Scoop on Huang & Danczkay?

[luggee]

Scoop on Huang & Danczkay?

Hey there,

I'm doing some research into a building at Yonge and Davisville (the old OPSEU building with the great swoopy porte cochere) and I see that the firm responsible for the conversion into condos in 1994 was Huang & Danczkay.

Don't mean to sound naive, but was there some kind of scandal with them? Or did they dissolve due to financial bungling? The only things that Google turns up are things on the airport and a bunch of legal court case pdf files.

I know Danczkay died recently, but does anyone know the backstory on the firm's history and what happened to it?

Thanks.

 

[goodboys]

Aside from being building the worst condos ever on Queen's Quay (the three beige towers south of Skydome), I haven't heard about them in a long while.

 

[buildup]

I wouldn't say its a scandal, but Huang dumped his wife about a decade ago in favour of a Russian or Hungarian stripper.

 

[interchange42]

Besides their execrable work on Queen's Quay, I believe they were the builders of T3 at Pearson. That nugget's clinging to some cobweb up top.

42

 

[Observer Walt]

After googling "airport+architecture+Toronto" I found an article from the NY Times dated 1992. It states that Terminal 3 was designed by Scott Associates and Bregman & Hamann. No mention of H & D. Interestingly Scott Associates and B&H also collaborated, along with another firm, on the CBC Broadcast Centre.

AFAIK Huang & Danczkay faded from sight after their efforts on Queen's Quay met with something less than universal acclaim.

 

[4Pook]

Their buildings ended the honeymoon phase of the Harbourfront development. The nice ideas of the development plan did not pan out not once but sadly twice under the heavy hands of Huang and Danczkay. Despite the more successful development at the west end of Harbourfront, H & D's projects soured public opinion on what had been a nice gift seeking voters from Trudeau. After those buildings, the development of Harbourfront seemed to stop for a while.

Maybe someone could buy up the bottom few floors of those condos and reconfigure the base into hanging gardens. Think of that Devonian Park in Calgary. You could build hanging gardens that are at least partly a public park, or a conservatory. For maybe not so many millions, your name immortalized at a great location and a city hero.

The top level of the gardens, of course, would be the exclusive domain of the condo residents. You would reface the base into something that looked way more classy, or maybe like the Absolute when she comes into town. Condo values up.

Maybe the condo doesn't need such a big garage or you could make a thin greenhouse along the front to capture energy and only park smart cars in some of the spaces. Maybe you might be able to add parking.

Now there are so many towers down there, it is a perfect time to make a more pedestrian friendly environment. There are definitely people closeby all of the year now so it would be great if there were more space for restaurants and (gasp) bars. If the condos started far enough above the fray, say on the 6th floor, the noise of it is mostly pretty far away.

If you were up on the 3rd hanging garden, the upper terrace of a nice restaurant, you would have a nice view of the action and the bits of park across the street. If you were down on the street, you would look at hanging gardens instead of at ugly towers.

A sculpture on the tops wouldn't hurt, but it would also be a great location for a series of small bars if you could keep it completely separate from the residential. The residents might go for it if there was an investment in the systems of their aging buildings.

 

[adma]

Yeah, I call those towers, Harbourfront's Poiuyt

 

[EnviroTO]

Huang & Danczkay were definitely involved at the airport. They were partnered with Lockheed Air Terminals to create Airport Development Corporation which built and ran terminal 3.

www.adccanada.com/