But would love to hear people's thoughts on 15 CPW versus our new Stern Building. Do you think the fact that the close proximity of the buildings that 15 CPW pays tribute to makes it more worthy?
Somewhat paradoxically, I find Manhattan to be more forgiving for architects than Toronto. I don’t mean in terms of budgets or public perception, but because the rules have already been written on how a building must go up, whether explicitly due to building regulations or implicitly to add to one of the world’s most identifiable cityscapes. As a result, architects have less freedom to work within the New York landscape, but also don't have a need to create landmark buildings because the Manhattan cityscape is a landmark in and of itself. In New York – especially on CPW - no building really pays tribute to one another but rather they all sort of aspire to that same overarching Gotham ideal. Robert AM Stern has done this, but so have all architects who have built in New York, including men with fantastic egos like FLW and Mies. The Guggenheim museum and the Seagram building would look out of place in another city.
In Toronto, really anything goes, so architects have a lot of liberty to design whatever they want, as long as they can work with puny Canadian budgets. Since buildings in Toronto can be seen from many vantage points and don’t aspire to an ideal cityscape, they have to be more visually arresting as individual objects than in New York.
Anyway, 1 St. Thomas was a hard corner to work with – even by Toronto standards - and it, in particular, demanded a landmark. It was prominent, especially because the U of T campus effectively cut off anything of similar height from crowding it out to the immediate south and west. I think Stern's design works really well, especially seen from King’s College circle, because it draws attention to the building which looms just a little lower than the overpowering Manulife centre. It softens up the Manulife centre and the point tower profile makes it feel like it’s trying to soar taller than its obviously taller brother. Sort of a David versus Goliath in Midtown Toronto. Before 9/11 Cesar Pelli’s World Financial Center towers had the same effect on the WTC as 1 St. Thomas has on Manulife.
From up close, however, 1 St. Thomas sort of falls flat and the exterior details feel a little oversized. I'm not against historical elements popping up in architecture, but they work a little better when things are more in scale with human proportions. This really is a building that is meant to anchor the skyline from a distance.
