Toronto Hotel X (was Hotel in the Garden) | ?m | 27s | Exhibition Place | NORR

The portico is supposed to be a 'ghost' of one of the old Fort buildings that once stood on the site, but goodness knows if anyone would ever be able to immediately make that connection.

Something like the Benjamin Franklin museum in Philly would have allowed that connection to be more apparent.
 
It will become much more apparent once the structure opens: the foundations of the old barracks will be visible, no doubt there will be plaques explaining the arrangement and its significance.

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The hotel website has quite a lot of info on the building and its facilities ( http://www.hotelxtoronto.com/ ) but no word on an actual opening date. I was interested to see it is part of the "Library Hotel Collection" - I stayed in the Library hotel in NYC several years ago, it was new, quite quirky and, at that time anyway, good value!
 
I just don't get the reference between a white metal frame and the sort of structure that would have stood there all those years ago; I don't think it's an effective way to represent it. If you're going to do that sort of reductionist/minimalist "frame", it is going to have to be nicer than that. (Or even something like MVRDV's Glass Farm perhaps?) Even if the old footings still stand below, I think the white frame comes across as a relative of this:

ILEdyY5.gif
 
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For my part, I'm not applying a value judgement, I'm not saying that the white frame is a successful way of imparting the heft of the building that was there before, I'm simply reporting that the white frame outlines the space the former building filled.

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AlvinofDiaspar said:
the greater issue is how the whole ensemble relates to the precinct. I mean, is having an overscaled, crude blank wall facing it the best way to commemorate the history of the site?
Click to expand...

Oh, for sure. I just felt like there was already consensus here that that aspect of it was dead in the water from the very start. The siting of it is awkward and very much feels like an afterthought. The frame is just the final insult on top of it all.
 
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