Toronto St Lawrence Centre Redevelopment | ?m | ?s | CreateTO | Hariri Pontarini

Preferred choice for the St. Lawrence Centre Redevelopment Competition

  • Brook McIlroy, Trahan Architects, and Hood Design Studio

    Votes: 11 13.9%

  • Diamond Schmitt, Smoke Architecture, and MVVA

    Votes: 12 15.2%

  • Hariri Pontarini, LMN Architects, Tawaw Collective, Smoke Architecture, and SLA

    Votes: 39 49.4%

  • RDHA, Mecanoo, Two Row Architect, and NAK Design Strategies

    Votes: 16 20.3%

  • Zeidler Architecture, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Two Row Architect, and PLANT Architect

    Votes: 1 1.3%
  • Total voters
    79
  • Poll closed .
Automation Gallery said:
Yeah the City wants to tackle it alone, when all said and done we may see something in 2030?
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Though it clearly will depend on $$$ and private fund-raising they hope to start building in 2021.
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AlexBozikovic said:
"This idea has no clear logic: It’s an expensive construction project with no obvious motive. But it does have the flavour of empire-building and consultant overreach, and a dubious understanding of how urban places actually work. It deserves to go away, quickly."
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/art...t-a-plea-to-keep-torontos-st-lawrence-centre/
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Brutalism has its place (where its brutality can be moderated), but Old Town is not one of them.

This project was a mistake, a remnant of the original St. Lawrence urban renewal plans (which were wrong in themselves).

Demolish and rebuild, please.
 
jje1000 said:
Brutalism has its place (where its brutality can be moderated), but Old Town is not one of them.

This project was a mistake, a remnant of the original St. Lawrence urban renewal plans (which were wrong in themselves).

Demolish and rebuild, please.
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Actually, when all is said and done, the SLC is quite low-key, even "contextual", in its urban impact (evidence of how the original urban renewal plans had been toned down by 1970). That is, the brutality *has* been moderated for the occasion--and in that light, how is it any more of a "mistake" than some of the subsequent condos et al on the same block, some of which achieve less by trying harder, so to speak?

At this point, it's but today's equivalent of 60-years-ago pro-demolition arguments that High Victorian had its place, but not in a Georgian neighbourhood.
 
adma said:
Actually, when all is said and done, the SLC is quite low-key, even "contextual", in its urban impact (evidence of how the original urban renewal plans had been toned down by 1970). That is, the brutality *has* been moderated for the occasion--and in that light, how is it any more of a "mistake" than some of the subsequent condos et al on the same block, some of which achieve less by trying harder, so to speak?

At this point, it's but today's equivalent of 60-years-ago pro-demolition arguments that High Victorian had its place, but not in a Georgian neighbourhood.
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Sorry adma, the building is second-rate brutalism at best, and is low-key in all the wrong ways. It lacks any particularly noticeable contextuality, and yet also simultaneously fails to push the dynamic forms and materiality of brutalism itself- it's perhaps telling that the back of the building is more interesting than the front. There aren't even any particularly interesting urbanistic moments or public spaces that might have allowed its users (intended and unintended) to claim and moderate the space for themselves, like at the Southbank Centre arts complex in London.

It thus falls into the valley of not only being an urbanistic dead space- but of also being utterly boring, which is worse than being ugly. And no, the buildings on the block can be quite mediocre, but even then, they're all better urbanistically (materiality is varied, street level is more forgiving, forms emphasize vertical breaks). And that's quite a low bar we're setting for ourselves- we can do better nowadays!

In the end, the St. Lawrence Theatre is still a sterilizing concrete lump that saps the vitality of the corner- a corner which perhaps summarizes the building pefectly- a squat, low mass, with a dark and uninviting non-public doorway squished against the very corner of Front and Scott- there is little civic exuberance to be found here unless one tries to reach as far as possible.
 
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jje1000 said:
Sorry adma, the building is second-rate brutalism at best, and is low-key in all the wrong ways. It lacks any particularly noticeable contextuality, and yet also simultaneously fails to push the dynamic forms and materiality of brutalism itself- it's perhaps telling that the back of the building is more interesting than the front. There aren't even any particularly interesting urbanistic moments or public spaces that might have allowed its users (intended and unintended) to claim and moderate the space for themselves, like at the Southbank Centre arts complex in London.

It thus falls into the valley of not only being an urbanistic dead space- but of also being utterly boring, which is worse than being ugly. And no, the buildings on the block can be quite mediocre, but even then, they're all better urbanistically (materiality is varied, street level is more forgiving, forms emphasize vertical breaks). And that's quite a low bar we're setting for ourselves- we can do better nowadays!

In the end, the St. Lawrence Theatre is still a sterilizing concrete lump that saps the vitality of the corner- a corner which perhaps summarizes the building pefectly- a squat, low mass, with a dark and uninviting non-public doorway squished against the very corner of Front and Scott- there is little civic exuberance to be found here unless one tries to reach as far as possible.
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*mic drop*
 
jje1000 said:
Sorry adma, the building is second-rate brutalism at best, and is low-key in all the wrong ways. It lacks any particularly noticeable contextuality, and yet also simultaneously fails to push the dynamic forms and materiality of brutalism itself- it's perhaps telling that the back of the building is more interesting than the front. There aren't even any particularly interesting urbanistic moments or public spaces that might have allowed its users (intended and unintended) to claim and moderate the space for themselves, like at the Southbank Centre arts complex in London.

It thus falls into the valley of not only being an urbanistic dead space- but of also being utterly boring, which is worse than being ugly. And no, the buildings on the block can be quite mediocre, but even then, they're all better urbanistically (materiality is varied, street level is more forgiving, forms emphasize vertical breaks). And that's quite a low bar we're setting for ourselves- we can do better nowadays!

In the end, the St. Lawrence Theatre is still a sterilizing concrete lump that saps the vitality of the corner- a corner which perhaps summarizes the building pefectly- a squat, low mass, with a dark and uninviting non-public doorway squished against the very corner of Front and Scott- there is little civic exuberance to be found here unless one tries to reach as far as possible.
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Well, I'm not claiming SLC to be a masterpiece. But in labelling it "utterly boring", I'd say you're being *over*-discriminating, under the circumstance--maybe it's all embodied in the "we can do better nowadays!" Like your (professional?) vested interest is more in the "doing better nowadays" than in the preexisting conditions--and those with such vested interest tend to be much more broad in their dismissal of the preexisting, or those who defend the "faulty" preexisting. (Particularly in this day and age of facadectomies of that which really didn't need to be facadectomied.)

That is, your tone resembles that of somebody bidding to do the replacement, or a confidant of the same.

As somebody *without* any such vested interest, I see the preexisting urban environment in more nuanced warts-and-all terms. And I don't give a whoozis about those who feel threatened (professionally or otherwise) by such nuance. I'm a beholder, not a builder. (And sometimes, "better urbanistically" can be to the fault--in fact, if *anything* is by my estimation "boring", it's your "materiality is varied, street level is more forgiving, forms emphasize vertical breaks". Ho hum, yawn; just more dull urban-planner-ese.)

But that said, I don't want to go too far in declaring SLC inexpendable--even if it and O'Keefe make for interesting cultural-facility bookends to the 1960s across from one another. In fact, its cardinal "problem", such as it may be, is that it's too modest, and (perhaps reflecting the pared-down gestation-to-execution circumstances) more the kind of thing one'd expect in London or Kitchener or St Catharines than the bustling "woild class" metropolis Toronto has become. (Though one might also claim that that "problem" is actually part of SLC's cherishable charm.)
 
It's not the best example of Brutalism, but it seems profoundly historical. It was commissioned to celebrate Canada's centennial. It marks the sense of nationhood that had developed at that point. We demolished a big chunk of the neighbourhood to build an arts and culture district that ultimately didn't get funding. However, we did get this building and the successful revitalization of the neighbourhood through contextualist infill and heritage building restoration and revitalization. I think it has profound heritage value, but not necessarily for the architecture.
 
adma said:
Well, I'm not claiming SLC to be a masterpiece. But in labelling it "utterly boring", I'd say you're being *over*-discriminating, under the circumstance--maybe it's all embodied in the "we can do better nowadays!" Like your (professional?) vested interest is more in the "doing better nowadays" than in the preexisting conditions--and those with such vested interest tend to be much more broad in their dismissal of the preexisting, or those who defend the "faulty" preexisting. (Particularly in this day and age of facadectomies of that which really didn't need to be facadectomied.)

That is, your tone resembles that of somebody bidding to do the replacement, or a confidant of the same.

As somebody *without* any such vested interest, I see the preexisting urban environment in more nuanced warts-and-all terms. And I don't give a whoozis about those who feel threatened (professionally or otherwise) by such nuance. I'm a beholder, not a builder. (And sometimes, "better urbanistically" can be to the fault--in fact, if *anything* is by my estimation "boring", it's your "materiality is varied, street level is more forgiving, forms emphasize vertical breaks". Ho hum, yawn; just more dull urban-planner-ese.)
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Adma! Where do you get your strawmen from? You surely must be single-handedly driving business. And those Ad hominems? I must know your supply- they are of the perfect geriatric taste! Exquisitely rambly and yet completely irrelevant.

adma said:
But that said, I don't want to go too far in declaring SLC inexpendable--even if it and O'Keefe make for interesting cultural-facility bookends to the 1960s across from one another. In fact, its cardinal "problem", such as it may be, is that it's too modest, and (perhaps reflecting the pared-down gestation-to-execution circumstances) more the kind of thing one'd expect in London or Kitchener or St Catharines than the bustling "woild class" metropolis Toronto has become. (Though one might also claim that that "problem" is actually part of SLC's cherishable charm.
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Honestly, both facilities are flawed. The O'Keefe in its design, if not in its exuberance, and the SLC in its stodginess (perhaps symbolizing the end of 'heroic modernism' and the increasingly apparent reality of an aging urban fabric that produced rather bunker-like buildings). But there's no reason why things must be left the way they are. Our cities change, and because a building was built to mark a particular period of time shouldn't mean that its site is perpetually off-limits. The site will always transcend the buildings on them, no matter what.

AlexBozikovic said:
I totally disagree on the quality of the building, jje1000, and that "we can do better nowadays." (Really? Where?)

Also: This is one of about 10 sites that represent the most significant cultural building program in Canadian history. If this isn't heritage, what is?
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Alex, while I respect your opinion, being a top 10/20/50/100 'culture-building program' does not inherently mean that the produced piece of architecture will always be a success. Heck, the O'Keefe Centre already proves that well- and if this building was to represent the spirit of the '67 Centennial, it must have been a very timid spirit.

There are no exceptionally sublime or interesting spaces within the building- it's no jewelbox. There are no exceptional elements on the exterior frontages- the building is hardly more interesting than the other brutalist middle-tier governmental institutions that dot Toronto- and in reality, it feels as if it was designed from the bird's eye view- resulting in the most interesting elements stranded on the roof, and a dismally dull ground plane and Front Street facade. There is no other program beyond the theatre or ground floor activation (beyond the lobby), and so it sits as an empty bunker until the performances. The theatres it provides (which are hardly one-of-a-kind spaces nor reputed for exceptional quality) can be replicated in a newer building. Even the day-of-opening shot hardly paints it as an interesting structure- again, the rear end is more interesting than the front.

All in all, it feels like a building that's been designed-by-committee to be the absolutely most middle-road instance of brutalism around.

But regardless- it does seem that people see the building more as a symbol of an era, rather than as a piece of architecture.

In that case, it's still safe to tear it down- keep artifacts (maybe walls panels, the auditorium chandeliers and wall fixtures), and start again while keeping the spirit of city/culture-building that it held- maybe we could get a new building in time for Canada's 160th Anniversary? Even taking on the issue of embodied energy- we can always make an exception from time to time- and a newer building could in fact be far more sustainable than trying to seal a building built to the code of the 60s.
 
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