Lenser
Senior Member
Well said, freshcutgrass.
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Toronto building boom
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Tewder
Senior Member
Yes, in the same way that brownstones are just as iconic to NYC as art deco scrapers. To which...
In fact, some might say that the critical mass of those rectilinear blocks makes them somewhat iconic to Toronto, along with the fact that you don't find this in quite the same way in too many other North American cities.
... and as for the rest of the high rise built form I think we could argue that a recognizable (if not yet quite 'iconic') form is emerging that may take on a more iconic status as it grows (I'm thinking of the work of aA and D&S, for example).
Hipster Duck
Senior Member
Unfortunately, I think Vancouver has already claimed the glass condo tower as their vernacular, and people the world over recognize it as such. Here are some examples.
Planners and architects are more apt to say that Toronto, or some other city, is "Vancouverizing" than they are to say that a city is "Torontoizing". It doesn't matter that, at the end of our boom, we will have built more of these kinds of towers than Vancouver and may have even had the chance to explore the form more fully. Vancouver got their first and that's what matters.
Tewder
Senior Member
... though I agree there is an inconic highrise form in Vancouver, isn't 'vancouverization' about a certain blandness of form (i.e. a proliferation of nebulous green glass buildings that could be almost anywhere)?
When I think about the best of what aA does I feel it is very distinct from the Vancouver form, especially given the hallmark of its strong heritage/Toronto contextualism, as at the Distillery or Market Wharf in more traditional areas, or as with their iterations of post-war modernism such as at Casa and so on. In this sense, unlike the Vancouver form, these buildings feel like they belong in Toronto, which is sort of the opposite of vanouverism. Some other factors that may shape this as an emerging form identifiable to Toronto:
1) The proliferation of other projects/designs with a similar approach (Five for example).
2) Toronto is experiencing a building boom at a time when other cities aren't. The resulting fabric of form will absolutely feel very different from what is found in other cities that are missing this boom.
3) The uniqueness of Toronto's central low rise form is creating unique design responses to increase density, and the proliferation of heritage building with glass scraper may come to dominate the Toronto streetscape in a way it doesn't in other cities.
As inconceivable as it may seem right now the combination of the above three factors may result in an acknowledged, recognizable Toronto form that at some point may become iconic.
When I think about the best of what aA does I feel it is very distinct from the Vancouver form, especially given the hallmark of its strong heritage/Toronto contextualism, as at the Distillery or Market Wharf in more traditional areas, or as with their iterations of post-war modernism such as at Casa and so on. In this sense, unlike the Vancouver form, these buildings feel like they belong in Toronto, which is sort of the opposite of vanouverism. Some other factors that may shape this as an emerging form identifiable to Toronto:
1) The proliferation of other projects/designs with a similar approach (Five for example).
2) Toronto is experiencing a building boom at a time when other cities aren't. The resulting fabric of form will absolutely feel very different from what is found in other cities that are missing this boom.
3) The uniqueness of Toronto's central low rise form is creating unique design responses to increase density, and the proliferation of heritage building with glass scraper may come to dominate the Toronto streetscape in a way it doesn't in other cities.
As inconceivable as it may seem right now the combination of the above three factors may result in an acknowledged, recognizable Toronto form that at some point may become iconic.
Hipster Duck
Senior Member
Actually, I would disagree with you and see it the opposite way around: Vancouverism is a contextual response to the city and its values, Toronto's condo vernacular isn't.
For starters, Vancouver was the city that invented the glass point tower, so the credit goes to them. This is not unlike an art or literary movement, where the first person to explore a theme gets the credit, not necessarily someone who came afterward and improved upon it. In that sense, I wouldn't say that Vancouver's condos could be "anyplace". Instead, I would say that those anyplace cities that build glass condos are paying homage to Vancouver.
Secondly, Vancouver-style condos ascribe to the strong city planning values and tradition of that city, mostly by decree. A Vancouver condo is a heavily regulated form, goverened by height and view corridor constraints, landscaping and aesthetic guidelines and a hefty community amenity contribution that pays for an improved public realm in the surrounding neighbourhood. They're also far from bland, and this is demonstrated by the fact that Vancouver's condo neighbourhoods are some of its most lively (notably Yaletown), while Toronto's condo neighbourhoods are some of its most banal (notably the Bay Street corridor and Cityplace).
Unlike Vancouvewr, it's hard to see how a Toronto condo tower is a contextualism of the city's values, unless those values are about making as much money as possible. Far from being the regulated form that it is in Vancouver, Toronto's condo towers are more or less approved as the developer wants them. If there's some vernacularism to Toronto's condos, it largely has to do with the fact that we place the design of our condo towers in the hands of three or four local architects who are bound to design similar products because they have run out of ideas.
Okay, I am more inclined to agree with what you have said here, but it begs the question: if all these factors have been taking place, why hasn't an internationally-recognized "Toronto form" emerged already? I mean, we can always play the waiting game, and expect that that "some day" will materialize in the near future, but if we've built 100,000 condo units in the last ten years, I would kind of hope that that day would have happened by now.
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scarberiankhatru
Senior Member
It certainly is in our DNA, from the CN Tower to the Zoo pavilions to Marilyn to OCAD to the NY Towers. But our CBD skyscrapers are not iconic because they were mostly built by banks that are conservative even as far as banks go. Of course, something like the TD Centre *was* iconic when first built, but the architectural trickling down and dumbing down later on created heaps of bland, boxy stuff that was anything but iconic and washed the original effects out.
TrickyRicky
Senior Member
I'm not particularly vested in Toronto having a unique or aesthetically interesting built form but if you step back for a second and contemplate the idea that Toronto is just an "anywhere's ville" the question is, is it really? What I mean is does Toronto really just look like some kind of hypothetical average city? And if the answer is yes, isn't that kind of interesting to? Kind of like how you can only hire a Canadian if you want an authentically all American news anchor.
Also, isn't our blah bland present boom somewhat consistent with the theme of our previous blah bland or downright nasty booms? If so, and given Toronto's relatively respectable standing amongst it's peers internationally, wouldn't this be a strong rebuttal to those who put built form aesthetics at the forefront of consideration in urban planning? On aggregate is good architecture and design good for cities?
Also, isn't our blah bland present boom somewhat consistent with the theme of our previous blah bland or downright nasty booms? If so, and given Toronto's relatively respectable standing amongst it's peers internationally, wouldn't this be a strong rebuttal to those who put built form aesthetics at the forefront of consideration in urban planning? On aggregate is good architecture and design good for cities?
Urban Shocker
Doyenne
In what real sense does what Vancouver builds, or claims credit for doing first, matter to what's happening elsewhere, or mean that homage is being paid to them?
RC8
Senior Member
Toronto quite clearly has a unique architectural style based around boxy concrete modernism.
As a non-native Torontonian the relationship between FCP, the 60s blocks, the brutalist concrete boxes (Sheraton, Four Seasons, Hilton), and the current glass boxes is glaringly obvious. The Bay and Gable neighbourhoods are equally unique.
I'm not particularly fond of boxes (I hate them with a passion in fact), but they are done very differently in Toronto than elsewhere, and it's been the case for at least 60 years.
As a non-native Torontonian the relationship between FCP, the 60s blocks, the brutalist concrete boxes (Sheraton, Four Seasons, Hilton), and the current glass boxes is glaringly obvious. The Bay and Gable neighbourhoods are equally unique.
I'm not particularly fond of boxes (I hate them with a passion in fact), but they are done very differently in Toronto than elsewhere, and it's been the case for at least 60 years.
Torontovibe
Senior Member
old boy
Senior Member
If you go by the names of some of these GTA projects, you can see that Toronto takes cues, quite liberally, from anywhere. Many streetscapes in Toronto and Vancouver are interchangeable. A clever poster on this site removed the mountains from the Vancouver panorama, and just guess what resulted.
Tewder
Senior Member
... but the design response to that contextualism is a sort of 'don't look at me' blandness of form that ultimately is in deference to the gorgeous views of mountains and sea... and this is in no way to diminish Vancouver, the approach was indeed mindfull and innovative, and the contextualism works well there as you have described.
As for Toronto I grant that it can be a little distracting wading through the banality of the vast bulk of developments, but if we do look at the best of what's emerging I think we can see a clear contextualism at play and one that is definitely distinct from Vancouver. It may just take a little time and perspective for the public perception of this to take shape, is all.
Urban Shocker
Doyenne
I can't see anything particularly homage-to-Vancouver-ish in what we're building here, though I'd be interested to learn of it. Perhaps there's a structural/engineering link, whereas I tend to dwell mostly in the realm of the aesthetic. I can see links to another city, for sure - Ex-Montrealer Peter Clewes is on record, in this JBM interview for instance, as saying how he admired Peter Dickinson's CIBC tower there and I think he's channeling that particular form over and over again with his anorexic condo towers here.
“Montreal was seizing the day, and there was some very
exciting stuff going on. I just became fascinated with the craft
and art of building. I remember my father taking me down to
La Tour CIBC by Peter Dickinson. I was amazed, though I didn’t
know why. But it was, in its day, an expression of the kind of
economic power that Canada and Montreal had attained. It was
a proud, self-assured building, a celebration.”
“Montreal was seizing the day, and there was some very
exciting stuff going on. I just became fascinated with the craft
and art of building. I remember my father taking me down to
La Tour CIBC by Peter Dickinson. I was amazed, though I didn’t
know why. But it was, in its day, an expression of the kind of
economic power that Canada and Montreal had attained. It was
a proud, self-assured building, a celebration.”
Urban Shocker
Doyenne
Part of it has to do with lineage, I believe - so many post-WW2 Toronto firms begatting other local firms ( Diamond and Myers begatting KPMB, for instance, and other parallel spinoffs from that generation, and a new brood now following them; and other firms from the '40s and '50s begatting cousins and nephews and nieces ... )
Urban Shocker
Doyenne
Returning to this point from your initial post, I think there have been three phases of major development - the Victorian age and beyond when the street grid was expanded in an established form of arterial roads and retail, bounding residential neighbourhoods; the post-WW2 "concrete Toronto" of suburban sprawl which reached those "barriers to outward expansion" by using the same arterial street grid with lower density residential infill; and the present intensification along major arterial roads, particularly downtown. As you indicate, the more towers go up, the more difficult it becomes to differentiate one tower from the mass of towers, and I'm perfectly happy if we fail to hit the jackpot and build that magic "iconic" tower if, instead, we create a repetitive yet easily modified, practical and attractive form that works for us and differentiates Toronto by being a collective statement.