Toronto 906 Yonge Street | 139.17m | 40s | Gupta | Arcadis

Looks like we're catching up to 1990's Vancouver in the preservation of ersatz tudor department:

tudormanor.jpg



Maybe there's an artistic way out, like in this "wooden skyscraper" engraving from Brodsky & Utkin:

shipoffools-brodskyandutkin.jpg


Otherwise, I'm with US on this one - put Ridpaths on top of the structure. It'll be darling, controversial, and confuse the facadectomy habit in this city. They could even keep the store open.

ridpathelevation.jpg
 
junctionist said:
Its Tudor Revival architecture should be judged on its design details. Revivals were all the rage back then even among the most modern designers up to WWI. (The most modern tended to create simplified Gothic designs.) Reviving the Tudor style was just a creative alternative.
Click to expand...

True. I don't think fieldstone was really a Tudor thing.
 
CanadianNational said:
Otherwise, I'm with US on this one - put Ridpaths on top of the structure. It'll be darling, controversial, and confuse the facadectomy habit in this city. They could even keep the store open.
Click to expand...

Haha that is ridiculously awesome. Definitely would be a "WTF is that?" moment for anyone driving down Yonge St. for the first time.
 
I'm perfectly serious. Old buildings are shifted horizontally all the time ( Campbell House, Dempsey's Hardware, Scadding House and the Old Rectory behind the Eaton Centre etc. etc. ) so there's no reason why some of them couldn't also be shifted vertically.
 
Others here ( interchange, I believe ... ) have suggested that facades, if they simply must be saved, could be installed half way up a building and tilted slightly. I quite like that idea too.
 
Perhaps, since this is likely to be a thin sliver of shaved Mock Tudorbethan stuck on the front of this tower, it could be mounted on an exterior elevator system, wheeled up or down the surface of the tower and parked wherever the system operator decides?
 
Urban Shocker said:
Perhaps, since this is likely to be a thin sliver of shaved Mock Tudorbethan stuck on the front of this tower, it could be mounted on an exterior elevator system, wheeled up or down the surface of the tower and parked wherever the system operator decides?
Click to expand...

FINALLY!!! Someone comes up with a sensible proposal!
 
Except that wouldn't that compound the silliness you imagine? And come to think of it, by turning it into a finial rather than a ground-floor thing, you're not addressing the banality of the tower.

Then again, speaking of banality, one can go too far the other direction, i.e. not only retain Ridpaths, but give a gargantuan Ridpathian cladding to the gawdawful 890 Yonge building next door. (Ah, I need an asprin just thinking about that)

(Which actually reminds me of one of my favourite urban incidents on Yonge north of Davisville: a half-timbered pub in Tom Jones Medieval, next door to a little gem of a two-story glass-walled dental office, a pure International Style conceit which, through juxtaposition and a common colour scheme, magically becomes an ultra-abstracted late-medieval/Perpendicular-Gothic by association...)
 
Urban Shocker said:
Perhaps, since this is likely to be a thin sliver of shaved Mock Tudorbethan stuck on the front of this tower, it could be mounted on an exterior elevator system, wheeled up or down the surface of the tower and parked wherever the system operator decides?
Click to expand...

Sounds delightful, there's even something of a precedent...

sperone-lead01.jpg
 
Though we haven't seen an actual render, I think this is a stupid looking proposal, and I actually like the idea of putting it on the top better. But given that that probably won't happen, all I ask is that the ballroom, or whatever it is, on the second floor is saved- it's actually magnificent.
 
You must log in or register to post here.

Back
Top