New Toronto Star article in today's paper:
Latest waterfront fiasco: Umbrellas and sand pit
TheStar.com - Columnist - Latest waterfront fiasco: Umbrellas and sand pit
February 08, 2008
Christopher Hume
Life may be a beach, but that doesn't mean the waterfront should be, too.
So when the Toronto Waterfront Revitalization Corp. announced last week that a proposal by Montreal landscape architect Claude Cormier called Sugar Beach had won a design competition for the foot of Jarvis St., it was clear something is rotten down on the shores of Lake Ontario.
Cormier is one of the most brilliant practitioners in the world today, but this doesn't rank among his better projects. For a start, a beach is all wrong for a site just metres from a noisy, polluting, stinky sugar refinery. For another, Cormier's scheme rips off his earlier design for the HtO urban beach that opened on the waterfront last year.
But, the TWRC brain trust would argue, the decision was made by an expert jury assembled for the purpose. Therein lies the problem; the four-member panel was made up largely of insiders. The chair, for example, Toronto architect Siamak Hariri, belongs to the waterfront design review board as does another jury member, local architect Peter Clewes. Hariri and Cormier worked together on HtO, along with a second competitor, Toronto landscape architect Janet Rosenberg, also a member of the board.
This is too close for comfort. As much as one might admire Hariri's buildings, he has never shown any special understanding of the landscape. In the jury's comments, which propose no less than 14 changes to Cormier's plan, Hariri and the jury suggest that the "idea of the beach be explored elsewhere throughout the waterfront, including possibly, Parliament Slip."
Thanks, but no thanks. The jury's job was to choose the best of the three entries, not impose its amateurish vision of the waterfront. A beach at the foot of Parliament St. sounds as inappropriate as a beach at the bottom of Jarvis.
To be blunt, Cormier's entry was the weakest of the three; if the jury had done its job with more intelligence, integrity and a sense of responsibility, it would have chosen differently. Instead, it acted as a group of insiders whose personal opinions count more than objective reality. Neither the city nor its waterfront were well served by their decision, which was precious and patronizing.
In the meantime, because of the jury's incompetence, Toronto has lost the chance to get a piece by Ned Kahn. If you haven't heard his name, you soon will. He's the California-based environmental artist who works with natural phenomena such as wind, fog, light and water. A recipient of a MacArthur "Genius Grant" and an American National Design Award, he has received commissions across the U.S., Europe and the Middle East.
His work, which was part of the Rosenberg submission, would have been a huge addition to the waterfront. Instead we settled for coloured umbrellas in an oversized sand pit.
Clearly, the waterfront corporation desperately needs an infusion of fresh blood. If this jury and its decision are any indication, the process is no longer adequate to the task. We need to go outside the local community to find people who are smart, fair and informed, who have no axes to grind or favourites to champion.
There's a big world out there and we can do better, much better, if we can bring it to Toronto.
It may be too late for the Jarvis St. Slip, which has become a fiasco, but the waterfront can absorb a certain amount of mediocrity before it hits the point of no return. Let's hope we learn from the mistakes of Jarvis and manage not to repeat them.
Christopher Hume
