Toronto Living Shangri-La Toronto | 214.57m | 66s | Westbank | James Cheng

Re: We can't expect more?

Actually, not "for Toronto"*, but thanks for thinking about it.

*This is the "Christopher" award.

Thanks are due to an anonymous glass blower at Harbourfront for taking the time to craft this.

chris.jpg
 
Re: We can't expect more?

alklay:

The Toronto Shangri-La is one of several international locations for this hotel chain. I didn't make the opera house comparison, others did, and have made apples vs. oranges comparisons between it and the commercial towers that include Shangri-La.

Unlike the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts, Shangri-La is not funded with public money and private donations, it is not a cultural institution committed to excellence, and it is primarily connected to the city as an employer of locals. If construction goes wildly over budget we may never hear of it, and neither the government nor local philanthropists will bail it out, so it can never be a particularly "Toronto" building required to be "on budget" in the same way that the Four Seasons Centre was.

It falls into the category of big commercial towers that happen to be here, in Toronto, but from a design point of view could surely fit into big cities anywhere. It could never be described as "modest" or "simple" by virtue of its commercial purpose, where modesty and simplicity aren't seen as virtues, so it couldn't be a "Toronto" building in the sense tudararms meant when he evaluated the merits of the Four Seasons Centre.

I'm sceptical of the claim that, because Shangri-La, the Ritz, and the office tower next to it have glass box podiums this references the opera house or the Film Festival Centre and makes them "Toronto" buildings too. Though, in a way, it's flattering to think they feel they must do that in order to fit in with our established local aA/KPMB/Diamond+Schmitt style.
 
Re: We can't expect more?

Why is it laughable to point out that this tall building, so shiny that it entrances Sir Novelty, and an absolute killer to blixa442, could be built anywhere?

It should be noted that Sir Novelty is very, very easily entranced by shiny objects.
 
Re: We can't expect more?

Well then you're off the hook.
 
Re: We can't expect more?

I agree; other than its raw skyscraper-geek appeal, what's the big deal about the building? It's decent; but we're getting to the point where glassy supermodern superscrapers for Toronto jade more than they dazzle. (Just as in Jim-Cheng-by-the-pound Vancouver.)

What might grab my attention would be if it paid more explicit tribute/compliment to Parkin's Sun Life--in which case, something more in a Piano/Rogers/Foster spirit might have been apropos...
 
Re: We can't expect more?

I agree; other than its raw skyscraper-geek appeal, what's the big deal about the building?

I can understand the excitement about this project. It's a bit different than the usual conservative Toronto tower and it plugs in a big hole along University Avenue. It should be great.
 
Re: We can't expect more?

What might grab my attention would be if it paid more explicit tribute/compliment to Parkin's Sun Life--in which case, something more in a Piano/Rogers/Foster spirit might have been apropos...

Which Parkin building, by the way, seems to be undergoing a makeover. Any details?
 
Re: We can't expect more?

Why is it laughable to point out that this tall building, so shiny that it entrances Sir Novelty, and an absolute killer to blixa442, could be built anywhere?
Every tower could be built anywhere. The TD Centre would fit right in in Chicago or New York and you'd barely notice it.

I'd actually go so far as to disagree with you that it would fit in anywhere. I can't think of many cities that have embraced a tower style like Shangri-la, RBC, Spire, etc. the way Toronto has: thoroughly urban, modern and glassy but not over the top. New York and Chicago tend to have more traditional design, cities in the South are more suburban in design. Countless Asian cities are filled with spires, miranets, globes, holes, and glowing things. South American cities are have thousands of nearly identical towers stretching for miles.

La Defense or Canary Wharf are dominated by towers that "could be built anywhere". The tallest building in LA looks a lot like the second tallest in Singapore, and the tallest in Hong Kong (which is one of my favourite skyscrapers, BTW) looks just like a tower in Jersey. Even the Empire State looks like towers from that era in cities around the US.

I just don't get what you're expecting.
 
Re: We can't expect more?

With these new towers I wasn't expecting anything other than what we've got, nor am I fantasizing them as something more than what they are. Why people take offense at having international hotel chain architecture described, accurately, as being non-Toronto specific is beyond me. Look around at how many other such examples there are in the city. I think adma sums it up nicely with his comment that such towers now "jade more than dazzle" us.

I think you'd notice the TD Centre if it was in Chicago or New York because, in comparison to the many wannabee modernist imitators there, it would stand out. The existing buildings by Mies in those cities already do.
 
I like the building. It's not very distinctive, but it's interesting, and blends in well. Is this where the parking lot is now?
 
"The opera house is a very Toronto building. To quote tudararms:

"The fact that this city achieved a 'jewel' of an opera house, that is anticipated to be extraordinary in its functionality, while still achieving elegance, simplicity and urbanity, on a tight city lot, and all within budget no less says a lot of good things about this city!! We have an opera that is right for here: not timid but modest, not bland but simple, not a scene-stealer but a scene-maker! I suspect that people will come to love it for the very fact that it does reflect Toronto, not in a negative way but in a good way."


But is a design with, elegance, simplicity, urbanity that has been shaped in party by budgetary constraints unique to Toronto? I wouldn't think so...
 
The Four Seasons Centre is a very successful facility relative to budget. However I wouldn't want the design of every major cultural building in the city to be so tempered and lacking in vitality.

As for Shangri-La I can only say that it is an impressive looking highrise. Very much in the same vein as the one currently u/c in Vancouver- tAll, gleaming, slender and imposing. I prefer this design over the Ritz and Trump.
 
SD2:

That one is. It isn't a hotel like Shangri-La, part of an an international chain of hotel towers, similar to other chain hotel towers all over the world. It is quite different, for instance, from the U.S.$442 million Copenhagen opera house, dripping with gold leaf and expensive finishes and paid for by a private gazillionaire who mandated design changes and donated the building to the state. It is Canada's unique opera/ballet house and a product of the forces and constraints that reflect our attitude towards cultural buildings.

There are plenty of well designed uniquely Toronto places that aren't part of commercial chain brands, even though their architects may have expressed themselves similarly elsewhere: OCAD, the new AGO, the ROM, lovely little parks such as the one in Yorkville, eccentric structures like Joy gas stations, Uno Prii apartment buildings, the KPMB/aA condo towers and cultural buildings etc. etc. etc. ...
 
There is nothing particularly unique about most of the things above, except the fact that they happen to be located in Toronto. For instance, the Uno Prii apartment buildings could have been built anywhere.
 

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