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Chedington, The

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4grand

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I've always really liked this building, but it seems to have its critics. I would simply like to know what people have against this building. To me, it's elegant, it has used quality materials and it's more or less timeless.

I understand it's a little kitschy to some, but personally, I like this more than most of the glass clones that are popping up everywhere. I'm a fan of architecture, but I seem to be off-kilter from what many deem to be 'architectural marvels'.

Can anyone give me a detailed explanation as to why they dislike this building? Thanks!



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Certain elements end up complicating the form too much. Take for example, the roof and balconies. Redo the roof (with correct proportions), remove the balconies and tada! One decent early 20th century apartment block.
 
Ahh, interesting. The roof is too small for the building, is that what you're saying? And the balconies... interesting as well. Is it just impossible to have balconies on a building like this then, aesthetically?
 
I'm with you 4grand, I don't mind the styling of this building at all. I used to live in the area and would pass by it 4-5 times a day and always liked it.
 
Yeah, I'm at Bayview/York Mills and I drive by this condo daily and I always admire it. I understand it's a little busy looking.
 
I've always liked it and feel that it's perfect for that area.

Now 1 Post Road looks like crap.

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It's pretentious and bombastic, proclaiming aspirations of great design through historicism without actually trying to nail down any particular style. It has way too much precast and no stone. It seems to be all about immediate impact, without much thought about its place in the city's collection of architecture. It's amazing that many high-end projects with incredible budgets, particularly in the Bridle Path, end so showy and tasteless. You're a multi-millionaire, so you're going to build a classical mansion but with the most simplistic classical details rendered in acres of precast cladding?

It has some pleasant forms and details, and I can't say I hate it. Yet it saddens me that for a project where so emphasis was apparently put on building something bold and high-style, we got this cartoonish pastiche instead of a more serious design. What a waste.
 
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All compounded these days, I suppose, by how its namesake house in the foreground is but a burnt-out shell...
 
Great answer junctionist, exactly what I was looking for. Perhaps it could be called a 'pre-cast pastiche'.

I spend a lot of time at Glendon College's Frost library doing work. I live about 5 minutes away and it's an amazing little oasis in there. Where do you think all the money for the building budget goes if they cheap out on the exterior materials, the interior?

Anyhow, thanks guys for your answers. However, Jay Bee... I don't mind 1 Post Road!
 
Well, one other issue *not* yet raised in this thread is contextual, i.e. not just that it's overloaded pastiche, but that it's a blot on the skyline here in Glendon/Don Valley/Bayview-estate country. (And somehow, it becomes all the more obnoxious for *not* being a 60s-style commie block or "Old Mill" brutalist slab...)
 
Personally I'm not against odes to past styles, or even outright imitations if the quality of materials and context seems to fit. Of course there are those that feel any building that recreates styles of the past or possesses fanciful elements of other eras is automatically out of context and therefore merely kitsch. Then of course there are those that denounce anything that remotely appears ostentatious as vulgar. I'm not a fan of this building though, it's too heavy and overdone for me and I share juncionists comments. In a similar vein the French quarter condos are just plain awful, but St. Thomas as a bit of architectural historicism seems to work fine where it is.
 
Can you even call the French quarter an example of architecture? All I see when I drive west on Richmond as I approach is a massive, dirtied, cream-coloured wall with a cheap convenience store and mis-matched colours.
 
4grand said:
Can you even call the French quarter an example of architecture? All I see when I drive west on Richmond as I approach is a massive, dirtied, cream-coloured wall with a cheap convenience store and mis-matched colours.
Click to expand...

So very true. I work right around the corner from this place haha
 
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