Urban Shocker
Doyenne
TKTKTK: I'll be at Simon Boccanegra on the evening of Apil 11th. If you want spectacle with your fries, press your nose to the glass of the City Room and I'll give you a little wave.
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Globe: Lisa Rochon - High Time for a Monumental Rethink
- Thread starter AlvinofDiaspar
- Start date
TKTKTK
Senior Member
I hardly see how that's possible. At street level it's mostly black brick and car displays.
Urban Shocker
Doyenne
The City Room is all glass all the time, from tip to toe.
adma
Superstar
But that's still not helping.
Look, I brought up Tom Wolfe for a reason. If anything's truly "dated", it's his take on architectural judgment. It was born of a period when it was "obvious" that "boxy" "modernism" was "characterless" architecture that "nobody" liked. Back when it was a cheeky and subversive gesture to compare such stuff to car showrooms and fast-food outlets, the Mies IIT chapel looking like a powerhouse and the powerhouse like a chapel, etc. But that's a quarter century plus ago: it's a banal and hackneyed point of criticism today.
Against what seemed to be the Dawning Age of Post-Modernism...yes, such a fundamentally spartan aesthetic might have seemed "dated". And I can see what you mean if it were a matter of judging something of the time like the Kinoshita ROM additions.
But today, it's no longer so obvious. For all the criticisms that can be levelled at the 4SC, "datedness" is among the least of them...except maybe to the armchair amateurs like yourself who just can't shake that Tom Wolfean approach to architectural judgment.
Which in an extreme case, might go like this...
Dated
Timeless
My preferred metaphor might be...
So-Called Dated
Truly Dated
TKTKTK
Senior Member
Because you're being obtuse.
Just because there are uglier, more dated, or plain stupid, buildings doesn't dilute the fact that the 4SC is also dated.
It might have been cheeky once, but now it's plain accurate. The Car Showroom comments find a worthy target here ESPECIALLY because of its role as a platform for advertising cars! It presents them in exactly the same way your local dealership might. Surely that reality isn't lost on you.
You seem to think I'm trying to take all of modernism down with criticism directed at one building. You would be wrong-o
So you're trying to suggest that if it were built 15-20 years ago it would be considered dated, but since it was built now, it can't be? Really? Surely I'm not understanding your comment.
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Urban Shocker
Doyenne
What he's saying is that your attitudes are dated - to about thirty years ago. Big Hair is soooo yesterday.
Jaguar happens to be the current sponsor; if it was Aeroplan you'd say the place looks like a hangar; if it was Hugo Boss you'd say it looks like a clothing store; if it was BMO you'd say it looks like a bank; if it was Blakes you'd say it looks like a law office, etc.
In fact, it looks like a great opera house ... for a company that's celebrating their 60th anniversary ( a Diamond anniversary, no less! ), has performed at 99% capacity for the past three years since it opened, with an annual subscription rate of 75% - far higher than the 44% average for North American opera houses, and puts on the third largest number of performances per season of any opera company on the continent.
No wonder other cities are lining up to hire the It Boy who designed it.
Jaguar happens to be the current sponsor; if it was Aeroplan you'd say the place looks like a hangar; if it was Hugo Boss you'd say it looks like a clothing store; if it was BMO you'd say it looks like a bank; if it was Blakes you'd say it looks like a law office, etc.
In fact, it looks like a great opera house ... for a company that's celebrating their 60th anniversary ( a Diamond anniversary, no less! ), has performed at 99% capacity for the past three years since it opened, with an annual subscription rate of 75% - far higher than the 44% average for North American opera houses, and puts on the third largest number of performances per season of any opera company on the continent.
No wonder other cities are lining up to hire the It Boy who designed it.
TKTKTK
Senior Member
That old line again? No one's calling for big hair, just SOME hair. This isn't a choice between two hyperboles.
The 4 Seasons is also a sponsor, they don't have a mock-up of a hotel room in the lobby that guests can check out. Jaguar / Land Rover's sponsorship method is embarrassing.
Anyway, I don't think it looks like a hanger (too small), or a clothing store (maybe an H&M), or a bank (too big). It DOES look like a car dealership though. They usually include a large glass volume for display, a more opaque area for offices and repairs, a loading/service area, a couple top-of-line models on display outside, and are generally pretty unassuming architecturally. Frankly, I made the connection to car dealership in my mind before I realized it was bolstered by Jag and Landrover's display areas - which then just seemed like poetic justice.
Your boosterism has reached surreal levels. I'm starting to question your sincerity.
It's possible that this all comes down to age difference. In the same way you guys see the Schermerhorn as pastiche and from another time (from your childhoods no doubt), I see the 4SC
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Urban Shocker
Doyenne
Nobody I've ever spoken to at the opera has ever said they're embarrassed by Jaguar's sponsorship. Only you do, and you don't even go there; given the epic, Wagnerian nature of the recurring Jaguar lietmotif in your hysterically operatic performances I'm starting to question your sanity.
TKTKTK
Senior Member
I don't go there? Says who?
It's not embarrassing that Jag/LRover are sponsors, it's embarrassing how they do it.
Constantly referencing the real and corporeal now doubles as insanity for you? I'd say I'm surprised, but then I would have to be crazy, eh?
adma
Superstar
It's possible that this all comes down to age difference. In the same way you guys see the Schermerhorn as pastiche and from another time (from your childhoods no doubt), I see the 4SC
Yes, that's exactly the Tom Wolfe reactionary-amateur contrarianism working. (Besides, I personally don't see Schermerhorn so much as "pastiche and from another time", as "entropy".)
But please, don't present this as a generation gap. It's not age difference, it's cultural difference. It's that you're just another Sunday Painter judge of architecture who posts on message boards. And Sunday Painter judgment knows no age: it isn't like somebody half of Urban Shocker's age would be automatically more likely to take the Schermerhorn-over-4SC timeless-vs-dated POV. Indeed, a fair number of those who would take such a POV happen to be his age, or even older (as in: letters-to-the-editor/blog-commenter crabs who rant about concrete highrises from the 60s being designated historical and wish more new buildings looked like Robert Stern).
If it were all about "age difference", then the Tom Wolfeans would be overrunning our architecture and design schools and the realm of Spacing/uTOpia, vanquishing the "dated" Urban Shockers at every turn.
Now, it's not to say there *isn't* a generational-esque difference of sorts; but I suspect it might be either t/w a more egalitarian POV than Shocker's (i.e. within the joyful chaos of healthy urbanism, why not both Diamond minimalism *and* Stern maximalism, not to mention Gehry/Libeskind/Alsop maximalism?), or t/w the kind of anti-elite/edifice-complex sensibility that might bunch the 4SC and the ROM Crystal under a common tent (or even anti-corporate, which might take your Jaguar-showroom references to another level. i.e. "datedness" being but a tip of the iceberg).
Though, yes, somewhere in the middle...just generally, I wouldn't say that, programming aside, the 4SC inspires a whole lot of ultra-enthusiasm among youngsters looking for a little zip and zowie. As US indicates, it isn't Big Hair enough. Or Big Silicone Breast enough, or Collagen enough, or Bald Pubes enough. And while that's a shallow way of putting it (or not), it helps explain a lot of the criticism that has come the 4SC's way; like, the place is just too "aesthetically subtle" by half. Relative to the attributes I list above, it's too, er, "flat-chested". It's like a Society Lady with A-cups.
But, "dated"? Yeah, like said Society Lady needs silicones.
I, too, have problems with US's sometimes hagiographic defences. But really, if you're going to label this (and by extension, all of Jack Diamond's oeuvre) as holus bolus "dated", you need a lot, lot more flesh in your argument than pat comparisons to car showrooms...
Archivist
Senior Member
Good post Adma. Several things to chime in on for me:
- Though I disagree strongly with most of what TKTKTK is arguing, I do find the car exhibited on the 4SC embarrassing, as I find the enclosed ones along Queen embarrassing. I have heard from others as well that they feel the same way. (However, this too shall pass, just as the ugly commercial signs that mar the base of Spire will pass).
- I like the expression, "joyful chaos of healthy urbanism", suggesting as it does an embracing of the whole. My Toronto is large enough to have the 4SC and the big hair ROM, and the graceful and shy Gardiner, and even the just-pretty-much-OK things like Sixty Loft or most of Quadrangle's buildings. None of this cringing that so many seem to go in for, for me. Even when I strongly dislike a building, such as 1 St. Thomas, it pleases me to know that it brings pleasure to others.
- As TKTKTK must know, many of us find US almost always states his arguments in absolutest terms. It's not enough that he like the 4SC, or that it is a functional and beautiful building that nonetheless has its flaws (as the architectural elites of the city have argued), no, it's very much an all or nothing proposition. (Sort of like the claim that the back of 20 Niagara is beau laide. Returning to it over the weekend, I see the laide but not the beau. Myself, I'm not that big on HVAC units hanging exposed off the backs of balconies, and the back of 20 Niagara looks like what it is - a mishmost of mechanical, concrete and wall, with a silver pipe running up it - meant to be hidden by something filling the lot behind it.) The 4SC has the unfortunate distinction of being surrounded by streets on all four sides, which would be difficult to design for at the best of times and with a larger budget. I can easily forgive the building it's misses (and, temporarily, it's cars), but I'm not willing to argue for the whole thing lock stock and barrel.
But "dated"? - the argument simply isn't there. There are grades between A+ and F, and the 4SC, as with almost every building everywhere, is somewhere in the muddied middle.
- Though I disagree strongly with most of what TKTKTK is arguing, I do find the car exhibited on the 4SC embarrassing, as I find the enclosed ones along Queen embarrassing. I have heard from others as well that they feel the same way. (However, this too shall pass, just as the ugly commercial signs that mar the base of Spire will pass).
- I like the expression, "joyful chaos of healthy urbanism", suggesting as it does an embracing of the whole. My Toronto is large enough to have the 4SC and the big hair ROM, and the graceful and shy Gardiner, and even the just-pretty-much-OK things like Sixty Loft or most of Quadrangle's buildings. None of this cringing that so many seem to go in for, for me. Even when I strongly dislike a building, such as 1 St. Thomas, it pleases me to know that it brings pleasure to others.
- As TKTKTK must know, many of us find US almost always states his arguments in absolutest terms. It's not enough that he like the 4SC, or that it is a functional and beautiful building that nonetheless has its flaws (as the architectural elites of the city have argued), no, it's very much an all or nothing proposition. (Sort of like the claim that the back of 20 Niagara is beau laide. Returning to it over the weekend, I see the laide but not the beau. Myself, I'm not that big on HVAC units hanging exposed off the backs of balconies, and the back of 20 Niagara looks like what it is - a mishmost of mechanical, concrete and wall, with a silver pipe running up it - meant to be hidden by something filling the lot behind it.) The 4SC has the unfortunate distinction of being surrounded by streets on all four sides, which would be difficult to design for at the best of times and with a larger budget. I can easily forgive the building it's misses (and, temporarily, it's cars), but I'm not willing to argue for the whole thing lock stock and barrel.
But "dated"? - the argument simply isn't there. There are grades between A+ and F, and the 4SC, as with almost every building everywhere, is somewhere in the muddied middle.
TKTKTK
Senior Member
It was a joke. The underlying element of humour is something you keep missing.
Honestly. Sunday Painter judge of Architecture? Is that everyone who isn't humourlessly arguing that bland is great? You're posting here too, and I hardly think either of us are getting degrees from the effort.
Two fuddy-duddies (an ageless quality) arguing for something so obviously ordinary isn't flustering me. It's the same line of argument you hear from your parents about whatever music you like, and the defense of whatever music they like (it's not dated!). If anything, it's comforting.
Do you think I'm arguing that we should have built something traditional instead? Where does a Schermerhorn-vs-4SC debate fit in here? I'm not a traditionalist by any means, though I often argue against the wholesale dismissing of tradition.
Its like a Society Lady in a WalMart pantsuit, nevermind her breasts - your eyes never get there, you're shocked by how frugal she dresses and that's quite enough.
Again, I'm not suggesting we should have built a gold spider web, or designed it to transform on dark nights into a giant ghetto blaster. But something more than you'd see at a community centre in Brampton would have been great!
Which reminds me, I've praised the building enough times that you'd think one of you would remember. I think it's a fine building - just not appropriate (at least from an exterior point of view) for what it is. If it WERE a car dealership, or a community centre, a public pool, an H&M, or a gym - I'd say we got lucky as a city. But an Opera House?
You can only justify your argument by trying to suggest that I'm shallow for not accepting such a budget solution. *shrug*
You're the one trying to link this to some greater crime against Diamond's work. I made one flip comment and you can't let it go. Obviously the crux of my argument is that THIS building, THAT OPERA HOUSE, is dated. Fuck, it looks dated COMPARED to some of Diamond's older work!
Why exactly is my argument about car showrooms so off base? Is there something about car showrooms that are obviously different from this building? That dicky metal awning is total showroom.
And anyway, I can't see what extra flesh I need in my argument. I'm not trying to convince you of anything. If you think this building captures the zeitgeist, more power to you. (that last sentence reads as sooo sarcastic, I guess because I can't at all accept the core premise behind it, but really...more power to you)
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TKTKTK
Senior Member
I like that aspect of the city as well, which is why I don't call for the wholesale destruction of buildings I don't like. But neither do I think we should shy away from individual criticism just because from far enough away we like the general blend.
I keep wanting to back-peddle from dated, but everytime I try to rephrase it, I end up in the same place. It's a circa 2002 car dealership. Glass box in the front, cars around, emphasis on the brands, underemphasis on the building.
I will concede that I love cars soooo much more than the rest of you, so maybe the connection is obvious to me in a way that you're not as familiar with.
Urban Shocker
Doyenne
The first two pics actually look a lot more like Henning Larsen's Copenhagen Opera House than they do the Four Seasons Centre. The renovated front of the Cork Opera House in Ireland has a similarly Modernist, canopied, glass-fronted design. Architect Colin Ross did another glass Modernist renovation to the front of the Edinburgh Festival Theatre in Scotland. The Scotthall looks surprisingly like Snøhetta's Oslo Opera House.
ganjavih
Senior Member
So.... we can all agree that modern opera houses look like car dealerships?