Mosaic (736 Spadina s of Bloor, Greenco/Pinedale/Wycliffe, 20s, Northgrave Architect) COMPLETE

[interchange42]

This building is not my idea of gorgeous either, but it will look somewhat better, and less heavy (and overbearing) once the glass is in.

Still, I'll bet it is quickly forgotten soon after completion, as it will blend in very well on a rather sad-sack portion of Spadina.

42

 

[Darkstar416]

Here's a close-up of the hideous ornamentation...

 

[building babel]

Maybe the person who buys the penthouse gets their name chiselled into the scroll.

 

[officedweller]

I could see that frieze working with ground floor restaurant space - but not a Shoppers Drug Mart.

 

[Archivistower]

That's one fugly pippydoo. A shame, because I think this building's massing is quite good, it meets the street, and it's totally appropriate in it's context. But definitely a "rub vaseline on the lens" candidate when photographed for TOBuilt.

 

[adma]

Those round things atop the "pilasters" make me think of Sweettarts-type candy. So do the bollards around the new Canada Life building, for that matter.

 

[building babel]

Why not sink your teeth into them?

 

[AndrewJM3D]

Next to the Jewish community centre to the North and the concrete box to the south it actually looks kind of nice.

 

[adma]

Though I've previously expressed a weird affection for said concrete box to the south--maybe because it's so weirdly earnest. The kind of naive lookit-me-I'm-70s-brutalist affair that one might expect in a smaller burg like Hamilton, or London, or Kitchener...

 

[Sir Novelty Fashion]

I was staring at the brutalist box yesterday, trying to make up my mind about it. There's something admirable about it, if not endearing. Misplaced confidence - that's it.

And in a way, Mosaic actually compliments it. Look at the two from the Dominion parking lot. Their massings are very similar - squat, wide towers sitting off-kilter on muscular podiums. The old building might be a brute, and the new one a bore, but at least they're talking.

 

[alklay]

As long as they do not talk to me!

or a better quip: I wish they would hold their conversation some place else.

 

[fiendishlibrarian]

Had an ex who lived there, 15th floor, facing south. Amazing view. And oh was that Firkin at the base convenient, along with the beer store next door. Good times.

 

[interchange42]

Conversation?

720 Spadina: I kisse thy formwork, but not in flattery Mosaic. You're blocking my north view! You should have been two point towers! I have a mind to run you through!

Mosaic: Et tu Brute?

addlepated 42

 

[adma]

Lovers-in-residence always have a way of making the unlikeable likeable...

 

[Bogtrotter]

The massing of the podium seems appropriate relative to neighbours- I'm not liking those molded reliefs much though. If the project helps distract from the dowdy bulk next door it can't be all bad.