the outside of the AGO, I am really looking forward to the changes on the inside. Everything I have seen so far suggests that there will be great improvement to the interior spaces - the spaces where one goes to see the art.

Hydrogen said:

There can be little doubt that, had the 4SC been built as a spectacle, there would have been a fairly sizable population who would have hated it just for that reason. Worse yet, had it been an excessive spectacle built in that location, it would have stood out like a sore thumb. As built, 4SC serves its purpose well - particularly on the inside.

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But it isn't a binary condition. It isn't either NO SPECTACLE, spectacle, or excessive spectacle. Surely there's a form that brings more expression to the building without having to resort to hollow-flash. I think that's where this discussion breaks down - any suggestion that 4SC should have more personality is met with hyperbole.

While I like much of what is going on with the outside of the AGO, I am really looking forward to the changes on the inside. Everything I have seen so far suggests that there will be great improvement to the interior spaces - the spaces where one goes to see the art.

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The changes inside will be really amazing to finally see, but I'm still not sold on the exterior. So far I hate the exterior stairs, but love the colour of the cladding.

It isn't that the Four Seasons Centre "just" has to sound better than the Hummingbird, because how a hall sounds determines whether or not it is worth visiting - by audiences and performing artists - which in turn determines the success of the place in attracting critical attention that enhances Toronto's reputation as a centre of creative excellence. The form that R. Fraser Elliott Hall takes determines the acoustics, which in turn determines the success of the building. Add to that the form of the City Room - one of our great urban spaces - and the beautiful form of the building as a whole, both inside and out, and we're in fine ... form.

Your stereotype of those who don't fit Tewder's description of people who share certain long-held expectations for the building as "Toronto's old, moldy, self-appointed establishment" isn't born out by the reality of who actually enjoys performances there. No doubt it will prove as untrue for the AGO ( the subject of this thread ) when it reopens. It is certainly untrue for the TSO, which draws a significant audience from the Chinese community and will next year include more programming specifically geared to them. And a visit to the ROM will show how diverse the visitors there are, thanks to the galleries they have recently opened and the contemporary art that they have on show. The fact that young people who study art, ballet and classical music now have three fine new buildings in which to study is further proof that your sclerotic stereotype of an "old, moldy, self-appointed establishment" doesn't apply.

Urban Shocker said:

It isn't that the Four Seasons Centre "just" has to sound better than the Hummingbird, because how a hall sounds determines whether or not it is worth visiting - by audiences and performing artists - which in turn determines the success of the place in attracting critical attention that enhances Toronto's reputation as a centre of creative excellence. The form that R. Fraser Elliott Hall takes determines the acoustics, which in turn determines the success of the building. Add to that the form of the City Room - one of our great urban spaces - and the beautiful form of the building as a whole, both inside and out, and we're in fine ... form.

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The exterior of the building is not restricted in the same way that the interior is, so to excuse the exterior because of how the interior sounds is really giving it a pass. It's a lazy form of criticism.

As has been already pointed out, the exterior looks the way it does for budgetary reasons, not because it's the most appropriate physical expression of 'Opera House'. It's meant to be tolerated, so that we might enjoy the fine accoustics inside - but it was certainly never meant to inspire or wow on it's own. Defending it as a successful whole is disingenuous.

Which brings us back to the AGO's transforemodelling; there's an obvious desire here for a building that's first-class both inside and out, and I'm not sure that we've been lucky enough to get both.

Your stereotype of those who don't fit Tewder's description of people who share certain long-held expectations for the building as "Toronto's old, moldy, self-appointed establishment" isn't born out by the reality of who actually enjoys performances there.

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I don't know what you're talking about. I was implying you were a member of "Toronto's old, moldy, self-appointed establishment", not that everyone who attends performances is part of that group. Try to remember that you aren't the only one who goes to cultural events in the city - you're just the only one who tries to lord it over people's heads.