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From the Star, by Hume:
Alsop's eccentric 'tabletop' does Toronto proud
Jul 07, 2008 04:30 AM
Christopher Hume
Not many buildings can change a city, but Will Alsop's "Flying Tabletop" is one of them.
Officially known as the Sharp Design Centre, this is Toronto's celebrated building on legs that hovers above the Ontario College of Art and Design on McCaul St.
Though reviled at first, it has become a genuine civic icon, one of a handful of structures that define our city.
And let's make something clear; this has nothing to do with popularity per se. Though most Torontonians seem quite fond of the eccentric, but actually very practical, addition, its significance goes beyond being liked. If this building changed Toronto, it's because of what it says: namely, that the city can be bold, that we do have the capacity to break new ground.
But as a new exhibition – Will Alsop: An Urban Manifesto – at Montreal's Canadian Centre for Architecture makes clear, the Sharp Centre went through a number of incarnations before taking on its final form.
In the beginning, Alsop seems to have thrown everything he could muster into the project. The show includes posters, drawings and models of a multi-coloured structure covered from top to bottom in forms and shapes whose purpose is never clear.
It documents a design process in which an idea is pared down to essentials. Thus the gaudy box originally envisioned becomes simplified in black and white. The box itself was cleaned up, and much of the stuff removed. No question that what finally got built was vastly superior. No one would agree more than Alsop himself.
"I saw it for the first time in a while," the British architect said on a recent trip to Toronto. "I must say, it looked f------ great, better than I remember."
The exhibition came about, according to CCA director Mirko Zardini, because he wanted to acknowledge an important building.
"There are few projects in North America that I feel are interesting," he states. "If a building doesn't add anything to a city, it doesn't matter. Architects here in Montreal are obsessed with the objects. Alsop goes beyond these limits.
"I also like the idea that he doesn't need a lot of money to do something. OCAD is a good example; you can do brilliant things with not much money. It's a very simple exhibition, but I thought it was important to pay homage to Alsop and his building."
At the same time that the Sharp Centre has helped Torontonians re-imagine their city, it has also caught the world's attention. It has been featured in publications from Time to The New Yorker. And when he gave a talk recently in Lisbon, Alsop discovered that "everyone knew OCAD."
The brilliance of the building lies in its ability to function as an icon while solving a number of practical issues and enhancing the experience of the city. It's not just a pretty face, it's hard-working. The best architecture is not just object or space, but both.
In Toronto, as in most cities, we tend to expect one or the other. Rarely do we encounter a project that does all the above.
As Zardini argues, however, in an age when cities are more critical than ever to human survival, we urgently need architecture that's connected, contextual and compact. The splendid isolation so often associated with contemporary architecture will no longer suffice.
Though some might be tempted to dismiss OCAD as all playfulness, they confuse lack of solemnity with lack of seriousness. Alsop's building speaks to the big questions of our time, questions about what kind of a city we want and how to create it.
Christopher Hume can be reached at chume@thestar.ca.
http://www.thestar.com/GTA/Columnist/article/455422
AoD
Alsop's eccentric 'tabletop' does Toronto proud
Jul 07, 2008 04:30 AM
Christopher Hume
Not many buildings can change a city, but Will Alsop's "Flying Tabletop" is one of them.
Officially known as the Sharp Design Centre, this is Toronto's celebrated building on legs that hovers above the Ontario College of Art and Design on McCaul St.
Though reviled at first, it has become a genuine civic icon, one of a handful of structures that define our city.
And let's make something clear; this has nothing to do with popularity per se. Though most Torontonians seem quite fond of the eccentric, but actually very practical, addition, its significance goes beyond being liked. If this building changed Toronto, it's because of what it says: namely, that the city can be bold, that we do have the capacity to break new ground.
But as a new exhibition – Will Alsop: An Urban Manifesto – at Montreal's Canadian Centre for Architecture makes clear, the Sharp Centre went through a number of incarnations before taking on its final form.
In the beginning, Alsop seems to have thrown everything he could muster into the project. The show includes posters, drawings and models of a multi-coloured structure covered from top to bottom in forms and shapes whose purpose is never clear.
It documents a design process in which an idea is pared down to essentials. Thus the gaudy box originally envisioned becomes simplified in black and white. The box itself was cleaned up, and much of the stuff removed. No question that what finally got built was vastly superior. No one would agree more than Alsop himself.
"I saw it for the first time in a while," the British architect said on a recent trip to Toronto. "I must say, it looked f------ great, better than I remember."
The exhibition came about, according to CCA director Mirko Zardini, because he wanted to acknowledge an important building.
"There are few projects in North America that I feel are interesting," he states. "If a building doesn't add anything to a city, it doesn't matter. Architects here in Montreal are obsessed with the objects. Alsop goes beyond these limits.
"I also like the idea that he doesn't need a lot of money to do something. OCAD is a good example; you can do brilliant things with not much money. It's a very simple exhibition, but I thought it was important to pay homage to Alsop and his building."
At the same time that the Sharp Centre has helped Torontonians re-imagine their city, it has also caught the world's attention. It has been featured in publications from Time to The New Yorker. And when he gave a talk recently in Lisbon, Alsop discovered that "everyone knew OCAD."
The brilliance of the building lies in its ability to function as an icon while solving a number of practical issues and enhancing the experience of the city. It's not just a pretty face, it's hard-working. The best architecture is not just object or space, but both.
In Toronto, as in most cities, we tend to expect one or the other. Rarely do we encounter a project that does all the above.
As Zardini argues, however, in an age when cities are more critical than ever to human survival, we urgently need architecture that's connected, contextual and compact. The splendid isolation so often associated with contemporary architecture will no longer suffice.
Though some might be tempted to dismiss OCAD as all playfulness, they confuse lack of solemnity with lack of seriousness. Alsop's building speaks to the big questions of our time, questions about what kind of a city we want and how to create it.
Christopher Hume can be reached at chume@thestar.ca.
http://www.thestar.com/GTA/Columnist/article/455422
AoD
