Toronto 180 Wellington West | ?m | 12s | Stantec

canarob said:
This didn't look great before, but at least it added some variety. With other projects like the upcoming Delta Chelsea renos (again, not a bad project it and of itself), the "glassification" of everything downtown taller than three stories will come closer to becoming a reality.
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I'm surprised that there *wasn't* a thread on this before.

And in a way, the original brick facade was a sort of proto-PoMo reaction/response in its own right to the 60s-style glass/concreteification of everything downtown...
 
I'd go earlier still, to the 1950ish aircraft school at the S end of Central Tech.

But yeah, what irony: a building designed as an "antidote" to glassy curtain walls (a sort of Brick Brutalist-cum-New-Formalist fusion, like a watered-down version of a certain aspect of New Formalist-era Philip Johnson), now made over into what it was originally conceived as an antidote to.
 
I think RBC actually own this building (as opposed to leasing it), the staff have scattered to other RBC units in the area, but will be going back AFAIK.
 
adma said:
But yeah, what irony: a building designed as an "antidote" to glassy curtain walls (a sort of Brick Brutalist-cum-New-Formalist fusion, like a watered-down version of a certain aspect of New Formalist-era Philip Johnson), now made over into what it was originally conceived as an antidote to.
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... and, almost as an opposite approach to that, is the design aesthetic of the Brookfield Place ( former BCE Place ) towers, which suggests art deco-ish structures "carved out" of surrounding boxes - as if inside every Modernist tower there's an earlier throwback style struggling to get out.
 
*And*, among the buildings Brookfield replaced was the early 60s curtain-walled Credit Foncier. So, there.
 
Thanks for starting this thread! I've been curious about this one for quite some time, yet was unable to dig up anything on it. While I'm concerned about brick being replaced by glass, the new render does look pretty sharp. Maybe it's time we re-clad some glass towers in brick to compensate! :)
 
It would be cool to see the CN Tower reclad in brick, but it would probably wouldn't be very safe
 
The CN Tower reclad in brick? That's either the unintentionally funniest post on UT in a month, or simply the funniest post on UT in a month.

…when everyone knows that EIFS is the answer.
 
EIFS? That's crazy, citizen. Let's have Catwoman (or Alessandro Munge, whoever's available) cloak it in leather. Like it were covered in a giant cape.
 
Batman said:
EIFS? That's crazy, citizen. Let's have Catwoman (or Alessandro Munge, whoever's available) cloak it in leather. Like it were covered in a giant cape.
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Then it could date Teeple's Origami Lofts ( "a glass core wrapped in a wild zinc robe" ).

A double-date if you and Robin tag along!
 
August 28th: More cladding up. It appears that the north wall will retain its brick finish

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someMidTowner said:
August 28th: More cladding up. It appears that the north wall will retain its brick finish
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A small victory. While the building is completely forgettable either way, any brick in the financial core is a welcome relief in an area so devoid of it.

Adma, I'm inclined to disagree that the original brick here was a response to the surrounding International/Modernism in the sense that brick never really went out of fashion. Pretty much every decade and every architectural style embraced brick somewhere or other; its versatility allows it to be adapted to almost any style. Here I view it as a sturdy, utilitarian finish for a generic "fabric" building. Just fitting in with the varied International crowd.
 
egotrippin said:
Adma, I'm inclined to disagree that the original brick here was a response to the surrounding International/Modernism in the sense that brick never really went out of fashion. Pretty much every decade and every architectural style embraced brick somewhere or other; its versatility allows it to be adapted to almost any style. Here I view it as a sturdy, utilitarian finish for a generic "fabric" building. Just fitting in with the varied International crowd.
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Not necessarily; it ain't just the brick, it's the way that you treat it. Which is what also made it different from, say, the earlier glazed-brick-heavy incarnation of 100 University. (And in some ways, it was also a product of an era that was "rediscovering" so-called "functionalist" Victorian brick warehouses and their like.)
 
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