Toronto MaRS Centre Phase 2 | 112.77m | 20s | Alexandria | B+H

Thank goodness they didn't adopt this chopping-and-changing approach when they built the TD Centre. One hopes they don't do it when/if the final tower of BCE Place gets built. Looks like someone was spooked by all this starchitect nonsense and decided to hit the architectural "Supersize Me" button rather than stick with the program.
 
Every building that is not dull is the result of 'starchitect nonsense'? Give me a break. What nonsense. Lord forbid we did not get Diamond to design a dull institutional building and tell us that its good for us, like bad tasting medicine (or that we are just too stupid to know why we should love it).

In one paragraph you praise the TD Centre (in every way a 'starchitect' project) and you criticize 'starchitects'. Huh?
 
Juuuuuu=

Now that I re-read the original release, I see it promises "an architectural vocabulary expressive of innovation and engagement... exterior features include vertical glass fins inspired by optical magnetic imaging and nanotechnology."

That's cute. Why stop there? Let's have more external features inspired by patients' internal features. Let's have something modeled on the experience of actually being stuck in one of those MRI machines. Or let's go for fibre-optic imaging technology instead: say, a colonoscopy. (Get Gehry on the phone!) Or, it could just join the legion of Toronto buildings that, in their own ways, are all subtly suggestive of neurodegeneration...
 
I don't think anything was gained when Adamson's perfectly fine 17 floor design for the west tower was ditched in favour of this - their design could have been adapted for a taller tower yet still maintained the identity of the complex as a whole. I wonder what the story is behind this change?
 
I think it'll depend on how far to the east Phase II goes, and where it interacts with the historical building. The two phases may end up looking like two unrelated buildings with a joining older structure. We need a rendering of the entire MaRS complex and preferably from slightly east.
 
Large renderings from the website (hidden due to "broken" links):

ph2-south-lg.jpg

From Queen's Park

ph2-main-lg.jpg

Large overview rendering

ph2-corner-lg.jpg

Street level

ph2-arial-lg.jpg

Aerial view

AoD
 
I see the original master design for the MaRS buildings as neither "dull" nor in need of an "expressive" new vocabulary. I think we could have done better, and deserve better, by adapting it to what has turned out to be a somewhat larger west tower than was originally envisioned. Though, as said earlier, it could have been worse.
 
... and added a City Room to horrify Diamond-phobes like alklay. I don't mind applied decoration if it reflects the purpose of the building: OCAD's pixellated canvas, the Ballet School's etched dance notations, CCBR's DNA things etc. But these fins are gratuitous - who will make the connection to "optical magnetic imaging and nanotechnology" that will "add modern texture"?
 
Hmm.

On its own merits, I like it better than Phase 1. More articulated, less fortress-y, more engaging.

But now that I see it in context of the whole development, I see what Shocker was saying about someone hitting the "super-size" button. It parallels the original phase just enough to look like a grotesquely swollen limb, or a puffed-up side of the face. Not a harmonious pairing.
 
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