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Unbuilt Toronto projects on Sketchup

Toronto Towers

Proposed in 1927 by the "King-Adelaide Corporation", the Toronto Towers were to be built on a mid-block site NE of King and Bay (current site of Scotia Plaza) on a new street called Toronto Towers Street. On the west side of the street was to be a 40-storey, 530-ft tower. Proposed for the east side was a 29-storey hotel (The Brock) and a bank tower. The proposal was designed by Charles Dolphin, who also designed the Postal Building, now part of the ACC. The project was pretty much dead by 1928.

Thanks should go out to the TOBuilt site, where I found elevations of two of the towers which I heavily referenced while making the model.

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very cool. although. the city looks too clean.. hmm. maybe they should do a major clean up on all the building and add all new windows to give a new look.
 
OK, here's my take on these projects:

Eaton's College Street would have been a giant monstrosity, with NO architectural significance, and would have hogged a lot of prime real estate.

The City Hall proposal, as many here have said would be awesome if it wasn't for the demolishing of Old City Hall.

As for the Toronto Towers, I'd rather keep Scotia Plaza.

And Project Toronto, HOLY CRAP, what is that?? IDK what to think of it. The tower is a total rip-off of Met Life, which i already dislike. It's cool how the highway goes under the tower though. And in this picture:

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Look at that elevated section, that's so long. On to the pyramid, The glass/cladding on it looks absolutely stunning, but the actual Pyramid shape is a little too Las Vegas for Toronto.
 
there's something oddly soviet and wedding-cakey about the eaton's building. as well as the royal york for that matter.
all bulk and heft and uniformity...what was with the canadian psyche back in the 30's and '40s?
did toronto have a little stalin fetish or something?
the fuller pyramid would have been excellent and if if had actually been built would be a symbol of the city.
the eaton centre proposal would have turned us into albany only taller.
 
there's something oddly soviet and wedding-cakey about the eaton's building. as well as the royal york for that matter.

The Stalinist skyscrapers of Moscow (the 'Seven Sisters') were built in the late 1940s and early 1950s, almost 20 years after the Royal York or the Eaton's proposal. So if anything, it was the Soviets who copied North American skyscraper design, not the other way around.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Sisters_(Moscow)
 
What's wrong with the Seven Sisters?? THey look much better than Eaton's College Street, and the Royal York for that matter. The seven sisters have loads of details, and are probably the most beautiful skyscrapers, after NY's art deco's
 
Eaton's College Street would have been a giant monstrosity, with NO architectural significance, and would have hogged a lot of prime real estate.

Are you referring to the proposed skyscraper Eaton's wanted to build with the original College Park, or Eaton's later proposal in the 1960s? If you're referring to the former, well quite frankly you're wrong. There's no doubt it would've been as lavishly adorned as our city's best art deco structures, ranking alongside the ranks of Commerce Court North. If the completed portion of College Park is anything to go by, it's a damn shame we didn't get the original proposal.

As for the Toronto Towers, I'm sure Scotiabank would've found a way to squeeze a skyscraper in there somewhere had they been built. I really wish we had more high rise architecture from the early 20th century.
 
What's wrong with the Seven Sisters?? THey look much better than Eaton's College Street, and the Royal York for that matter. The seven sisters have loads of details, and are probably the most beautiful skyscrapers, after NY's art deco's

Well, the most sympathetic way to look at them is as the Moscow subway gone vertical (i.e. the Moscow subway as the most easily embraced piece of Stalinist built culture)
 

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