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

I for one can't wait for these towers to go up. And I'm glad they don't look like any other of Gehry's buildings too. Of course it would be nice to have NY kind of money to throw at it but I still think it'll be icon and a lesson in 'the devil is in the details'.
Edit: err, maybe I mean 'God is in the details'. ...either was it'll be a diety.
 
Personally i find it rather sad. These towers no longer look like a Gehry design, more like another condo tower with a few tweaks to make it look somewhat like a Gehry design but obviously curtailed to make them more affordable for a Toronto developer. There are towers in Mississaiga that are more interesting than these. I looked forward to these towers for years, but not so much anymore.
 
Big Daddy said:
Personally i find it rather sad. These towers no longer look like a Gehry design, more like another condo tower with a few tweaks to make it look somewhat like a Gehry design but obviously curtailed to make them more affordable for a Toronto developer. There are towers in Mississaiga that are more interesting than these. I looked forward to these towers for years, but not so much anymore.
Click to expand...

Mississauga? Jeeze. I guess there are some people who you can never please. I say remain patient and you will be pleasantly surprised.
 
I get the disappointment. We waited all these years for that? Anyways, it’s a handsome building but maybe the materials will really make it look better.

Think we got the Dolarama version of a Ghery tower which I’m not surprised by since it is Great Gulf.
 
TheKingEast said:
I get the disappointment. We waited all these years for that? Anyways, it’s a handsome building but maybe the materials will really make it look better.

Think we got the Dolarama version of a Ghery tower which I’m not surprised by since it is Great Gulf.
Click to expand...
I'm not the one saying this is the Dollarama version, but if you think so, it's not because it's Great Gulf, it's because it's Toronto. We simply don't have enough billionaires to pay for $5k/sq ft condos.
 
I think that this building is not bad or "cheap" looking. I recommend that people look at the Southern façade of 8 spruce street. It is certainly much more bland and ugly than any side of this project. The truth is, even in NYC, the economics didn't work out for the textured floorplates all the way around and it just happened to be a location where people were mainly going to view it from the north. These towers are going to be seen from all sides over a huge radius and I think that they will certainly stand out in a great way. Attached below is a picture I found on the NY YIMBY website. Photo is by Michael Young.
8 spruce from YIMBY Site.jpg
 
Happyman said:
I think that this building is not bad or "cheap" looking. I recommend that people look at the Southern façade of 8 spruce street. It is certainly much more bland and ugly than any side of this project. The truth is, even in NYC, the economics didn't work out for the textured floorplates all the way around and it just happened to be a location where people were mainly going to view it from the north. These towers are going to be seen from all sides over a huge radius and I think that they will certainly stand out in a great way. Attached below is a picture I found on the NY YIMBY website. Photo is by Michael Young.View attachment 389951
Click to expand...
Wow, what a surprise! That looks a bit like the Pantages Hotel / Condo near Dundas Square. For those who think that only Guggenheim Bilbao or Disney Concert Hall-like treatment qualifies as the real Gehry, these buildings are not 300 m tall and they're not condos - the developers didn't have to recoup their investment by selling units.
 
What's nice about the smooth part of facade seen in the photo up above. Is that the windows are slightly angled in different directions. Which is going have a multi visual effect when the sun shines on it at dawn and dusk. Just like the LBCO and CIBC towers do and these buildings stand even taller than them lol!
 
Rascacielo said:
I'm not the one saying this is the Dollarama version, but if you think so, it's not because it's Great Gulf, it's because it's Toronto. We simply don't have enough billionaires to pay for $5k/sq ft condos.
Click to expand...
This. This is not an institutional/public/commercial building so the cost needs to be realistic for actual residential buyers. Extremely tall + super high quality materials is a hard sell in any geographic market.
 
urbanexplorer said:
This. This is not an institutional/public/commercial building so the cost needs to be realistic for actual residential buyers. Extremely tall + super high quality materials is a hard sell in any geographic market.
Click to expand...

To add to this, when the city rejected the original 3-tower proposal, Gehry could've simply removed one of the towers and made it work with 2 towers. But instead they went back to the drawing board to completely redesign the towers. I think they realized the original proposal was too outlandish and used the opportunity to reel it back to reality.

Also, can you imagine how much ice would've built up and caused a potential hazard to pedestrians below in the original design? The tissue paper wrap around the 3 towers would've definitely created a myriad of places from where ice can form and later on fall.
1649081406131.png


The new design is much more realistic in its constructability and like others have mentioned, as long as the materials used is top-notch then we will have a couple of outstanding buildings.
 
Rascacielo said:
I'm not the one saying this is the Dollarama version, but if you think so, it's not because it's Great Gulf, it's because it's Toronto. We simply don't have enough billionaires to pay for $5k/sq ft condos.
Click to expand...

Did I say that you were? The billionaire comment is an excuse as if we don't have some great structures here. $ does not always mean better.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to post here.

Back
Top