H
Hydrogen
Guest
The tower is (so far) 23 floors above a five storey podium.
I think something within double the height should be fine. Maybe something around 7-14 floors. You can find many excellent examples of mid rises just down the street in another historic district at Jarvis & King.
Why stop there? Why not 75 storeys?
Thank you, Andrew, for posting a picture of the eight storey, all-brick-all-the-time, Chernobylesque bunker of Rack House 'M' for the benefit of the preservationist crowd, most of whom one suspects have never seen it before. Clearly, it was built without any regard to the much earlier two storey buildings adjacent to it that match one-another in style and form. And, who knows, perhaps other fine old buildings were destroyed in the 1920's to make way for it? Fortunately, the beast must die ... so that something better rises!
It makes perfect sense, Hydrogen. Not only will the new podium building be a better match in scale to the adjacent older buildings, but it will relate to the design of the other additions - the Pure Spirit podium and the low arm building at the south end of the site. And the tower itself will be subtly different ( gently billowing, like the nautical motif used at street level in the lobby ) from the Pure Spirit tower, yet related to it and the other two proposed towers in materials. Thus, good design knits them all - the new and the old - together.
The circular arguements regarding the relative aesthetic merits of the new towers don't address the real issue at hand, namely: what effect will these towers have on the district's ability to become a viable tourist attraction?
Are tourists attracted to condos?
(Some of us might be).
Also, although I understand the concerns with protecting heritage buildings and don't think we should take this issue lightly, for me one of the aesthetic/design hallmarks of Toronto in general is this stark contrast between heritage and new. Think of the Crystal rising out of the ROM, or the addition to the RCM, or the tower rising out of 1 King West, or Alsop's OCAD and eventually Gehry's AGO looming over the Grange and surrounding streets of Victorians, or the Festival Tower that will loom over lowrise heritage buildings all around, or Calatrava at BCE Place as backdrop to the Bank of Montreal building. This is part of what makes Toronto unique, imo.