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

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/mirvish-king-west-plan-needs-changes-planner-says-1.2466030

To the preservation folks, take note. City planning's concerns are the scale and massing of the towers. Shorter towers in line with whats already been built in the area would win the support of the planning department. The demolition of the warehouses is not a primary concern.

The pro development crowd has wrote many letters to council. I'm surprised the preservation crowd has not done the same given how vocal the debate has been on this forum. The issue has once again become one of appropriate height and density.
 
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adma said:
Oh, And if "demolish Boston City Hall" became a ballot issue in Boston, *that* might be approved by a massive majority, too. Just warning you.
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Boston City Hall and its civic plaza is an architectural disaster. I'm not big on brutalism, but I can appreciate it. There's nothing to appreciate about Boston City Hall. If you want brutalist city halls done right, look to our very own.

I'm ambivalent about the warehouses. They aren't the best examples of their kind in the area, what they do well is provide a decent wall along King. I am very much annoyed by Mirvish's (and to a lesser extent Gehry's) arrogance, wiping out two big areas (King West and Bathurst/Bloor) to fund what I see very much as a vanity project. But what a vanity project! (Haven't many great pieces of architecture been vanity projects, BTW?)

What worries me more is the precedent - other warehouses, better warehouses were destroyed or are threatened with full or partial demolition for condos, condos, condos. These buildings will be the biggest so far and will increase pressure for even more development in that already overwhelmed district.
 
johnwood said:
I'm not childishly whining, in fact you are, I'm just stating my opinion. and its true, compare our skyline and buildings to any major city in the states and toronto loses hands down every time.
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I agree. Atlanta, San Fran, LA, Chicago,Dallas, etc.. I hate to say it but Canadian skylines are boaring in general. The truth hurts sometimes
 
kd86:

Atlanta is "interesting"? a few measy towers in a sea of nothing is giant yawn to me. Ditto Dallas - and San Fran has more to do with setting than skyscraper architecture.

I think what you really meant is that I prefer PoMo towers with pointy finials instead.

AoD
 
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AlvinofDiaspar said:
kd86:

Atlanta is "interesting"? a few measy towers in a sea of nothing is giant yawn to me. Ditto Dallas - and San Fran has more to do with setting than skyscraper architecture.

I think what you really meant is that I prefer PoMo towers with pointy finials instead.

AoD
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Indeed. San Fran has one iconic landmark in the downtown skyline. Otherwise it's not all that remarkable. But you don't measure a city's worth by its skyline. Detroit has an interesting skyline, helped by the fact it's on a major river with very flat surroundings (both structurally and topographically).
 
Peepers posted an excellent guide on how to send your comments to community council. I hope he doesn't mind, but I adapted his version for the vote at City Council. It's not too late to express your opinion on Gehry+Mirvish prior to vote.

Email addresses:

clerk@toronto.ca; your_councillor@toronto.ca

Subject Line:

My comments for 2013.TE28.2 on December 16-17, 2013 City Council
‏
Body of the email:

To the City Clerk:

Please add my comments to the agenda for the December 16-17, 2013 City Council meeting on item 2013.TE28.2, Request for Direction - 266-270 King Street West and 274-322 King Street West - Zoning Amendment Application

I understand that my comments and the personal information in this email will form part of the public record and that my name will be listed as a correspondent on agendas and minutes of City Council or its committees. Also, I understand that agendas and minutes are posted online and my name may be indexed by search engines like Google.

Comments:
 
It's a useless game arguing with johnwood about skylines on the level of taste. To tread very close to Monty Python territory, it becomes a matter of assertion, not argument. If he is determined to think both Toronto and Torontonians dull, it is useless to argue. (Though it is worth observing that this is an odd place for him to ride his hobby horse.). What can be said, however, is that the effect of a skyline is in part a measure of height and of extent of tall structures. There is objective information about such matters in, for example, the tables at Skyscraperpage.com. Toronto is exceeded in those respects only by New York and Chicago. Houston was passed only recently and is still reasonably close. Toronto clearly exceeds other large American cities.
 
67Cup said:
It's a useless game arguing with johnwood about skylines on the level of taste. To tread very close to Monty Python territory, it becomes a matter of assertion, not argument. If he is determined to think both Toronto and Torontonians dull, it is useless to argue. (Though it is worth observing that this is an odd place for him to ride his hobby horse.). What can be said, however, is that the effect of a skyline is in part a measure of height and of extent of tall structures. There is objective information about such matters in, for example, the tables at Skyscraperpage.com. Toronto is exceeded in those respects only by New York and Chicago. Houston was passed only recently and is still reasonably close. Toronto clearly exceeds other large American cities.
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if beauty was factored into skylines toronto would rank a lot lower perhaps below san fran, la, and even dallas, and even pittsburg in my opinion.
 
^ Pittsburg. I totally agree; we should measure a city's beauty by its skyline pictures taken from several kilometres away. All those surface parking lots won't show up that way ;)
pittsburgh_aerial_2006_pittsburghskyline.com_35.jpg

Source.
 
67Cup said:
There is objective information about such matters in, for example, the tables at Skyscraperpage.com. Toronto is exceeded in those respects only by New York and Chicago. Houston was passed only recently and is still reasonably close. Toronto clearly exceeds other large American cities.
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Well, Houston still has two buildings that are slightly taller than Toronto's tallest (excluding C.N., of course), and Los Angeles has one, but where T.O. objectively surpasses those two cities hands-down (and Chicago, too) is in the total number of highrises.
 
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