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From the Post:
Architects veer away from 'car crash' design
Philosophy revealed in new book
Peter Kuitenbrouwer, National Post
Published: Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Let's make this clear: Jack Diamond has never said anything on the record about Daniel Libeskind's "Crystal" addition to the Royal Ontario Museum. Nada. Zippo. Not a word. A Toronto Life article this month, "The Curse of the Aluminum Crystal," refers to "the Crystal's detractors outside the ROM -- particularly Toronto architect Jack Diamond." Mr. Diamond says the author of the article called him for a quote. Mr. Diamond did not give one. There is no Jack Diamond quote about the Crystal in that article, or in this one.
That said, the new $60 book, Insight and On Site, The Architecture of Diamond and Schmitt, published this month by Douglas & McIntyre, is itself a 350-page attack on the aesthetic that gave rise to the Crystal.
Yesterday, Mr. Diamond and Don Schmitt both arrived at Dundas and Parliament streets in BMWs. They showed me where workers are putting up a new Sobeys supermarket and nine-storey Daniels condo building, designed by Diamond + Schmitt. The firm, also planning parts of the new Regent Park south of Dundas streets, believes that reinserting a grid of small streets here will make a new safe, thriving neighbourhood.
We went up to Jet Fuel cafe in Cabbagetown, to talk about the book, their 30-year partnership, and architecture in Toronto. I asked about the Crystal, and Mr. Schmitt answered with a story.
"We were just interviewing for a project at a university in the United States," he said. "The president asked us, 'Have you ever designed a building that causes a car crash? Because I'm looking for an architect who's going to design a building that causes a car crash.' And you have to say, 'No, we have not designed a building which causes a car crash.' "
"There's a kind of group who is looking for a building that will snap your head and cause you to lose control of the vehicle, as the 12-second impact, literally that grabs attention. But does it have any deeper ability to contribute to the life of the university, to the life of the faculty, to the experience of students, to its connection to the grain of the community? Do any of those matter at all? What he's interested in is the car crash, and I think that Libeskind is really part of that school."
Diamond + Schmitt doesn't do car crash. Leaf through the book, and you'll see understated, functional buildings. There's the YMCA at Grosvenor and Yonge streets, now
25 years old -- not a temple from the outside, just a great place for its users. Many were underwhelmed by the firm's Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts. But, as Mr. Diamond notes, Alexander Neef, lured away from the Paris Opera to head the Canadian Opera Company this summer, calls the new home a key draw for him.
The firm also designed the new Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute, going up beside St. Michael's Hospital downtown, and the Pierre Berton Resource Library in Vaughan.
This architecture turns some people off. Last year Mr. Diamond clashed publicly with the Design Review Panel at Waterfront Toronto, who hated his design for the Corus building the City of Toronto is building next to Redpath Sugar.
Yesterday Mr. Diamond defended his 10-storey Corus building as a good place to work.
"They wanted to see a Gehry, a Libeskind in a big open space," he said of the panel. "What happened was we got commissioned to build a building for 1,100 people that would be working 18 hours a day. That is by far and away a more important thing to do to kickstart the rest."
The architects intend the Corus building to function much like the Citytv building at Queen and John Streets, with studios open to crowds. Alas, says Mr. Diamond, the design review panel gave the park design for Sugar Beach next door to another firm, and now the park won't work with the building at all.
We can quibble about buildings. I'm not very impressed by the Corus, mostly because I believe we should use our harbour for shipping and not for radio. Still, all told, this book is a hugely refreshing treatise, an uplifting clarion call for architecture-- and cities-- that harness minimal materials for maximum usefulness. "The case for architecture that is environmentally sustainable has never been stronger," the authors write. "In the relative absence of moral debate on the issue, the financial case will have to suffice."
Or, put another way, car crashes are never a good thing.
pkuitenbrouwer@nationalpost.com
http://www.nationalpost.com/news/canada/toronto/story.html?id=849385
________________
Rating landmarks around Toronto
National Post
Published: Tuesday, September 30, 2008
We asked architects Jack Diamond and Don Schmitt, whose 130-person firm is one of Toronto's busiest, to comment on several buildings in the Toronto area.
Frank Gehry's "transformation" of the Art Gallery of Ontario:
Diamond I think it's going to be a pretty successful building. It unifies a lot of pieces along Dundas and that becomes a galleria for people to use for orientation and access. Also, he reconstitutes the old Walker Court. He took the centre of the old gallery and created it once again as an orientation piece internally and externally. It is ultra-functional and attractive.
Daniel Libeskind's Crystal addition to the Royal Ontario Museum:
Schmitt We don't need to say any more. I think the public has voted.
Toronto Life Square, the new AMC 24 building at Yonge and Dundas streets:
Schmitt You mean the billboard? It's an armature for signage. You know, and students have to go to school in a movie theatre.
Diamond The most important single question about the quality of a space is its quality of natural light. Buildings change through the day and night in their character. A building that has no natural light has no chance of making those subtle shifts.
Bay-Adelaide Centre (under construction):
Schmitt It's hard to read. What I don't know is what's happening at grade. There's a big, big space to the east of the building.
Viljo Revell's New City Hall :
Diamond As a symbol of Toronto, it's a huge success. As a square that's enclosed by other buildings on west and east, it is a well-defined public space. As a symbol of giving power to the council as a significant democratic institution, it's successful. As an office building, it's appalling.
The new Terminal One, Pearson Airport:
Schmitt I think it's very elegant, it's full of light. I think the scale is fantastic in the interior. It's really got that kind of generosity. It's quite a great space."
Diamond When you've got a building of that size, the attempt to break down the scale was to put it on a curve. That curve, actually for people who don't use it frequently, is slighly disorienting.
Mississauga Civic Centre:
Schmitt It was a public space that was developed before anything was developed around it. It was based on an assumption of a master plan of how the city should develop. But those principles were lost. It's not truly a public realm. The thing about [Mississauga City Hall] is that it's so frozen in time.
CityPlace:
Schmitt I think it's very problematic as a neighbourhood. Diamond It's the same developer [Concord Adex] with similar circumstance in Vancouver, in False Creek and Coal Harbour. The successful same builder in a different planning and urban regime has done a super job. [But] Toronto failed to provide that envelope of incentives, regulatory mechanisms and ambitions for the city that Vancouver did. Vancouver succeeded where we have failed.
Condos on the Queensway across from Grenadier Pond, by High Park:
Schmitt You mean the stone townhouses attached to the glass buildings? That's an astonishing pastiche. Diamond It's a parody.
http://www.nationalpost.com/news/canada/toronto/story.html?id=849386
Architects veer away from 'car crash' design
Philosophy revealed in new book
Peter Kuitenbrouwer, National Post
Published: Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Let's make this clear: Jack Diamond has never said anything on the record about Daniel Libeskind's "Crystal" addition to the Royal Ontario Museum. Nada. Zippo. Not a word. A Toronto Life article this month, "The Curse of the Aluminum Crystal," refers to "the Crystal's detractors outside the ROM -- particularly Toronto architect Jack Diamond." Mr. Diamond says the author of the article called him for a quote. Mr. Diamond did not give one. There is no Jack Diamond quote about the Crystal in that article, or in this one.
That said, the new $60 book, Insight and On Site, The Architecture of Diamond and Schmitt, published this month by Douglas & McIntyre, is itself a 350-page attack on the aesthetic that gave rise to the Crystal.
Yesterday, Mr. Diamond and Don Schmitt both arrived at Dundas and Parliament streets in BMWs. They showed me where workers are putting up a new Sobeys supermarket and nine-storey Daniels condo building, designed by Diamond + Schmitt. The firm, also planning parts of the new Regent Park south of Dundas streets, believes that reinserting a grid of small streets here will make a new safe, thriving neighbourhood.
We went up to Jet Fuel cafe in Cabbagetown, to talk about the book, their 30-year partnership, and architecture in Toronto. I asked about the Crystal, and Mr. Schmitt answered with a story.
"We were just interviewing for a project at a university in the United States," he said. "The president asked us, 'Have you ever designed a building that causes a car crash? Because I'm looking for an architect who's going to design a building that causes a car crash.' And you have to say, 'No, we have not designed a building which causes a car crash.' "
"There's a kind of group who is looking for a building that will snap your head and cause you to lose control of the vehicle, as the 12-second impact, literally that grabs attention. But does it have any deeper ability to contribute to the life of the university, to the life of the faculty, to the experience of students, to its connection to the grain of the community? Do any of those matter at all? What he's interested in is the car crash, and I think that Libeskind is really part of that school."
Diamond + Schmitt doesn't do car crash. Leaf through the book, and you'll see understated, functional buildings. There's the YMCA at Grosvenor and Yonge streets, now
25 years old -- not a temple from the outside, just a great place for its users. Many were underwhelmed by the firm's Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts. But, as Mr. Diamond notes, Alexander Neef, lured away from the Paris Opera to head the Canadian Opera Company this summer, calls the new home a key draw for him.
The firm also designed the new Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute, going up beside St. Michael's Hospital downtown, and the Pierre Berton Resource Library in Vaughan.
This architecture turns some people off. Last year Mr. Diamond clashed publicly with the Design Review Panel at Waterfront Toronto, who hated his design for the Corus building the City of Toronto is building next to Redpath Sugar.
Yesterday Mr. Diamond defended his 10-storey Corus building as a good place to work.
"They wanted to see a Gehry, a Libeskind in a big open space," he said of the panel. "What happened was we got commissioned to build a building for 1,100 people that would be working 18 hours a day. That is by far and away a more important thing to do to kickstart the rest."
The architects intend the Corus building to function much like the Citytv building at Queen and John Streets, with studios open to crowds. Alas, says Mr. Diamond, the design review panel gave the park design for Sugar Beach next door to another firm, and now the park won't work with the building at all.
We can quibble about buildings. I'm not very impressed by the Corus, mostly because I believe we should use our harbour for shipping and not for radio. Still, all told, this book is a hugely refreshing treatise, an uplifting clarion call for architecture-- and cities-- that harness minimal materials for maximum usefulness. "The case for architecture that is environmentally sustainable has never been stronger," the authors write. "In the relative absence of moral debate on the issue, the financial case will have to suffice."
Or, put another way, car crashes are never a good thing.
pkuitenbrouwer@nationalpost.com
http://www.nationalpost.com/news/canada/toronto/story.html?id=849385
________________
Rating landmarks around Toronto
National Post
Published: Tuesday, September 30, 2008
We asked architects Jack Diamond and Don Schmitt, whose 130-person firm is one of Toronto's busiest, to comment on several buildings in the Toronto area.
Frank Gehry's "transformation" of the Art Gallery of Ontario:
Diamond I think it's going to be a pretty successful building. It unifies a lot of pieces along Dundas and that becomes a galleria for people to use for orientation and access. Also, he reconstitutes the old Walker Court. He took the centre of the old gallery and created it once again as an orientation piece internally and externally. It is ultra-functional and attractive.
Daniel Libeskind's Crystal addition to the Royal Ontario Museum:
Schmitt We don't need to say any more. I think the public has voted.
Toronto Life Square, the new AMC 24 building at Yonge and Dundas streets:
Schmitt You mean the billboard? It's an armature for signage. You know, and students have to go to school in a movie theatre.
Diamond The most important single question about the quality of a space is its quality of natural light. Buildings change through the day and night in their character. A building that has no natural light has no chance of making those subtle shifts.
Bay-Adelaide Centre (under construction):
Schmitt It's hard to read. What I don't know is what's happening at grade. There's a big, big space to the east of the building.
Viljo Revell's New City Hall :
Diamond As a symbol of Toronto, it's a huge success. As a square that's enclosed by other buildings on west and east, it is a well-defined public space. As a symbol of giving power to the council as a significant democratic institution, it's successful. As an office building, it's appalling.
The new Terminal One, Pearson Airport:
Schmitt I think it's very elegant, it's full of light. I think the scale is fantastic in the interior. It's really got that kind of generosity. It's quite a great space."
Diamond When you've got a building of that size, the attempt to break down the scale was to put it on a curve. That curve, actually for people who don't use it frequently, is slighly disorienting.
Mississauga Civic Centre:
Schmitt It was a public space that was developed before anything was developed around it. It was based on an assumption of a master plan of how the city should develop. But those principles were lost. It's not truly a public realm. The thing about [Mississauga City Hall] is that it's so frozen in time.
CityPlace:
Schmitt I think it's very problematic as a neighbourhood. Diamond It's the same developer [Concord Adex] with similar circumstance in Vancouver, in False Creek and Coal Harbour. The successful same builder in a different planning and urban regime has done a super job. [But] Toronto failed to provide that envelope of incentives, regulatory mechanisms and ambitions for the city that Vancouver did. Vancouver succeeded where we have failed.
Condos on the Queensway across from Grenadier Pond, by High Park:
Schmitt You mean the stone townhouses attached to the glass buildings? That's an astonishing pastiche. Diamond It's a parody.
http://www.nationalpost.com/news/canada/toronto/story.html?id=849386
