The Plague of EIFS

[adma]

Y'know, I had this whimsically politically-slanted idea: a fake design competition for a renovated Ford Nation City Hall where we're presented with photoshopped renditions of Viljo Revell's masterwork defaced/disfigured through all manner of crimes in the name of EIFS, using some of these grotesque alterations as a cue. (If anyone can fake any such thing, you're welcome to do so.)

 

[LowPolygon]

Y'know, I had this whimsically politically-slanted idea: a fake design competition for a renovated Ford Nation City Hall where we're presented with photoshopped renditions of Viljo Revell's masterwork defaced/disfigured through all manner of crimes in the name of EIFS, using some of these grotesque alterations as a cue. (If anyone can fake any such thing, you're welcome to do so.)

hmmm, Ceaușescu-like acres of fake stucco and ersatz moulding do seem like a more suitable venue for the inner sanctum of the supreme leader of Fraud Nation than the utopic space-age modern stylings of Viljo Revell. this is course is 'all real', but it is ‘the world’s heaviest building’, so somewhat befitting from the mayoral girth perspective:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palace_of_the_Parliament

 

[Anna]

Another bad/good? example:

Yonge & Melrose

 

[adma]

Another bad/good?

Bad. Real bad. We could have a doozy of a Botox-before-and-after photo album of this stuff...

 

[LowPolygon]

This is the kind of thing one is increasingly seeing downtown. Under this hideous skin rests a nice, solid little example of 1950s blond brick modernism that has been buried alive.
This building wasn’t a masterpiece, and it wasn’t in great shape. But it was intact and the alterations it had been subjected to over the years would have been very easy to undo. And it has a very prominent location. All it needed was intelligent attention. Instead they did this to it.

 

[RC8]

What gets me is that there is nothing in Toronto's history that resembles those renovations in any way. People who buy into the historicky-schlock we so often see thrown around not only have bad taste, but are obviously profoundly ignorant of Toronto's history.

If they tried to convert modernist buildings into Victorian lookalikes it would at least make some semblance of sense. As things stand, they are just turning valuable urban modernist buildings into early 90s Miami strip mall aesthetics.

 

[urbandreamer]

11 July 2013: Roncevalles and Harvard: I saw the owner and what can I say, no surprises!

I told her it's an offensive pos

 

[LowPolygon]

i would absolutely support this. a well crafted letter would be the work of a small group of people, and would only take a few hours max to compose. in fact this is the outcome i was hoping would emerge from this thread. i'm more than happy to document some of the most offensive examples of this stuff to back up the case. it might go nowhere--or it might not. i don't think it is beyond the realm of possibility at all that limitations could be placed on its use.

 

[Anna]

This is the kind of thing one is increasingly seeing downtown. Under this hideous skin rests a nice, solid little example of 1950s blond brick modernism that has been buried alive.
This building wasn’t a masterpiece, and it wasn’t in great shape. But it was intact and the alterations it had been subjected to over the years would have been very easy to undo. And it has a very prominent location. All it needed was intelligent attention. Instead they did this to it...

There's always been stucco there

I was trying to find a photo of that building in its original state - but in the meantime - Oct 2011.

 

[Anna]

This is mostly painted brick, but still...

 

[Tewder]

Yeah, I hate this junk too. The thing is, how to move people to understand that this isn't an improvement, that there are better options?

 

[Anna]

John Parker told Smart Centres 'I considered the large scale Taco Bell design of their original shopping centre to be an architectural insult to the existing design themes of Leaside'

 

[spider]

Am I left to deduce that, no matter how well executed, there never was or ever will be an acceptable example of EIFS?

 

[Anna]

Where'd you get that quote from?

His column in the North Toronto Post. I don't know the date. But he said basically the same thing here:
http://www.postcity.com/Post-City-M...ig-box-proposal-in-Leaside-rankles-residents/

“They brought in a design that looks like it’s a Mexican hacienda, like an oversized Taco Bell, and bears no relation to the community that it serves or the neighbourhood where it sits,” Parker said.

 

[LowPolygon]

Am I left to deduce that, no matter how well executed, there never was or ever will be an acceptable example of EIFS?

post some examples if you have them....

one of the biggest issues with this stuff is that in the vast majority of cases it ends up looking unspeakably vulgar and tasteless because of the illiterate and boneheaded use of "historical" mouldings--cornices, sills, pediments, medallions, columns, pilasters, keystones, arches, etc etc.—all of these will, in every case, turn an extant building into absolute garbage.