Toronto Nathan Phillips Square + Spirit Garden | ?m | ?s | City of Toronto

[picard102]

What a disappointment.

 

[MetroMan]

I actually like it. The caveat is that it's missing trees. It doesn't work as well as an open space. I was talking to the lady on site and she said that the garage roof can't support the weight of trees and that they don't have a budget to reinforce it. As irony would have it, there was an elder on stage talking about the importance of trees to First Nations. This would work so much better if it felt like it were in the middle of a forest, surrounded by tall trees, not an open space in the middle of the city.

 

[condovo]

The sentiment is noble. The design is awful. How does the expression go? The road to hell is paved in good intentions?

 

[CityStay]

I for one cannot believe the amount of anti-turtle sentiment being expressed here.

Just another example of the non-cartilaginous majority exerting its privilege over the oppressed cartilaginous minority.

You should all be ashamed of yourselves

 

[jje1000]

I hope another landscape architect can be brought in to reconcile the design differences between the rest of the square and this project.

IMO the biggest changes needed without changing the layout they should look into creating mounds and planting small, shallow-rooted trees/shrubs on them, like at Canada Square.

The second thing I would probably do is to adjust the plantings around the longhouse to avoid small slivers of grass, which are notoriously hard to maintain.

The final thing neeeded is to tone down the blue ribbon to a more muted colour- I wonder if a similar meaning might be conferred via inset stone?

 

[raptor]

I for one cannot believe the amount of anti-turtle sentiment being expressed here.

Just another example of the non-cartilaginous majority exerting its privilege over the oppressed cartilaginous minority.

You should all be ashamed of yourselves

So what you're saying is, after we took their land, the least we can do is allow them to put a turtle in Nathan Phillips Square? I don't see how the turtle can make indigenous people feel better about this situation.

 

[Dr. Snoot]

If this is built as designed, I think it will unfortunately not turn out well. There are SO MANY elements in a relatively small scale (a turtle, a canoe, a lodge, an inukshuk, another small sculpture, a seating cove) that it will appear childish, like a garden of toys, particularly in comparison to the very mature and grand architecture of Nathan Philips Square, Old City Hall, Osgoode Hall, and even the Peace Garden Arch.

I love the turtle sculpture -- I wish it were double the size, that they chose one more design element, and then left the rest to hardscaping and gardens. I worry in particular about the lodge, which I think is ugly and does not allow for enough visibility to its interior.

I can't find information online, but I note the video credits do not list a landscape architect. If that's the case, it shows.

 

[ardwold1]

Quite frankly - I think the whole lot of it is terrible. Not the project or place fit for an amusement park.

 

[Yegger]

they should have extended the peace garden south and incorporated a reconciliation piece within that. Right now, it's a hodge-podge of too many elements that are destined to fall into disrepair without upkeep such as the little patches of grass, the canoe and the lodge

 

[picard102]

Is an inukshuk not inappropriate for a site on land never having been occupied by the Inuit?

Also, is the turtle not a spiritual symbol?

 

[karledice]

So it takes 3 years to plant a few flowers, add a little interlocking stone, and build a sculpture (which I'll refrain from commenting on)? Typical Toronto.

Right? Typical government, I guess they don't care cause it's tax money and they're used to it getting wasted

 

[Adjei]

This whole development is a joke. Walking around some aspects of the square you would think they didn't even do anything and this is supposed to our premier public square. What a waste of money. and time. They should have just left it like how it was before instead of wasting money on this.

 

[3Dementia]

I for one cannot believe the amount of anti-turtle sentiment being expressed here.

Just another example of the non-cartilaginous majority exerting its privilege over the oppressed cartilaginous minority.

You should all be ashamed of yourselves

LOL.

I like the turtle (look forward the real sculpture)... reminds me a bit of the work of Joe Jacobs (a national treasure).... particularly since the turtle is obviously rearing up and ranting at city hall.

 

[pman]

Cluttering up NPS is what we do. The rebuild attempted to address this problem but we’re slowly junking the place back up. Maybe we should just give up spending any more money on it and accept that any decent overall design will be overwhelmed by an avalanche of kitschy political statements. And of course the inevitable crap maintenance.

 

[SLOCRO]

I agree with the opinions above that this new section is not in keeping with Plant's winning design and is further hodge-podge-ing Nathan Phillips Square.

I hope another landscape architect can be brought in to reconcile the design differences between the rest of the square and this project.

Unfortunately, I understand this to be a done deal.

The final thing needed is to tone down the blue ribbon to a more muted colour - I wonder if a similar meaning might be conferred via inset stone?

The blue ribbon and the walkways themselves are supposed to represent a wampum belt. Indigenous peoples used wampum belts to record history/agreements with settlers. There is a point to the bright colour/contrast, though I agree that this element could be incorporated into the overall design differently. The north and south sections of the Square here should compliment each other, rather than feeling like entirely different sections.