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Re: Project Symphony

Indeed. How quickly the unconventional becomes flavour of the month. Fast times we live in.
 
Re: Project Symphony

buildingbabel:

In a thread about a new Alsop building in Yonkers, NY you stated:

It is an iconic building, intended to stand out from the crowd rather than blend in with it, designed by an artist who is also an architect. They're the height of fashion these days and can be quite beautiful - as I think OCAD is.
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p083.ezboard.com/ftoronto...1778.topic


but when it comes to this building:

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.
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Why the differing standard? Why is it wrong to want a beautiful iconic building rather than the dull (it can be well designed and dull, just as something can be iconic, beautiful and practical) solution Diamond has come up with?
 
Re: Project Symphony

SD2: No differing standard. I've oohed and ahhhed about the AGO, ROM and OCAD designs like everyone else. I've never said it was wrong to want a beautiful iconic building that stands out rather than blends in. But Diamond isn't a "starchitect" or work that way: his halfhearted gesture with that huge illuminated duct-cleaning bag ( will it be full of dead mice, lost small change and matted hair? ) or whatever it is he parked next to Project Symphony proves that. The reality seems to be that Miller, the house architect of his administration, and TEDCO are gangbusters for a second term built legacy for the Mayor - but that doesn't negate the power of Big Hair cap-"A" Architecture, and there are plenty of places around town that it can go. An infinite number really - OCAD would be a showstopper no matter what dreary three storey academic pile it was parked over - or parked over most other places for that matter.
 
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.
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But also, the frames of reference we're working with today are far more blurry and subjective than they were 30 years ago--aside from corporate/official affiliations, it's no longer the simple "establishment" vs "anti-establishment" thing it once was. (That's why NPS is such a complicated matter; which approach to its renewal is "progressive", or "regressive", anyway?)

I don't mind the urge to strive better on the Project Symphony site, and the way Jack Diamond's trying to dig in his heels really has that "last groanness" about it. Like Don Imus, it isn't so much that Diamond did something wrong, it's that he's mishandled his response to the attacks on said "something wrong".

However, there's something about this current urge-to-strive that lacks the one-time gravitas of clear positive popular or professional or creative-class consensus, that which guided everything from the creation of New City Hall to the stop-the-Spadina movement. It's the pigeonholed-as-geeks leading the outcry, unfortunately, making mountains out of molehills as geeks tend to do (God bless'em). (And the pigeonhole deepens with the vehemence of attacks on Diamond, not for this work but his entire perceived oeuvre and modus operandi.) They're Fountainheading themselves, in spite of themselves...
 
Re: Project Symphony

SD2: No differing standard. I've oohed and ahhhed about the AGO, ROM and OCAD designs like everyone else. I've never said it was wrong to want a beautiful iconic building that stands out rather than blends in. But Diamond isn't a "starchitect" or work that way: his halfhearted gesture with that huge illuminated duct-cleaning bag ( will it be full of dead mice, lost small change and matted hair? ) or whatever it is he parked next to Project Symphony proves that. The reality seems to be that Miller, the house architect of his administration, and TEDCO are gangbusters for a second term built legacy for the Mayor - but that doesn't negate the power of Big Hair cap-"A" Architecture, and there are plenty of places around town that it can go. An infinite number really - OCAD would be a showstopper no matter what dreary three storey academic pile it was parked over - or parked over most other places for that matter.
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Diamond isn't that kind of architect, but why do we have to use Diamond?

Why can't it be good design and something more defining than a run-of-the-mill office project?
 
TEDCO owns the land. The review panel has twice approved the design. On what basis should the architect be removed from the project?
 
Re: Project Symphony

On what basis does this project belong just east of the Jarvis Slip and not just east of Sherbourne Park? TEDCO owns both properties, the site east of Jarvis was to be angled as per East Bayfront public design sessions, the site east of Sherbourne Park was to be a rectangular block, the property east of Jarvis was to be a landmark, the property just east of Sherbourne Park was not expected to be a landmark. Is this Project Symphony more of a triangular lot landmark or a rectangular lot non-landmark?
 
All we've seen are a couple of front-on renderings and no site plan. I would imagine the big lighthouse - or whatever it is - will be the iconic thingy that everyone will be able to see from all the angled vantage points that it is required to be seen from in the great, visionary plan.
 
Re: Project Symphony

context.jpg
 
That's the original rendering, not the one that the review panel says is improved. The lighthouse thingy goes to the left.
 
Re: Project Symphony

There was a lighthouse thingy on the original as well. That would put it in the green area.
 
Re: Project Symphony

I say we resurrect the design for the structures in Norman Foster's entry into the waterfront design competition as the lighthouse for this project. Could it be done?
 
Re: Project Symphony

wylie:

How about Alsop's Liverpool Fourth Grace?

AoD
 
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