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

The market is increasingly showing that it can still get developments in the right place sold out fairly quickly. Ten York is almost sold out, yonge and rich has done well, 365 church is doing well, and harbour plaza is just launching VIP sales, and is looking good. If it is the right project in the right spot it will sell. (And this is the right project I the right spot)

Also important to remember that these will be sold in phases of about 900 units each.
 
I've been holding out on opinionating too much on this one, but I think it's reached the stage where it's beautiful and astonishing enough to justify being built from the ground up. I'll be sad to see the older buildings go, and I do wish it could have been put on a place where there was more of a blank slate. That said, one can't always get what one wants, I suppose. Nonetheless, I think this has become an architectural ensemble worthy of being constructed according to Gehry's vision.

I say this especially after seeing his work with the recent Cartier Foundation in Paris.
 
I'm wondering if that Anderson-facade-retention recommendation was done in such a way to deliberately sabotage the idea of such a retention--as I've said in the past, it's the element that best offers itself to the dreaded "postage stamp facadism", and here we have it on display...
 
Interesting hearing all the concern regarding the planning department (note: they really don't have much of any leeway to recommed approval of a project that is well outside the zoning or the official plan - even if they love the project). OMB would face the same restrictions.

The most significant obsticle the project faces is selling 2700 premium condo units in a rapidly declining market - that is what could/will make or break the project should it or a modified version of it be approved by council.

The only ones with the capacity to approve Mirvish+Gehry in its current form is community council. Maybe it's time for another UT grassroots campaign similar to the efforts that helped reverse the planning department's denial of Massey Tower? I would not want to see these buildings truncated by 30-stories and having its architectural merit lost in the process.
 
Is this city willing to build great again? There was a time in Toronto's history where we were stepping up and showing the world what we are made of. That was in the 60's and 70's with projects like the TD Center (Mies legacy masterpiece), FCP ( at the time one of the tallest buildings in the world outside NYC) and of course the CN tower to name but a few. Civic pride was at an all-time high. Since then almost everything built in this city has been a compromise for one reason or another (planning dept., funding, the cheapening etc.). Think of the number of great projects that were built that could have been iconic- The original Roy Thompson Hall design was ahead of its time with its organic form and more in tune with what Ghery is doing decades later. What we got was a watered down version; very nice but not to its full potential architecturally . The same can be said for Scotia Plaza which was originally going to be the city's first supertall. Again a compromise. More recently the very impressive L tower lost its iconic boot podium along with other important design cues. I fear that this will be the same fate that the Ghery towers will face. So many forces working against greatness in this city...Come on Toronto its time to get back in the game and play with the big boys.
 
Build great? You mean like walking down Annette, Jane or Palmerston? Yes, Toronto developers: step up your game and give us beautiful modern red brick semis, walkups etc in the suburbs!

OTOH, this development is today's version of First Canadian Place: Take beautiful historic streetwall/buildings, knock it down and insert--in the name of "progress and world class"--anti-urban phallic structures with appalling street-level integration.
 
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I hear you UD, however this block is changing whether any of us like it or not. That is a fact. Accepting that, this project needs to deliver and be exceptional.
 
anti-urban phallic structures with appalling street-level integration.

That's why they should be built. Something unique should get dumbed down so it blends with the area?

When the eiffel tower was in the planning stages, this is what was said in protest:

"We, writers, painters, sculptors, architects and passionate devotees of the hitherto untouched beauty of Paris, protest with all our strength, with all our indignation in the name of slighted French taste, against the erection…of this useless and monstrous Eiffel Tower … To bring our arguments home, imagine for a moment a giddy, ridiculous tower dominating Paris like a gigantic black smokestack, crushing under its barbaric bulk Notre Dame, the Tour Saint-Jacques, the Louvre, the Dome of les Invalides, the Arc de Triomphe, all of our humiliated monuments will disappear in this ghastly dream. And for twenty years…we shall see stretching like a blot of ink the hateful shadow of the hateful column of bolted sheet metal"
 
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That's why they should be built. Something unique should get dumbed down so it blends with the area?

When the eiffel tower was in the planning stages, this is what was said in protest:

"We, writers, painters, sculptors, architects and passionate devotees of the hitherto untouched beauty of Paris, protest with all our strength, with all our indignation in the name of slighted French taste, against the erection…of this useless and monstrous Eiffel Tower … To bring our arguments home, imagine for a moment a giddy, ridiculous tower dominating Paris like a gigantic black smokestack, crushing under its barbaric bulk Notre Dame, the Tour Saint-Jacques, the Louvre, the Dome of les Invalides, the Arc de Triomphe, all of our humiliated monuments will disappear in this ghastly dream. And for twenty years…we shall see stretching like a blot of ink the hateful shadow of the hateful column of bolted sheet metal"

That's interesting. I am surprised they didn't say it in French though. :)
 
Why on earth would these nobodies think that they can mess with the vision of a recognized great artist? Do they really think that they 'know better'?

Frank Gehry is not an artist. He is an architect, which is an entirely different role to play.

Unless you like the idea of an "artist" architect who "sculpts" whatever he wants and ends up with a building like this which will *inevitably* (mark my words) have some serious building envelope issues.

Yes, architecture has a huge creative and aesthetic aspect to it, but to refer to an architect as an artist is a complete misnomer and misunderstanding of what architects really do. Architects, unlike artists, are bound to the conventions of physics and have to juggle a number of competing realities and functions in their designs. Unfortunately, people listen far too intently to Gehry / Zaha Hadid-style schtick about how architects are artists and sculptors and grand visionaries and it does a disservice to architecture as a whole / the public's understanding of what architectural design involves.

Nobody in this thread is evaluating the design on anything other than renderings and physical models, which is very concerning to me. "It's too beautiful not to build", etc... Yes, the model is gorgeous. I think the design is stunning, and I've admitted a few pages back that there are some really great ideas at work here. But aesthetics are only one piece of an architectural design, and to evaluate it solely based on an aesthetic viewpoint is problematic.

Many of us won't be remotely surprised when these beautiful "sculptures" have serious moisture barrier problems, leaks, and various other real-world issues that no "artists" will ever need to concern themselves with...

I guess I'll have to learn to accept that to the public, buildings are just what the eye sees, and serve as a piece of art. But to anybody within the profession, this is incredibly frustrating. Yes, Toronto architecture has been stubborn to become less conservative, but at least our more renowned local architects work within real-world budgets to create buildings that (generally) work, and serve their end users well. Starchitects, on the other hand, are given exorbitant budgets and still manage to f&@# up the basics of a building (vapour barrier, leaks, indoor environment) on a regular basis. But it's "art", so who cares, right?

p.s. Here is a review of a recent piece of "art" from another famed international starchitect. It looks good from the outside from a distance, so who cares about how the building actually functions, right? ;) http://larryspeck.com/2012/08/16/top-architectural-record-award-for-guangzhou-opera-house-really/ Much like the Renaissance ROM, a project pushed through to construction not backed by architects or those who work in building operations, but by the marketing/press folks.
 
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Is this city willing to build great again? There was a time in Toronto's history where we were stepping up and showing the world what we are made of. That was in the 60's and 70's with projects like the TD Center (Mies legacy masterpiece), FCP ( at the time one of the tallest buildings in the world outside NYC)

Actually, FCP was more or less loathed at the time it was built; hardly deemed "great" at all--unless, of course, the culture in which FCP came to be "loathed" is to blame here. (Ah, just another case of these UT posters who judge architecture the way that teenage boys besmitten w/Victoria's Secret models judge femininity.)

Though at the same time, accuding Mirvish/Gehry of being FCP revisited is "pushing it" from the other direction...
 
I'm wondering if that Anderson-facade-retention recommendation was done in such a way to deliberately sabotage the idea of such a retention--as I've said in the past, it's the element that best offers itself to the dreaded "postage stamp facadism", and here we have it on display...

This is what I was thinking.

I looked at it again, and I saw the billowing white cloud framing the Anderson facade, as if the facade were a portrait in the Mirvish Gallery. It's absurd in a shocking sort of way, but manages to give a nod to the building as art.
 
Many of us won't be remotely surprised when these beautiful "sculptures" have serious moisture barrier problems, leaks, and various other real-world issues that no "artists" will ever need to concern themselves with...

Has this been an issue with other Gehry buildings?
 
Has this been an issue with other Gehry buildings?

Of course it has. There's almost no way to create the forms he does with current technologies without leading to these issues, it seems. If I were a client, I'd feel ripped off when I realized that the building was more than just a showpiece to look at.

He's far from the only architect with these issues (lots of architects get sued for these sorts of issues), but for the large budget of his higher-profile projects, it's ridiculous. And his response to criticisms about his buildings always make me shake my head.

It's a shame, too, because Gehry rose to fame for his problem-solving in using smart methods of keeping costs down in his projects, while still creating very interesting (and seemingly functional) end products. I do respect him for that.
 
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SPIRE:

To be fair though, these are pretty common issues - and more importantly, they can be resolved. It's not easy pushing the limit.

AoD
 

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