Toronto 101 Spadina Avenue | 133.95m | 39s | Devron Developments | AUDAX

I think the public is silently begging for a return to these more classic architectural styles. The architecture world has been obsessed for a century with geometric shapes and austere facades that are fundamentally in-human and intimidating. Architecture as a field has become progressively more pretentious and inward looking as a whole, paying no mind to the desires of the people who actually live and work in the structures they create - insisting that doing so would be pandering or anti-intellectual.

While true that beauty is "subjective", this has become a cop-out excuse to produce lazy and sterile designs with little thought or character. The reaction to projects like this one show that there *are* indeed design characteristics with near-universal appeal. Symmetry, ornamentality, organic material selection... people love these things, and the demand for them has been utterly ignored by the market up to now either due to cheap and creatively-bankrupt developers, or high-minded architects who "know better".

It's telling that the most expensive housing in the city is hundred year old factories. The fact that this good-not-great proposal is getting so much praise is a testament to how desperate people are for this. I hope developers and architects finally take the hint.
 
desperateAmbassador said:
I think the public is silently begging for a return to these more classic architectural styles. The architecture world has been obsessed for a century with geometric shapes and austere facades that are fundamentally in-human and intimidating. Architecture as a field has become progressively more pretentious and inward looking as a whole, paying no mind to the desires of the people who actually live and work in the structures they create - insisting that doing so would be pandering or anti-intellectual.

While true that beauty is "subjective", this has become a cop-out excuse to produce lazy and sterile designs with little thought or character. The reaction to projects like this one show that there *are* indeed design characteristics with near-universal appeal. Symmetry, ornamentality, organic material selection... people love these things, and the demand for them has been utterly ignored by the market up to now either due to cheap and creatively-bankrupt developers, or high-minded architects who "know better".

It's telling that the most expensive housing in the city is hundred year old factories. The fact that this good-not-great proposal is getting so much praise is a testament to how desperate people are for this. I hope developers and architects finally take the hint.
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There's no objective truth revealed here, just subjectivity. You speak for yourself, and others, very obviously, in regard to what you like, but you should not presume to speak for everyone, nor that big A Architecture is monolithic, nor that any particular style is inherently inhuman. Give me good Modern and I'll be as happy as I am with good Retro-Neo-whatever. Some others will agree, some won't, big deal, that won't affect how a particular style of architecture suits me. I just want good examples of whatever style, and a solid reason why that style is proposed for any particular site.

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The top looks really classy but the base is a let down, way too flimsy looking for such a bulky mass. They should have at least extended the corner pillars all the way down.
 
ushahid said:
i hope the city says, you are building a park and such a beautiful building we grant you the permission to add 10-20 more floors. LOL! 😂
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I'd love to see a building of this more "classic" architecture style take a prominent place on our skyline (250 to 300 m). The few examples of classic architecture we do have have long since been obscured by bigger buildings.
 
I got a chuckle from visiting Audax's website where a number of projects feature comments from a well-known forum.

Audax.png

Link

Really look forward to 101 Spadina indeed, as well as Audax's 147 Spadina just north of this site... and their eventual commission to reclad The Taylor to match this personal fav.
 
Beautiful. I'm elated, especially after having seen the first couple of iterations of what was to come here. I want to echo my support for this return to classical elements, Art Deco design, ornamentation, arches and solid materiality. As an added bonus, this tower's placement along Spadina will block the existing blob of blue and grey glass in the ED, making that mass of forgettable buildings disappear looking from the west.

I also love that we are getting a new park here and how the tower activates it by having the lobby right in front of it. Can't wait to see this come to fruition. 😍
 
interchange42 said:
There's no objective truth revealed here, just subjectivity. You speak for yourself, and others, very obviously, in regard to what you like, but you should not presume to speak for everyone, nor that big A Architecture is monolithic, nor that any particular style is inherently inhuman. Give me good Modern and I'll be as happy as I am with good Retro-Neo-whatever. Some others will agree, some won't, big deal, that won't affect how a particular style of architecture suits me. I just want good examples of whatever style, and a solid reason why that style is proposed for any particular site.

42
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I don't think desperateAmbassador is wrong in saying there's a general fatigue when it comes to bland, neo-modernist buildings that have dominated the Toronto landscape for the past twenty years though. The reaction to this project's render seems to support the argument too, there's over a full page of similar sentiments; something you don't really see for a lot of typical Toronto proposals.
 
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