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

Even if Vimy Circle is built, there are no guarantees any buildings around it - presumably constructed at the same time - would have made it through the 50-70s.

AoD
 
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i dunno, shangri-la's north side isn't as great as i thought it would be when viewed from University Ave/anywhere directly north. from street level, the north side looks fine, but from afar not so much. i guess it's cause the West/East sides just blow everything out of the water.

but ya, shangri-la continues to impress. It and Four Seasons are the overall highest quality projects we've gotten in the past decade.


i'm torn between which is higher quality cladding, shangri-la or four seasons. Four season's cladding is definitely more office-looking (and it prob helps that it looks more office too). but shangri-la has better colour/reflective qualities. tie
 
Wooow , that's soo nicee ! Why didnt they do this ?

Because shortly after they drew up a bunch of plans for grand new streets throughout the downtown, the stock markets crashed and the depression started. I based the illustration (commissioned by Spacing magazine) on the drawing below, which I scanned directly from an original booklet that I was lucky enough to borrow:

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I think shangri-la will blow all other new condo projects away once they get the large trees on the roof, as they showed in the render. It will finally live up to it's name as "living" shangri-la.
 
Really!!!!! Im having issues with this tree thing! They should plant pollution resistant trees! A city without trees is like a concrete jungle. It looks ugly.
 
Grand avenues, public squares, and traffic circles with monuments at their centre really add to the overall character and "world-class" vibe of a large city. Too bad these opportunities slipped away for Toronto, but it is a reflection of the economic system here as well as the general North American urban planning model..

Just look what they are doing in cities like Guangzhou, Beijing, Dalian, and others. The central government generally dictates how new growth will occur, and in China they are able to raze vast areas of aging cites in order to create something totally new and on a very grand scale.
 
Wide, straight, avenues are in fact a product of authoritarian rule in Baroque Europe. Razing the more spontaneous built form of the medieval city, the straight lines and controlled vistas, and restrained Neoclassical architecture of a grand Baroque boulevard emphasize the rigidity of absolute power and allow for military parades for the ruler to demonstrate his power. They tend to lead to the houses of power. Something like Vimy Circle is difficult to achieve without authoritarian rule: every building must be built at once in the same style and according to the plan. Any changes then must follow the plan. But they're not the only way to have a beautiful city. Even if a lot of people enjoy that aesthetic, myself included, we still have opportunities for grand streets in places like Spadina Avenue, enhancing University Avenue, and all over the suburbs. It's doable in a democratic system, but its difficulty should not be underestimated in light of the historical context from which these urban design ideas emerged.
 
Wide, straight, avenues are in fact a product of authoritarian rule in Baroque Europe. Razing the more spontaneous built form of the medieval city, the straight lines and controlled vistas, and restrained Neoclassical architecture of a grand Baroque boulevard emphasize the rigidity of absolute power and allow for military parades for the ruler to demonstrate his power. They tend to lead to the houses of power. Something like Vimy Circle is difficult to achieve without authoritarian rule: every building must be built at once in the same style and according to the plan. Any changes then must follow the plan. But they're not the only way to have a beautiful city. Even if a lot of people enjoy that aesthetic, myself included, we still have opportunities for grand streets in places like Spadina Avenue, enhancing University Avenue, and all over the suburbs. It's doable in a democratic system, but its difficulty should not be underestimated in light of the historical context from which these urban design ideas emerged.

We may not have kings and despots but we do have urban planning so I don't see why avenues and boulevards etc should be such an impossibility... and all the more so given the vast tracts of 'carte blanche' development lands in this city. The problem in Toronto continues to be its inability to deal with public spaces very well.
 

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