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

I have not said he actively degraded his buildings, just that the buildings have not been restored in step with the improvement of the neighbourhood - which in the last 10 years has evolved into one that could sustain high-rent tenants and could justify a loving restoration - assuming they were to be kept.
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When has that ever been the Mirvish modus operandi? Hello....there has always been a very consistent level of minimal "restoration" to any Mirvish properties...be they here, or at Honest Eds/Mirvish Village.

In any event, blockbusting is a specific term, and it does not apply here.
 
freshcutgrass said:
When has that ever been the Mirvish modus operandi? Hello....there has always been a very consistent level of minimal "restoration" to any Mirvish properties...be they here, or at Honest Eds/Mirvish Village.

In any event, blockbusting is a specific term, and it does not apply here.
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Honest Eds isn't well-kept structure, some parts are falling apart especially the interiors. So how would you really describe the restoration processes within Mirvish properties? This thread has been on-long discussed about restoration, so let's be frankly clear and be honest on Mirvish's move on owned properties. Take a look at department stores, many of them went into renovations to keep up the structure, and why Honest Eds isnt one of them? A major renovation would be nice to see inside, whereas exterior can be kept as a character but at least have some tendency to improve exteriors.
 
I was the one who introduced the term blockbusting into the thread. It was not the correct term to use as pointed out by others who have given us the specific definition. What I meant was leveling a block for the purposes of re-development is still leveling a block for the purposes of re-development. Some may think I'm mad for not fawning over the inclusion of a famous architect or the institutional space being offered. I'm not against Gehry, or the institutional space, or really even the demolition or modification of any one specific building, I'm just not in favour of block leveling on this scale. A Gehry building, a condo, a gallery or OCAD space, on their own are fantastic projects. Put them all together and level the block and the sum is not the same as the constituent parts.
 
TrickyRicky said:
I was the one who introduced the term blockbusting into the thread. It was not the correct term to use as pointed out by others who have given us the specific definition. What I meant was leveling a block for the purposes of re-development is still leveling a block for the purposes of re-development. Some may think I'm mad for not fawning over the inclusion of a famous architect or the institutional space being offered. I'm not against Gehry, or the institutional space, or really even the demolition or modification of any one specific building, I'm just not in favour of block leveling on this scale. A Gehry building, a condo, a gallery or OCAD space, on their own are fantastic projects. Put them all together and level the block and the sum is not the same as the constituent parts.
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Some of the finest architecture in the world occupies entire city blocks - or more. The space for them became available because of war, fire, razing, or just greenfield opportunities. Most of these "opportunites" are gone. You are saying that in downtowns you're against "block levelling", that all development in the future should be infill, facadism, building over/under/around on whatever progressively smaller plots come up? Nothing BIG? That's too ossified for me.
 
The richest and most meaningful architecture comes from constraints and context - it doesn't fall out of the sky. Treating this site as a clean slate is a lost opportunity but one necessitated by the sheer volume of parking required by the 3 massive condo towers. Every square inch of that block will be filled 4 levels deep with underground parking and without it this scheme would not be viable. That is the bottom line.
 
i think we need to stop holding on to parts of our irrelivant past and move to the future. there are plenty of buildings that show what torontos past really was and how we got here today. this block hardly represents that. just my oppinion. save the these yea: westly building, queens park, fairmont york, the old banks on young where massey tower will go, gooderham building, union station and the one beside it to the east. not random old building just cause they are old.
 
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The richest and most meaningful architecture comes from constraints and context - it doesn't fall out of the sky. Treating this site as a clean slate is a lost opportunity but one necessitated by the sheer volume of parking required by the 3 massive condo towers. Every square inch of that block will be filled 4 levels deep with underground parking and without it this scheme would not be viable. That is the bottom line.
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Not really, think TD Centre, Toronto City Hall, etc. I dare you to say that those aren't some of the richest and most meaningful architecture the city has ever seen in spite of the tabula rasa that they demanded. Oh, and going back further - College Park, Ontario Legislative Building, Union Station, Royal York Hotel, etc...replacing worthwhile architecture with even more superlative ones isn't exactly a modern phenomenon that you made it out to be. Interesting that you only demand that we apply constraint to our age, without considering these horrible examples of new architecture!

Oh, and the whole thing about underground parking is questionable as well - the buildings can certainly be facadectomized, which will allow for excavations and it wouldn't have been an unfamiliar practice in the city.

ptbotrmprfn:

The past isn't irrelevant, just because this is an exceptional proposal doesn't mean the level of transgression should be casually allowed for those offering less.

AoD
 
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i said parts of it, not all of it. the most important pieces of our past... yes, keep! please someone post something in regards to importants in keeping regarding buildings in these blocks in question. i cant find anything on their actual history. aside from the theater. which is not all the old.
 
junctionist said:
Taking the loss of the Princes of Wales and the historic buildings into consideration (including the wonderful Anderson Building), the greatest failure would be if the towers ended up looking like 8 Spruce Street in New York, so that after all that destruction, the cliche of Toronto as a city that "looks just like New York" could be significantly reinforced. The architecture has to be unique or similar but clearly superior to 8 Spruce Street perhaps by way of cladding or "awe-factor" in general. If we don't do things uniquely, we will never achieve the kind of profile we should have as a city. If everything looks like New York, then we're boosting New York by leaving people with a desire to see the "real thing".
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I think the only reason toronto's compared to new york is because both cities are the largest in their respective countries and have a lot of immigrants..Toronto is more like Chicago than New York and Chicago doesn't have any Gehry buildings. We're not an island so we'll never look like new york, and we're 1/4 the size of New York so we'll never attract tourists in the same way. Our biggest pull is our cosmopolitan attitude towards immigrants which we share with New York, we need these kinds of mega projects to convince skilled immigrants that Toronto is a real alternative to the less affordable/livable cities in the U.S. Our goal should be to outshine Chicago, then we can consider outshining New York.
 
rpeters:

Personally I would be very careful not to attach unrealistic expectations on architecture - skilled immigrants do not make locational decisions on the basis of mega projects per se. Ditto outshining other cities - it will again take more than 3 condo towers by Gehry to do so...

AoD
 
freshcutgrass said:
The only time this block held any cache, was when it was the black & white, blinking signage carnival Mirvish created to augment the Royal Alex. That dissipated rather organically over a long period of time (rather than part of some dark conspiracy). Otherwise, Spadina, Adelaide or Richmond were the classic warehouse streetwall locations.

And if it were anywhere else except this particular King frontage location, the context would make tearing the block down a much more serious blow to the districts continuity....regardless of what is replacing it.
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Though re my point about the classic-mythic-"wall of warehouses": actually, you have it a bit backward, because I'm not speaking in urban-correctness terms of mere "streetwalls" or "district continuity". In fact, your Spadina/Richmond/Adelaide locations lack what has historically really been the key to the Mirvish blocks' "mythic immediacy" (aside from the signage of which you speak): its role (and appropriately "theatrical", as far as Mirvish is concerned) as a continuous urban backdrop. As an Edwardian-warehousey solid confronting a void--the successive void of rail yards, of parking, of Pecaut. It's all about the one-sided singularity of this stretch--something that nothing on Spadina, Adelaide, or Richmond can match, because they're "confronting" virtually nothing but one another. They're too busy mutually creating an urban fabric, so to speak. (And ditto for, say, King *west* of Spadina, which is far more "classic" in your sense. Indeed, more so IMO than the technically "lesser" corridors of Adelaide + Richmond, or the comparatively fragmental nature of Spadina.)
 
rpeters said:
Toronto is more like Chicago than New York and Chicago doesn't have any Gehry buildings.
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Chicago does have two Gehrys—the Pritzker Pavilion and the Millennium Bridge—whether or not they are "buildings" you decide.

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