A
AlvinofDiaspar
Guest
Globe: It's a Question of Scale (JBM - Bohemian Embassy)
From the Globe Real Estate:
It's all a question of scale
JOHN BENTLEY MAYS
The interesting public quarrel over what's to become of the Queen West Triangle -- the little wedge of industrial land south of Queen, between Dovercourt Road and Gladstone Avenue -- has been taken before the Ontario Municipal Board, where it stands at the time of this writing. At issue is the allowable density of development, with residential real estate developers wanting more of it, local artists and activists wanting less, and city hall wanting, more or less, what the developers want.
Which side the OMB will throw its weight behind is anybody's guess. But the hitherto abstract dispute put on some real-world meat and bones last week, when Baywood Homes took the Bohemian Embassy Flats & Lofts to market.
Located at 1171 Queen St. W., squarely inside the contested Triangle, this curiously titled project consists of 345 residential units distributed throughout two buildings. The one that fronts on Queen is proposed at nine storeys; the second is a blockish 19-storey tower intended to sit south of the first, away from Queen. Quite in line with other downtown condo developments, unit sizes in the Bohemian Embassy range from 610 square feet for a one-bedroom apartment ($206,900) up to 1,220 sq. ft. for a two-bedroom plus den and terrace ($439,900). Thirteen two-storey townhouses, situated at the base of the taller building, will go up for sale later. The whole arrangement stands on a parcel of land to be defined, on its south side, by the welcome extension of Sudbury Street up to Queen, alongside the railway corridor.
The target clientele of the project, according to advertisements, includes "hipsters" and "culture-loving urbanites." Until last week, I had not heard the word hipster used in a serious way since the end of the Second World War. But never mind, you get the point: The Bohemian Embassy is for Toronto's chic and funky young folk. Or, to be more demographically exact, it's apparently for the stylish people the developers have seen going in and out of the Gladstone and Drake hotels, and the shops along Queen.
Meanwhile, however, the architectural treatment broadcasts a very different message. In an interview at the presentation centre, architect Brian Sickle, of the mainline Toronto firm Page + Steele, told me his design was urged on by a sprit of "contextualism and neighbourliness" -- and indeed, looking at the model and renderings of the Bohemian Embassy, you get a sense of what he means: staid, steady as she goes, ordinary and modest.
Both the street-side building and the taller one are very plainly tailored compositions of steel, glass and brick, in consideration for the blue-collar history and visual texture of the area south of Queen. The gateway that attractively punctuates the nine-storey facade recalls (without being glum or heavy-handed about it) a Victorian factory entrance. The proposed height of this Queen Street face -- one of the things at issue in the current OMB hearing -- is, Mr. Sickle said, no greater than the imposing square tower of the Gladstone Hotel, across the street. In a further bid to make his structure respond to local architectural conditions, the architect has decorated the exterior with horizontal bands and setbacks marking typical building heights in the neighbourhood.
Baywood Homes just may come through the OMB process with permission to build the nine-storey part of the Bohemian Embassy. While taller than anyone except the developers wants, this 300-foot-long strip of urban landscape could arguably provide a needed street wall on the south side of Queen that is strong but does not loom or glower over the avenue.
The 19-storey building behind the short one is, however, another matter altogether. Though hardly high enough to be called a skyscraper -- my idea of such a thing is 20 storeys and up -- this tower nevertheless jars with the generally low, tattered rhythm of the district it's in.
It's right here that context matters. Queen Street, while one of Toronto's most venerable thoroughfares, is not a piece of great urban road like the downtown stretches of Bloor Street or Yonge Street. Bloor, and even shabby Yonge, were always destined to be lined with soaring monuments of steel and stone, and perhaps some day they shall be. Queen has always had a different destiny, since deep in the 19th century: to be a zone of workshops and workers, of places where the material culture of our civilization is made and shown and marketed. The scale appropriate to such enterprises is the artisan's shed and shop, the artist's studio; or, at the biggest, the compact factory building.
Let them build a 19-storey tower somewhere else in Toronto -- just not in the Queen West Triangle.
jmays@globeandmail.com
AoD
From the Globe Real Estate:
It's all a question of scale
JOHN BENTLEY MAYS
The interesting public quarrel over what's to become of the Queen West Triangle -- the little wedge of industrial land south of Queen, between Dovercourt Road and Gladstone Avenue -- has been taken before the Ontario Municipal Board, where it stands at the time of this writing. At issue is the allowable density of development, with residential real estate developers wanting more of it, local artists and activists wanting less, and city hall wanting, more or less, what the developers want.
Which side the OMB will throw its weight behind is anybody's guess. But the hitherto abstract dispute put on some real-world meat and bones last week, when Baywood Homes took the Bohemian Embassy Flats & Lofts to market.
Located at 1171 Queen St. W., squarely inside the contested Triangle, this curiously titled project consists of 345 residential units distributed throughout two buildings. The one that fronts on Queen is proposed at nine storeys; the second is a blockish 19-storey tower intended to sit south of the first, away from Queen. Quite in line with other downtown condo developments, unit sizes in the Bohemian Embassy range from 610 square feet for a one-bedroom apartment ($206,900) up to 1,220 sq. ft. for a two-bedroom plus den and terrace ($439,900). Thirteen two-storey townhouses, situated at the base of the taller building, will go up for sale later. The whole arrangement stands on a parcel of land to be defined, on its south side, by the welcome extension of Sudbury Street up to Queen, alongside the railway corridor.
The target clientele of the project, according to advertisements, includes "hipsters" and "culture-loving urbanites." Until last week, I had not heard the word hipster used in a serious way since the end of the Second World War. But never mind, you get the point: The Bohemian Embassy is for Toronto's chic and funky young folk. Or, to be more demographically exact, it's apparently for the stylish people the developers have seen going in and out of the Gladstone and Drake hotels, and the shops along Queen.
Meanwhile, however, the architectural treatment broadcasts a very different message. In an interview at the presentation centre, architect Brian Sickle, of the mainline Toronto firm Page + Steele, told me his design was urged on by a sprit of "contextualism and neighbourliness" -- and indeed, looking at the model and renderings of the Bohemian Embassy, you get a sense of what he means: staid, steady as she goes, ordinary and modest.
Both the street-side building and the taller one are very plainly tailored compositions of steel, glass and brick, in consideration for the blue-collar history and visual texture of the area south of Queen. The gateway that attractively punctuates the nine-storey facade recalls (without being glum or heavy-handed about it) a Victorian factory entrance. The proposed height of this Queen Street face -- one of the things at issue in the current OMB hearing -- is, Mr. Sickle said, no greater than the imposing square tower of the Gladstone Hotel, across the street. In a further bid to make his structure respond to local architectural conditions, the architect has decorated the exterior with horizontal bands and setbacks marking typical building heights in the neighbourhood.
Baywood Homes just may come through the OMB process with permission to build the nine-storey part of the Bohemian Embassy. While taller than anyone except the developers wants, this 300-foot-long strip of urban landscape could arguably provide a needed street wall on the south side of Queen that is strong but does not loom or glower over the avenue.
The 19-storey building behind the short one is, however, another matter altogether. Though hardly high enough to be called a skyscraper -- my idea of such a thing is 20 storeys and up -- this tower nevertheless jars with the generally low, tattered rhythm of the district it's in.
It's right here that context matters. Queen Street, while one of Toronto's most venerable thoroughfares, is not a piece of great urban road like the downtown stretches of Bloor Street or Yonge Street. Bloor, and even shabby Yonge, were always destined to be lined with soaring monuments of steel and stone, and perhaps some day they shall be. Queen has always had a different destiny, since deep in the 19th century: to be a zone of workshops and workers, of places where the material culture of our civilization is made and shown and marketed. The scale appropriate to such enterprises is the artisan's shed and shop, the artist's studio; or, at the biggest, the compact factory building.
Let them build a 19-storey tower somewhere else in Toronto -- just not in the Queen West Triangle.
jmays@globeandmail.com
AoD