Toronto Four Seasons Hotel and Private Residences Toronto | 203.9m | 52s | Lifetime | a—A

I think the glass is appropriate here given the concrete surroundings, and I appreciate the tower's simplicity and quality of materials but can't help but find it lacking a certain something given how prominent it is. In the end it draws your eye but offers little in return to draw your eye to. Basically a more interesting crown would have been better. The building is now a beacon for Yorkville, after all.
 
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Great shot! Okay, the top of this tower definitely gives away that it's an aA design.

Any new shots of the podium?

I guess I could always walk over there later and snap some new shots for a ground-level/podium update!
 
Those look an awful lot like mounting plates on the west elevation of the fins. Does anyone have a closer zoom? If those are mounting plates that's pretty much confirmation that they're planning to put signage up there.
 
Hey guys, how's the ground level of this hotel looking? The trump tower so far doesn't look all that interesting. R they doin a better job with this one?? I have yet not seen any pictures of it. Thanx
 
condovo said:
Absolutely stunning tower. aA's crowning glory. Blows gimmicky, disjointed Shangri-La right out of the water.
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it's opinionated.. i mean, me personally, i think Shangri-la is a much more interesting building at street level. the angled facade, glass box podium, and historic facade on the other side... this one looks good from almost all angles, but won't blow anyone out of the water with its design... to most people, it's just another glass building (not saying its bad, just not as iconic)
 
condovo said:
Absolutely stunning tower. aA's crowning glory. Blows gimmicky, disjointed Shangri-La right out of the water.
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Are you kidding me?
Yes, its aA crowing glory.
Yes the quality is indisputable.
Yes it's easily one of the city's best new buildings.
And of course your fully entitled to feel its superior to Shangri-la.

But to call Shangri-La;
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a building which also makes use of a high-quality curtain wall and employ's many interesting and well integrated visual cues(horizontal & vertical fins, the slanted glass facade, the protruding but not awkward box on the upper west facade etc.),
gimmicky and disjointed
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is laughable.

This city is not lacking in buildings which can be considered "gimmicky and disjointed". With perhaps the most visible example rising nearby on the south east corner of Adelaide and Bay. Considering the wealth of far more suitable candidates that could be categorized as such, you come off sounding as nothing more than an aA fanboy.
 
Very true. I'm a HUGE aA fan, but that doesn't mean I feel the need to shoot down other solid projects.

At the same time, he's entitled to his opinion. But he does come across as an aA fanboy-- I couldn't have said it better myself.
 
^^^ I'm free to shoot down a highly-visible project that's anything but solid. Shangri-La misses the mark by a wide margin. The base, as illustrated in the pic (re-)posted above, is an absolute mess. There's got to be a dozen different types of glazing and surface treatments down there, chopped up into cubes and crystals, innies and outies. The anemic facets are rather pointless too. They do nothing for the building but very marginally organize the bottom. A 66-storey tower that somehow manages to be bulky and squat, bizarrely it turns its side to one of the most important view corridors in the city.

Scattered, changeable, attention-seaking Shangri-La is for kids. Unified, understated, supremely-proportioned Four Seasons is for grown-ups.
 
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I bet if anyone bitched about an unfinished aA product you'd freak out on them.

Shangri-La is far from completion, or even looking completed.
 
SP!RE said:
I bet if anyone bitched about an unfinished aA product you'd freak out on them.

Shangri-La is far from completion, or even looking completed.
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Shangri-La's not much less completed than Four Seasons. And whatever needs to be finished at the top, won't redeem the muddle at the bottom.
 
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