Toronto 191 Bay | 301.74m | 64s | QuadReal | Hariri Pontarini

Automation Gallery said:
Hey i drive by that stretch of Wellington everyday and all i know is it's a depressing dead-zone...bring in some changes please
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Because it's quiet it's "depressing"?

A city doesn't need quieter streets, places of respite, places of quiet, places with less retail activity?

Every building should be new, transparent, light, "exciting"?

Just some rhetorical questions for everyone to think about.
 
I’d be ok with them going if they were being replaced with something nicer. Some sort of plaza would be nice, maybe incorporating parts of the older structures.
Open to change if it’s good.
 
One thing that I took note of today: the CCS colonnade along Wellington is a good candidate for the most de Chirico-like architectural experience in Toronto. And given the date, it was almost certainly deliberate...
 
Mystery and Melancholy of a Street
mystery-and-melancholy-of-a-street-1914.jpg
 
I used the original photo of Hariri Pontarini Architects to add ONE Yonge,Cibc SQUARE, Harbour Plaza and many new other buildings.
The goal is to see the skyline in 10 years. It will be epic. I never had the chance to tell how beautiful the new Commerce Court will be.
Enjoy it and please like it.
Happy holidays everyone !

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Link to the original image.
http://urbantoronto.ca/sites/default/files/images/projects/30327/30327-104300.jpeg
 

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Just as I can say in one sentence "I don't see anything worth building about that new pavilion", posts like yours are just subjective rhetoric. They don't contribute anything beyond stating an unsubstantiated opinion, which I would conclude is based on a lack of understanding of CC South's place in Toronto's architectural history and the development of the Financial District.

Similarly, calling a building "ugly" is entirely meaningless - it's a non statement. Many buildings such as the Manulife Centre or Sheraton Centre could be considered ugly but that is part of their harsh, Brutalist statement, strong against the landscape of the city and the climate of Toronto. And by comparison to that, CC South is in fact very elegant and neatly proportioned and the detailing is incredibly spare and restrained.

It's not CC South's "time to go". There is no sacred timing, rather a developer has filed an application to build more office space and the proposal is a first-pass and requires huge changes before it could reasonably be considered appropriate for the site. I would argue that in the current development culture in Toronto, buildings like CC South are more relevant than ever, and will only become more important in years to come.

In any case, the current design for the new CC 3 tower is a lumbering oaf of a building and is completely out of scale with its site. It lacks any of the sensitivity or sense of proportion and scale that the existing buildings onsite have.
 
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Unfortunately, staying within the site's modernist, almost mathematical context would require another cereal box tower which is likely the last thing most people--UT forumers excepted--want to see here.

I personally like where this design is going and hope to see something a little more daring and coherent arise out of it.
 
.dwg, on the one hand you say that other peoples' opinions are subjective rhetoric, and therefore "entirely meaningless", and therefore a "non statement". In the next breath you go out of your way to show your own subjective opinion, and dismiss the others, which you denigrate as "based on a lack of understanding"... so which is it? you can't have it both ways... if you believe what you say, then your opinion is no more valid than anyone else's here..

For a newbie, you come on pretty strong..
 
yyzer said:
.dwg, on the one hand you say that other peoples' opinions are subjective rhetoric, and therefore "entirely meaningless", and therefore a "non statement". In the next breath you go out of your way to show your own subjective opinion, and dismiss the others, which you denigrate as "based on a lack of understanding"... so which is it? you can't have it both ways... if you believe what you say, then your opinion is no more valid than anyone else's here..

For a newbie, you come on pretty strong..
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I make various points to explain my stance. If you want me to write a lengthier response about why Commerce Court represents a building that is worth retaining in our rapidly changing city (and a Financial District that is set for some pretty dramatic change beyond this development), I'd be happy to. Pull up a chair.

And I do believe that a substantiated opinion absolutely does hold some more value than "It's ugly and it's time for it to go." Statements like that suggest to me that the person making the statement hasn't a clue about who the architects were, how the design works, what the intent of the design is, and why it's the type of building we should be keeping around. It makes me wonder if they've even spent any time looking at it beyond driving past it or seeing it in photos, or if they've taken the time to experience how it actually works in the city and relates to the space and streets around it. I could be wrong, but it's how one-liners like that come across to me. I notice a lot of people on UT use them.
 
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.dwg said:
but it's how one-liners like that come across to me. I notice a lot of people on UT use them.
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Yeah they do, but then again whats the difference of a one liner stating that you don't like something, than a rant about how the stuff should be preserved because you know better and say so?
 
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