Toronto Forma | 308m | 84s | Great Gulf | Gehry Partners

^Now let's all play a game, and see how many inaccuracies there are in the statement above.... anybody??
 
... and the folks who toiled away at the Distillery would probably be just as equally surprised to see what was done there!

I agree a 100%, however, that isn't a fair Comparision.

I saw the buildings at the M/G site and then went over to the St. Lawrence market on Front st. between Yonge and Church sts, now those are real heritage buildings with a lot history. The St. Lawrence buildings are head & shoulders above the warehouses on King st. and they're more comparable to the Distillery.

And I think, in time, the M/G buildings will be considered architectural monuments for the 21st century.

Btw, The TIFF has created, in it's short life, as much if not more heritage for the city than the buildings in question.
 
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^Now let's all play a game, and see how many inaccuracies there are in the statement above.... anybody??

Relax, I dont care enough about the topic to fact check every statement. This isnt wikipedia hombre

You should get the gist of what I'm saying though.
 
Are you sure your remarks are on the right site? I think you meant to write them on porn site but mistakenly posted it here.

Though there's a reasonable metaphor there, i.e. a lot of this wish for "amazing" "monuments of the 21st century" reminds me of pubescent boys for whom feminine desirability is defined by the glossy plastic Barbie dolls on porn sites, to the point where they don't know how to handle real women unless said women groom themselves to look like said glossy porn-site girls.

I mean--sure, we could use a few monuments, just like we can use a few purty babes. But a lot of this obsession w/modern-day "amazing" seems, to me, to betray an inability to come to terms w/the pre-existing environment at large, never mind at this particular location.

And there's a reason why the "porn" metaphor often comes up re skyscraper and new-architecture fanboy sites.
 
Your line of thinking is flawed, because to you, no matter how architecturally significant these buildings will be, they will always be "new" and therefore, inferior. If we can set a point system for a building's desirability, many (legitimately) significant heritage buildings would score high enough to almost guarantee their continued existence. Even these buildings would receive a certain amount of points just based on their age. However, that is not nearly enough for them to be as desirable as M-G.

Had 300 Front been proposed here, I'd be on the other side of the argument, but M-G is certainly nothing like 300 Front, and for that reason, I am very supportive of the demolition of these warehouses.
 
Years ago, at a hockey game someone yelled “Gretsky! You’re a bum!†every time he touched the puck.

Some people get psychic reward attacking Greatness instead of celebrating it. Actually, it’s more passive aggressive. They don’t object to Greatness, they need it too, they pick it apart while secretly supporting it.
Attacking Banal and celebrating Greatness is too ‘crowd’ for Sophists. Sophistry counts, not the outcome. Case in point, objections like demographic homogenization, sustainability, leaks, longevity, possibility of future compromises, low cost housing shortages, parking, point tower concerns, need for low rise elsewhere...migratory birds, etc. Another recent objection was that building towers on this site reduces construction on this site (yes that was said!. Most of these objections have been demolished, but that’s not the point.

Adma is smart, I rarely understand his arguments (my limitation, not his) but when I do I learn something. I just wish he’s pick on ROCP, Aura, Trump, Museum House, Infinity. I wish he was on the side of the angels…
 
Though there's a reasonable metaphor there, i.e. a lot of this wish for "amazing" "monuments of the 21st century" reminds me of pubescent boys for whom feminine desirability is defined by the glossy plastic Barbie dolls on porn sites, to the point where they don't know how to handle real women unless said women groom themselves to look like said glossy porn-site girls.

I mean--sure, we could use a few monuments, just like we can use a few purty babes. But a lot of this obsession w/modern-day "amazing" seems, to me, to betray an inability to come to terms w/the pre-existing environment at large, never mind at this particular location.

This metaphor doesn't work since you're making the assumption that one set of grooming standards is more natural or "pre-existing" than another or that occurring before another paradigm somehow gives it more legitimacy, which of course is not the case.

Grooming standards, like buildings, are entirely socially constructed and have no existence in any kind of biological fact. Everyone, everyday, somehow deviates from 'natural' appearance by wearing clothes, putting on makeup, trimming body and facial hair, using soap and fragrances and god knows how many ways. None of these choices are 'pre-existing.'

To use your example of pubic waxing, it's really just a kind of prudish conservatism which has become stranded in a few outmoded relics. Women choosing to wax doesn't make them less "real" than women who choose not to, just like men who choose to shave our facial hair aren't less real than anyone else. It's a ridiculous argument to make considering how prevalent waxing has become amongst women and (more and more) men, all of whom have valid reasons for not wanting a thicket of useless hair down there!

To bring it back to the buildings, you are assuming that 'heritage status' gives these buildings some kind of intrinsic worth as 'natural' or somehow more authentic than whatever would replace them. Now, legally, of course heritage status does have meaning, but socially the term does not. Our government made the heritage laws to promote certain approaches to urban development.

Eventually, the argument becomes circular. The warehouses are valuable because they are heritage buildings. They are heritage buildings because they are designated as heritage buildings. They are designated heritage buildings because they are heritage buildings. It may well be a legal fact that their designation implies certain procedures have to be taken, but when comparing the warehouses to M-G as a matter of public interest, their designation doesn't really matter.

It's the reason why opponents of brazilians/manzilians have come off as so ossified. They act as though the "glossy plastic Barbie doll" aesthetic is somehow unnatural without accepting that their own aesthetics are just as normative! Very few people are interested in returning to the sexual norms of the 1950s!

We live in a post-deferential society; if people want to defend afro-pubes they will have to prove why they're better than alternatives and not really on an flimsy dichotomy between 'pre-existing' and 'fake'
 
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Though there's a reasonable metaphor there, i.e. a lot of this wish for "amazing" "monuments of the 21st century" reminds me of pubescent boys for whom feminine desirability is defined by the glossy plastic Barbie dolls on porn sites, to the point where they don't know how to handle real women unless said women groom themselves to look like said glossy porn-site girls.

I mean--sure, we could use a few monuments, just like we can use a few purty babes. But a lot of this obsession w/modern-day "amazing" seems, to me, to betray an inability to come to terms w/the pre-existing environment at large, never mind at this particular location.

And there's a reason why the "porn" metaphor often comes up re skyscraper and new-architecture fanboy sites.

Why do you care what an individual person finds amazing? If someone likes 'purdy babes' or mature women, who's business is it of anyone else?

If you appreciate the pre-existing environment then more power to you. But to typecast anyone who thinks that a modern architectural feat is amazing, as pubescent, is ridiculous imo.
 
Not that this will have any teeth (sadly), or that you Gehry-worshippers will care, but the city's Heritage Preservation Services group is against the demolition of the warehouses.

"This report will recommend that City Council refuse the proposed demolition of four designated heritage properties at 266, 276, 284 and 322 King Street West as part of
Zoning By-law amendment application12-276890 STE 20 OZ. The proposed demolition of four designated buildings does not satisfy the requirements of the Planning Act, the associated Provincial Policy Statement and the City's Official Plan Heritage Policies. It also does not comply with the Standards and Guidelines for the Conservation of Historic Place in Canada, which was adopted by City Council."

src. (on the agenda for the forthcoming Toronto Preservation Board's meeting)
 
I, for one, am shocked that the entity specifically tasked with preserving heritage in this city would, of all things, recommend preserving heritage in this city. This changes everything!
 
Not that this will have any teeth (sadly), "This report will recommend that City Council refuse the proposed demolition of four designated heritage properties at 266, 276, 284 and 322 King Street West as part of
Zoning By-law amendment application12-276890 STE 20 OZ. The proposed demolition of four designated buildings does not satisfy the requirements of the Planning Act,

Gee how easy, just declare these properties heritage, and see if this development goes away...
I guess City Planning just cant deal with anything out of the ordinary:confused:
 
A lot of the opposition, at least in here, to the proposal seems moralistic and reactionary from a method not of objectively assessing the development but of punching one's own independent-thinker card by way of contrarian posturing. The debate certainly entertains shades of interpretation through moral, aesthetic, and other lenses. However the resistance to it self-indulgently colour the booster side as facile, prosaic dilettantes, which casts some doubt on their intellectual honesty. There is a germ of truth to this but in my reading I think it has steered some away from agreement out of some fallacious interior reasoning that suggests if one arrives at a similar conclusion as someone else who has arrived at it through a less studied, imperfect ratiocination, they should not share that conclusion and insist on the dispositive character of the subtler issues that the other camp has missed, elided, or taken for granted.

There is an anti-intellectual cross current but I think it is proportionally very small and has stoked an unhelpful identity which has taken the opportunity to polarize the issue in order to advertise its academic and industry cachet. To me there is some apparent bad faith in the evaluation of this issue, on both sides, but mostly on the part of our resident intelligentsia.

I am definitely 'for' and can appreciate the project has known and unknown deficits. I'm saying simply that since the attitudes here indicate a lot of conspicuous K-dropping and pontification, that the balance of dispassionate assessment, without such conceit, would be in favour. Succinctly, though the values are credible, and the arguments are coherent, the tone betrays their artificiality.
 
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