Toronto L-Tower | 204.82m | 58s | Cityzen | Daniel Libeskind

Some people are just loud and obnoxious in criticizing other people's work. Sure he's among the more polarizing of architects to grace this city, but the ROM and this tower contribute variety and character to our built form. I like the Crystal; I don't see how people can criticize that style while simultaneously praising 80-90s PoMo - they both serve similar, almost theatrical, functions. Note how even Hume didn't put that building on his ugliest list. There were far more deserving examples.

That being said, now that the building's rising up I for one am glad that the L Tower isn't hijacking the O'Keefe like in the original plans. Anyone with me?
 
newuser2k9 said:
Some people are just loud and obnoxious in criticizing other people's work. Sure he's among the more polarizing of architects to grace this city, but the ROM and this tower contribute variety and character to our built form. I like the Crystal; I don't see how people can criticize that style while simultaneously praising 80-90s PoMo - they both serve similar, almost theatrical, functions. Note how even Hume didn't put that building on his ugliest list. There were far more deserving examples.

That being said, now that the building's rising up I for one am glad that the L Tower isn't hijacking the O'Keefe like in the original plans. Anyone with me?
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As far as L Tower goes, I'm with ya...
 
newuser2k9 said:
I like the Crystal; I don't see how people can criticize that style while simultaneously praising 80-90s PoMo - they both serve similar, almost theatrical, functions.
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I don't know of anyone praising 80's 90's POMO. I thought it was unanimous (well, almost - do I see any emoticons?) that POMO in architecture was all just a terrible nightmare.
 
neubilder said:
I don't know of anyone praising 80's 90's POMO. I thought it was unanimous (well, almost - do I see any emoticons?) that POMO in architecture was all just a terrible nightmare.
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Speak for yourself.

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It absolutely is post-modern. Don't mistake that post-modern and neo-classical PoMo are not the same thing.
 
One of my favourite buildings in the city is the former Confederation Life building, now the Rogers headquarters (and significantly diminished by the huge sign they added). I love how it sprawls like some sort of pomo castle, complete with outbuildings.
 
SP!RE said:
It absolutely is post-modern. Don't mistake that post-modern and neo-classical PoMo are not the same thing.
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So post-modern is PoMo that we actually like? OK. To quote IM Pei (the great late modernist whose work inspired this building): "The talk about modernism versus post-modernism is unimportant. It's a side issue."
 
Hipster Duck said:
Speak for yourself.
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Those examples, except for Safdie, make the point well. Safdie by the way would have the head of anyone that suggested that he was a POMO architect. I've heard him say in person something like, "Philip Johnson has inflicted so many f'ing ugly pomo buildings with stucco capitals and giant balls on this city (Boston) that if he builds one more...)
 
SP!RE said:
It absolutely is post-modern. Don't mistake that post-modern and neo-classical PoMo are not the same thing.
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You're right, the term may need some disambiguation. POMO in architecture is a very distinct style/period, and refers to the stucco pediments, giant cornices, 'ironically' mis-scaled pastiches of classical detailing, and mish-mash of 'clever references', mostly classical, of the 1980's. 'Post Modern' in the general sense and as applied to other disciplines is something else entirely, and is something I won't even begin to try to define.
 
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