Four Seasons little brother

[Tewder]

It has the benefit of fitting into the streetwall/streetscape better the way a traditional theatre does, so you don't have to see the fly tower etc. Imagine that our 4SC was on a more normal city lot and you only saw the University facade or possibly the Queen facade. Would the criticisms have been as harsh?

 

[Urban Shocker]

Regarding the Shakespeare's good reviews, I was thinking as much about the success of the flexible performance hall, which can be reconfigured between matinee and evening performances to accommodate different kinds of events, as by the external appearance of the building.

Regarding the irrational fear of a fly tower that looks like a fly tower, I see it as similar to the above-ground-parking-garages-that-look-like-above-ground-parking-garages phobia. It's almost as if we're still hiding the legs of tables so as not to shock elderly spinsters or young maidens, and Modernism in the arts and architecture never happened. It reminds me of the folks who left the recent performance of Pelleas et Melisande by the COC because the music and "plot" was too radical for them ( Debussy's opera premiered in 1902! ).

 

[ganjavih]

Imagine that our 4SC was on a more normal city lot and you only saw the University facade or possibly the Queen facade. Would the criticisms have been as harsh?

I'm sure if the City Room was all we could see, reviews would be more favourable.

 

[MetroMan]

^ I agree. The City Room is the outside feature where Diamond decided to spend some time (and money) on. If somehow, the building was backed up into and integrated into the city fabric with a vibrant city block surrounding it, there would have been little to criticize.

It's the lack of that integration – and the resulting gap between University and York – that generate the criticism that we find on this board, that you can listen to at the Osgoode streetcar stop, that is discussed at Doors Open and frankly, that can be found in any newspaper mentioning the thing.

Now that the trees are growing out, I don't quite mind the Richmond side. It has always been a quiet street. Pretty much every building from The Bay on Yonge St., passed the Sheraton and the 4SC, through the club district and the industrial area beyond it to Spadina turn their backs on Richmond St. W.
The black brick and randomly placed windows suit this façade.

It would be unreasonable to expect more from the York St. façade. It's the back of the house and holds the parking entrance.

It's the Queen side that irks many people, including myself. Queen St., one block from City Hall and Bay St., a couple from Queen and Yonge, the Eaton Centre, The Bay... and they ignore the street level of an entire city block?

To steer this back on topic, I should mention that this performing arts centre will work, regardless of how vibrant or not three out of four façades are. People probably won't use the other sides. They'll gravitate to this building's "City Room".

Unlike Queen St... where you have a pedestrian and vehicle flow clocked in the tens of thousands every hour.

 

[Tewder]

Regarding the irrational fear of a fly tower that looks like a fly tower, I see it as similar to the above-ground-parking-garages-that-look-like-above-ground-parking-garages phobia. It's almost as if we're still hiding the legs of tables so as not to shock elderly spinsters or young maidens, and Modernism in the arts and architecture never happened. It reminds me of the folks who left the recent performance of Pelleas et Melisande by the COC because the music and "plot" was too radical for them ( Debussy's opera premiered in 1902! ).

Perhaps, but i'm not sure it's about 'fear' or 'shock' per se (put an exposed fly tower or parking garage in an empty suburban lot and nobody will bat an eyelid). There is an evolution of basic urban design preconceptions at play here, that inform the expectations of people with regards to their urban spaces. Modernism has not fared well in this evolution, taking the blame for a lot of what has been perceived as 'wrong' with urban spaces in the post-war era. Some exceptions to this are powerful, and over time have been embraced (Centre George Pompidou rising over Beaubourg, for example), but by and large in the struggle for survival of the urban fittest modernism has had a hard go of it...

None of which is to say that I think there is anything wrong with the exposed tower of the 4SC. Given the tight lot and the function of the structure there really wasn't much more to be done with it than be honest about it and design it in keeping with the integrity of the building, which Diamond did.

 

[Urban Shocker]

Being honest about it and designing it in keeping with the integrity of the building is central to what Diamond has done though, not a fallback position when all else fails.

The lack of hierarchy - the banal loading dock functions on York aren't showcased as something they're not; the glam City Room is appropriate for University; unlike other opera houses the dressing rooms overlooking Richmond have windows; the donors get a lounge and the dancers get a rehearsal room with plenty of light, and there's space for retail ( let's hope they put in plumbing for a kitchen for a nice restaurant! ) at ground floor on the Queen side - flows from that approach.

It was designed from the York Street side first, with priority given to solving the functional aspects of the building, and the City Room was fitted into the space that remained.

 

[Tewder]

Designing a building based on the site context is not a fallback position, to be sure.