TKTKTK
Senior Member
Oh lots of people wanted a swoopy-curvy Bilbao-effect Big Hair Gehry retread in January 2004. It is a known product. Look what it did for Bilbao, it can do that for us too and make us world class just like them, etc. etc. There were even a few fantasy renderings from UT members showing fantasist swoopy-curvy Big Hair Gehry things at Dundas and McCaul. The hollow spectacle crowd were going full throttle hereabouts in January 2004 and they voiced huge disappointment over the design once it was released.
We get it, you think the criticism amounts to Bilbao-envy in a tangible sense, rather than just symbolic (we wanted an architecturally arresting art museum). If anything the Bilbao fantasy renderings were to say, "even a copy would have been better than this," but the yearning definitely did not stop at Bilbao.
I do like how you try to suggest that an AGO with a different, more interesting exterior, would have meant the interior would be a mess of hideous unworkable spaces. Or better yet, perhaps it really would had to have been hollow?
Others, who see buildings as experiential rather than mere
edifices, were rather happy with Gehry's design solution to the AGO's problems.
That's an overly-simplified, but still rather self-righteous, way of looking at it. Why can't we discuss those two aspects of architecture separately?
Is it good enough for you that doors just open and close, without needing to waste further thought on what door might look best, or how we might improve the look of doors? Do you have fashionable clothes, or just pre-selected outfits rated for warmth and protection? Do you eat, or is it just vitamin, mineral, and nutrient injections? (I actually quite like the sound of that, and kind of hope you DO live that way)