Toronto Living Shangri-La Toronto | 214.57m | 66s | Westbank | James Cheng

Urban Shocker said:
The setbacks are underwhelming, and the tacked-on roof feature no more transforms this building than the antennae on FCP transform that one. But you're right in that just about everything built here is a box - except for the Crystal and air-supported structures.
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I disagree about the setbacks and that the roof feature doesn't transform the building.. But I agree that the top could be a bit more than it is now, like if the Onion dome took up the whole roof instead of a small part of the corner.
 
Urban Shocker said:
I don't see how we've ignored the ravine system.
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... through an almost complete lack of engagement with it, except at times on a very private level. I do see this as changing but for the most part the river, ravines and even the lake have been viewed somewhat indifferently at best, as obstacles at worst, rather than embraced as urban opportunities.
 
It would have been cool is dt Toronto was built around the Don a la Chicago.. But the Don Valley is still very nice, Humber River has High Park and Old Mill along it, and the Rouge Valley is becoming a National Park!
 
... and the Chicago River was also once derelict and abandoned to industry and so on. I guess people in the olde time days didn't like to get their feet wet.
 
wow, those were some very romanticized excuses for Toronto's banality and cheapness... some humans are quite efficient at deluding themselves.
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Gosh, Redroom. I didn't think we need get into ad hominem arguments; they don't really make for vibrant, creative debate. Beyond your fine pictures, thank you for your concern about the cognitive faculties of those who perceive a relationship between Toronto's natural environment and our evolving, local, modernist vernacular. Might just fire my shrink the moment I conclude this post. But for now, let's disagree, I do feel there is there there, in both our geography and our buildings.

To your points, I don't think there are any apologists for poor, cheap execution here. As for banality (of design, presumably), well, we disagree again and I don't think there's anything to make excuses for. From the discontinuities (thank you, Shocker) that were New City Hall, TD Centre et al. some 50-60 years ago, we now have a spectacular array of materials, forms, sizes, technologies and planning philosophies on display in our modernist building stock. And it is precisely these variations on a modernist theme that I find exciting and that my eyes have come to see (stealing your thought, Flaneur). Moreover, the latest construction boom has made our Toronto-style vernacular even more visible: I find that the apposition of today's transparent, glassy towers makes me see even the grey/beige concrete towers that were once so monolithically dreary from a new perspective. Hence, keep going in this beautiful vein, say I. Curious to see what comes next.

In my neighbourhood, across the Don Valley, the more towers that go up in the downtown the greater is the contrast between the menhirs and the horizontal natural world. I think this duality has long been part of our consciousmness;
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A compelling observation, Shocker. There's tension in that X/Y, horizontal/vertical, natural/man-made intersection. It makes me wonder how creative architects would play with and riff on this theme, even just conceptually. I'll have to take a moment and stare at Bridgepoint from the Gerrard Street bridge some time.
 
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The title says this is the Shangri-la thread, but the content says otherwise. In any event, I will post this photo here:

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Mo-tage said:
The title says this is the Shangri-la thread, but the content says otherwise. In any event, I will post this photo here:
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I saw them lowering down pieces of what I presumed were the last of the pink weather wall yesterday. There's none left on the east or north side since early last week, presumably those will be gone very soon unless that photo above was taken before Friday.
 
Mo-tage said:
The title says this is the Shangri-la thread, but the content says otherwise. In any event, I will post this photo here:
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True, but I for one enjoyed the short divergence that northto and UrbanShocker took us on. I'm probably not the only one.

As for Shangri-La, I just stumbled on a view of it I hadn't seen before while leaving the gym. Widmere St (between John & Peter streets) just north of Adelaide. Didn't have a chance to snap a picture, maybe next time. It pleasantly caught me by surprise at how dominant it looked. From most angles with the CBD in them, it doesn't have as large of an impact.
 
NO MORE PINK!!!!

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So glad to see the hoarding that has been a Toronto eyesore for the last few years is finally gone!
 
Hi Jasonzed,

LOVE your photos shot on Oct.29! Not to divert the thread, but what kind of lens did you use for the last 3 pictures?
 
hawc said:
So glad to see the hoarding that has been a Toronto eyesore for the last few years is finally gone!
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I actually quite liked the pink; it added a bit of much-need colour to the skyline. With it gone, Shangri-La has suddenly become a lot less interesting to look at.
 
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