Toronto 22 Condominiums | ?m | 23s | Lanterra | architectsAlliance

I wish they could've built it over the subway station. I know it's a heritage site, but surely that doesnt include the surface building.
 
Actually, the heritage listing *does* include the surface building--though that didn't prevent its 80s re-tiling; but it's still extant, concave front canopy and all. The subsequent parking garage (which *isn't* listed) just piggybacks over it...
 
09/19/06

SPIRE's sexy lil sister

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22 vs Spire

Looks much better than Spire, don't you think? Scale just works better, and it's more interesting visually.
 
I didn't know that subway/bus station had historical status. What's the reason for this? It's one of the ugliest structures downtown.
 
The station itself is really quite beautiful in a post-war modernist way - the parking garage (that was added later) on top of it is hideous.
 
Boring glass box.Starting to miss the cheap precast we use to see.

I'm getting bored with these repetitive designs too but I'll take the glass over precast any day... no question.
 
Is there a picture floating around of what it looked like before the parking garage was added on top?
 
why is the station a historic site?

Never knew that--what's so special about it?

I do wish toronto developers would get together and decide on an "aesthetic look" for a neighbourhood. Much like the developers in the suburbs build the same repetitive crap everywhere in a given subdivision--red brick or fake stone for example--new urbanisn or big garage in front look--downtown developers working with the city should decide that street A (or grid A) gets the mostly glass Clewesian look while street/grid B (hopefully in North York lol) gets the precast and faux chateau look.

That's what i'm puzzled about most: when did developers in Toronto lose touch with a common neighbourhood aesthetic? Look at a Victorian neighbourhood or a 1940's neighbourhood: similar scale, brick colour, building form. Something happened--during the 1960s? I think it really happened about 1995. (1960's are slabs mostly--obviously didn't fit in but all had a similar "look.") Starting about 1995, developers seem to have lost the idea that they build a neighbourhood, becoming selfish slaves to market research. Ugh.

Maybe we should start a thread about this topic: The Toronto Aesthetic throughout the past century and into the next.

My point: 22 wellesley looks great but I'm afraid the next towers to go up along that street won't be of a similar scale, architectural quality and look.
 
Once design culture fully reclaims the residential realm from marketers ( and shame on architects for abdicating their responsibility to do so, for so long! ), things can only get better.

I think we entered an age of anxiety about 30 years ago that allowed marketers to feed the consumer's worst instincts for safe, faux stylings and pretension - providing people who don't know what they want with what they think they want.
 

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