Toronto Corus Quay | ?m | 8s | Waterfront Toronto | Diamond Schmitt

Re: Turf war in Tinytown

That's the funny thing, Ganj - you're right. It's not.

Looking at the Star website today, and saw a piece by Hume about the Donlands. Attached was a rendering of the revitalised area, one of the trademark pretty pictures that the endless EA's, design competitions, and precinct plans have drawn up for us, replete with big, green leafy trees, frolicking citizens, and lovely streetscapes.

I think the backlash here is less about the building itself and more about the broken promise it represents. In the planning process, that site was supposed to be a landmark public place. And we got sold on a new spirit of city-building built around public consultation, expert panels, and design excellence.

But, surprise surprise, when money comes calling and the Mayor wants something done, it all goes out the window. His campaign co-chair gets called in to draw up something else entirely, pronto, and it doesn't really matter what the experts or the willagers think.

Of course there's flex built into the planning process, but this isn't some 20-storey tower going on a plot that was meant for 6. It's not even just a dull building where we were promised a great one. It's a cynical slap that makes the whole deliberative, consultative process look hollow.

Why do we spend so much public money on planning consultations, assembling design review panels, and commissioning those pretty pictures, if the powers that be are just going to do an end-run around them?

I'm feeling the disenchantment of someone who actually took the bait. I should have been curmudgeonly about this all along.
 
Re: Turf war in Tinytown

Exactly, the issue is not the building. This building could have been built on any other site on the East Bayfront and the complaints would probably have been minimal. It could have been built on the north side of Queens Quay or to the east on either side of Sherbourne Park. Why is it being built here and in this place when the whole East Bayfront is part of the redevelopment and TEDCO owns the whole thing? The problem is that THIS site is THE site. We were promised sight-lines and a monumental building and we are getting reduced sight-lines and a normal building. The consultations talked about a landmark anchoring the East Bayfront... a landmark is something that draws people to check it out. OCAD is a landmark, the CN Tower is a landmark, public facilities like stadiums, museums, and art galleries are landmarks, and even a building which is private use but must be seen is a landmark. Landmarks don't need to be expensive... even the sales center for loft condos on the west side of downtown with the funky shaped multi-colour windows is more of a landmark than this. What we are getting is a Maritime Life building or a Telus building which blocks views of the waterfront. Maritime Life buildings are great and give us jobs... but they don't need to be on the waterfront on what has been marketed as THE most important site of the whole redevelopment plan.
 
Why not the east side of Sherbourne Park

Through all of this I can't figure out why this building is not going on the site flush against the waterfront and the east side of Sherbourne Park. This building fits almost exactly with the plan on that site. That site offers the waterfront, a good place for this LED lighthouse, and is another site owned by TEDCO. With the Sherbourne Park development to start this year it would be perfect timing to build it there. The only reason I can think of that this building isn't going in that location is that someone is stroking their egos into believing that this building is actually a landmark. This building isn't a monument to Toronto's waterfront... it is a monument to the egos of Miller and Diamond.
 
Re: Turf war in Tinytown

"Toronto is made up of continuity and not discontinuities"

No. It most evidently is not. I'm hard-pressed to think of a city anywhere that is *less* made up of "continuity", architecturally or culturally speaking, than TO. And regardless, what existing "continuity" or context is there on the waterfront? Zero. Plus, "iconic and exuberant" are now indicative of "provincial insecurity"? This is all simply dumb.

Diamond's day is over, and this project is almost inarguably a huge let down in its thorough lack of inspiring vision.
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It isn't that his day is over. It's that the self-conscious absolutism of this particular cast of "continuity and not discontinuities" is obsolete.

But look; the gist of what Diamond represents was *genuinely* inspiring vision back in the 60s and 70s, especially; and the gist remains valid to this day. Y'know, as something symbiotic with the Jane Jacobs revolution. i.e. you want "iconic and exuberant"? Go to the Annex, the Danforth, Roncy et al, and look around you, as Xtopher Wren would say. To trash that on "Toronto non-continuity" grounds is absolutely asinine

In the end, the trouble is: Jack Diamond is an architect, and architects love to gesture. Sloganeering absolutism is their style; it's signaturism, it's an emblem of "personal intergrity". He's presenting himself as *the* architect of "continuity and not discontinuities".

In which case, the best thing to do is to argue that "iconic and exuberant" can in fact be a valid extension of "continuity and not discontinuities", rather than an rejection thereof. IOW, Jack Diamond isn't necessarily wrong; but we must be mindful how overfetishizing "continuity" can be debased by anyone from overzealous NIMBYs to New Urbanists. Use those who *still* have a toxic hate-on for OCAD or Graduate House as a reminder of the limits of an overly simplistic "continuity fetish".

But please, folks, in the process, be careful when you demand an inspiring vision. You may find yourself blinded by Jenna Jameson, not realizing that Julia Stiles might be, in the long term, better...
 
Re: Why not the east side of Sherbourne Park

Having spoken against this proposal, and still considering it dull and lumpen and inappropriate for its context, I do find some of the reaction overdone. I've always found Hume to be hysterical at his worst:

If more proof were needed about why Toronto will never achieve the greatness it craves, it was provided this week by the Waterfront Design Review Panel. Hume could easily write an article tomorrow and state that some building or project will completely turn the city around and put it on the map. He's like that.

Project Symphony is critical because it will establish the context for the waterfront. Uh, No. The context for the waterfront is set by Harbourfront Centre and will be for some time. This location, though important, is not required to set any context for anything.

Pity this city. Then get angry, very angry. Having walked the waterfronts in both Amsterdam and Hamburg, and found many parts of them sterile regardless of the self-congratulatory moaning on their parts, I know that this building will neither make nor break the eastern waterfront. Is it dull? Yes. Is it harmful? I doubt it, though what Lisa Rochon said about the entrance to the parking garage is quite chilling. Is it a lost opportunity for a more credible building? Yes. Is it the end of the world? No. It's a dullish squat box that could be anywhere, with a huge pippydoo beside, where we have the right to expect more.
 
Re: Turf war in Tinytown

I think just about any site can be THE site if what you want is a "landmark" building, EnviroTO. The example you quote - OCAD - proves that.

If it doesn't happen at the foot of Jarvis because the fix was in between the Mayor, his house architect, and TEDCO to get a "normal" building as you call it, it can happen somewhere else. We've got plenty of waterfront, and there are plenty of architects who do the currently fashionable abnormal.

But beware of fashion - SkyDome was the hottest thing ever when it was built and how is it regarded now? And look at the collateral damage that can occur when a high fashion look becomes ( as it always does eventually ) highly unfashionable and the iconic baby is thrown out with the unfashionable bathwater - the fate of Boston City Hall.

adma's Wren reference seems apt when applied to Toronto Style: it is all around us, and it is an expression of our values. Iconic and exuberant discontinuities certainly stand out in a city defined by continuities, but I see a counterpoint in the two approaches, not one as being an extension of the other.

Perhaps Hariri will build something "cantilevered"? I've said several times on this forum I think he'd be a great choice to design an iconic cultural building that represents the city. And he knows as well as the rest of us that Diamond doesn't grab a concept ( such as "cantilevered on the water" ) out of thin air and design the contents to fit the exterior shell - his provocative comment drew an appropriate response.
 
Re: Why not the east side of Sherbourne Park

babel:

But that's beside the point - his architectural and city building ideology should be subservient to what has already been decided by the public process. For him to suggest that "the rest of us don't know better" and that he is somehow upholding the greater good for the rest of us is arrogance of the highest order.

That I have an issue with.

Besides, iconic architecture does not necessarily equate to disposability years down the road. Just as mediocrity doesn't equate to urban success.

AoD
 
But that's beside the point - his architectural and city building ideology should be subservient to what has already been decided by the public process. For him to suggest that "the rest of us don't know better" and that he is somehow upholding the greater good for the rest of us is arrogance of the highest order.
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Yet the paradox is; 30 years ago, it was Jack Diamond (along w/Jane Jacobs and the rest) who would have been positioned as being on, well, "your/our side". *He* was the one fighting the "rest of us don't know better" arrogance-of-the-highest-order attitude of establishment architects, planners, developers, politicians etc.

And, I reiterate...these days, beware the perils of *over*-fighting said arrogance. It's worthy of note that Jack Diamond's been on record as stating an anti-walkway position re NPS...whose side is he on, then? "Public process", or extra-public "greater good"? (An interesting urban-philosophical question to ponder.)
 
adma:

The only difference is - 30 years down the road, his involvement with TEDCO is hardly "anti-establishment" considering the modus operandi of the latter. Interesting how subversion can work both ways.

Interesting that you should mention his stance on NPS - should his firm be called Mathers and Haldenby now?

AoD
 
"beware of fashion"? Diamond's minimalist neo-modernism is nothing if not the fashion of the day. The jury is still out as to whether it will age well.

Iconic architecture is rarely fashion focused, which is one of the reasons such architecture is 'iconic'.
 
But beware of fashion - SkyDome was the hottest thing ever when it was built and how is it regarded now?
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SkyDome may not be the most attractive building but nobody can deny it is a landmark. I wonder how much better SkyDome would have aged if it had been completed to the architects envisioned design.

I don't think that when setting out to create a landmark that fashion should set the tone... the goal should be to create something unique. The building Diamond proposes is not unique... it fits in to the current style of low rise office buildings. There is nothing wrong with that except the TWRC East Bayfront plan and all the effort and public consultations that went into that plan chose this site to house a landmark. Many other sites in the East Bayfront plan have space for non-landmark low rise mixed use buildings.
 
Project Symphony

I think if anyone is up against the whims and dictats of ideology it is Diamond, in this case. The planning process constantly shifts back and forth as fashions come and go. Tall towers isolated by green space / expressways downtown / Metro Centre / vehicular traffic separated from pedestrians and buried under Bay Street, you name it we've seen them propose it all. One of my favourite unbuilt masterpiece blasts-from-the-past in this regard was their big spider icon thingy that was supposed to crouch over the intersection of Yonge and Queen in some plan from the '50's or '60's: we're getting by just fine without it.

Iconic buildings are the height of fashion and appeal to those who see good design as a question of standing out in a crowd not fitting in. All the ooohing and ahhhing on this forum proves it. Neo-Modernism is a continuation of our established post-WW2 style after the brief hiccup of PoMo.
 
So neo-modernism is not the fashion of the day? This will come as quite the surprise to the architects around the world who are presently practicing it. And this will certainly come as a bigger surprise to the Gehrys and Libeskinds who thought that they were bucking the prevailing winds by building iconic architecture that was different from contemporary architecture.
 
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