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

“Frank Gehry sent me a thank you note after it was all over,” Keesmaat told me with the preening satisfaction of a kid who gets a gold star on her homework. “He told me how much better I’d made his project.”

Oh man lol Especially after all the bitching and insults on this forum. This is just perfect.
 
It's what I was saying all along--heritage preservation would make the project better. Gehry is the greatest architect of our time but not an urban planner. There is absolutely no need to wipe everything out on the block to get his best work. The heritage buildings give him reference points to tie the new buildings into the city's urban fabric. Thus, we avoid a long and monotonous wall of glass as the earlier version of the project proposed.
 
It would be interesting to see the original cloud podium tied into the current design. It could float above Duncan St, creating an interesting canopy over the street.
 
wolfewood said:
“Frank Gehry sent me a thank you note after it was all over,” Keesmaat told me with the preening satisfaction of a kid who gets a gold star on her homework. “He told me how much better I’d made his project.”

Oh man lol Especially after all the bitching and insults on this forum. This is just perfect.
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and people complain about Kanye's ego... sheesh
 
junctionist said:
It's what I was saying all along--heritage preservation would make the project better. Gehry is the greatest architect of our time but not an urban planner. There is absolutely no need to wipe everything out on the block to get his best work.
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That depends on the merits of the heritage structures in question. And in this case, it merits very little consideration, especially when the proposed design was factored in. Even the current design includes facadisms and total demolition. Preservation for the sake of it it is poor planning policy.

And I don't think Keesmaat is interested in either so much as she is in taking credit as the "grand designer" of this project. Ego indeed.


junctionist said:
Thus, we avoid a long and monotonous wall of glass as the earlier version of the project proposed.
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That's a new way to describe the Cloud Podium. I think I could live with that kind of monotony.
 
P23 said:
and people complain about Kanye's ego... sheesh
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If one of the world's most famous architects sent me a note, thanking me for holding him to a tougher standard, I'd be chuffed too. And so would you. The only thing I'm going to complain about is the writing in the article, which, as AoD pointed out, really is cringe-inducing.
 
adHominem said:
If one of the world's most famous architects sent me a note, thanking me for holding him to a tougher standard, I'd be chuffed too. And so would you.
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Well, I wouldn't because my ego doesn't over-ride my ability to recognize when I'm being patronized. Which is obviously what Gehry was doing.
 
Called his project "trite"; killed his proposed cloud podium without ever giving it a chance; all to protect some of Toronto's most banal warehouses....totally sincere note
 
Again, I don't see why a smaller version of the cloud podium couldn't work with the present design. Could it not go in place of the glazed cubes that are proposed on either side of Duncan; connected by an overhang across the south end of the street (see 3rd rendering in the database)?
 
buildup said:
Called his project "trite"; killed his proposed cloud podium without ever giving it a chance; all to protect some of Toronto's most banal warehouses....totally sincere note
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I thought it was because...“We don’t have the hard infrastructure capacity to flush that many toilets,” Keesmaat says. ha ha


“Frank says that in order to get anything done you have to keep a copy of Alice in Wonderland and Don Quixote by your bed,” he says. What does he mean by this? Just that the creation of great art requires extraordinary bluster and perseverance.
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In other words, if you need to blow smoke up the chief planners arse, you do it.
 
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