Toronto Pan Am Village in the West Don Lands | ?m | ?s | DundeeKilmer | KPMB

I didn't understand the grey brick streets/sidewalks. Is this some kind of joke? Every single thing is grey. They don't even try and that's the most disapointing thing about it. The city's so afraid of color... Drive over to Montreal and see what they're doing for pointers.
 
They could have used one red brick, some grey, some glass, some just plain stucco/paint. Bizarre!!!!
 
TheKingEast said:
I didn't understand the grey brick streets/sidewalks. Is this some kind of joke? Every single thing is grey. They don't even try and that's the most disapointing thing about it. The city's so afraid of color... Drive over to Montreal and see what they're doing for pointers.
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The irony is one of the developers pimping this place as the Canary district....
 
TheKingEast said:
I didn't understand the grey brick streets/sidewalks. Is this some kind of joke? Every single thing is grey. They don't even try and that's the most disapointing thing about it. The city's so afraid of color... Drive over to Montreal and see what they're doing for pointers.
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Fly, sail or swim over to Paris and then you'll see what a grey city looks like. Colour can be added later so form is more important. I still think it's going to look great. Remember what was there before. This is a massive net gain for the city.
 
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Uptowner said:
Fly, sail or swim over to Paris and then you'll see what a grey city looks like. Colour can be added later so form is more important. I still think it's going to look great. Remember what was there before. This is a massive net gain for the city.
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Paris is a little different, though. Those structures were built 100s of years ago. They also have tonnes of character to offset the "blandness".
 
TheKingEast said:
Paris is a little different, though. Those structures were built 100s of years ago. They also have tonnes of character to offset the "blandness".
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I agree about the character but much of the grey was done under Haussmann and that wasn't 100s of years ago. I don't disagree with you this might not turn out as well as it might have I just wanted to make the point the colour in itself isn't necessarily a problem.
 
Uptowner said:
Fly, sail or swim over to Paris and then you'll see what a grey city looks like. Colour can be added later so form is more important. I still think it's going to look great. Remember what was there before. This is a massive net gain for the city.
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Well, there are different shades of grey. I find the colours used in Paris to be much more attractive then what we usually get in Toronto. For some reason, many Toronto condos pick the ugliest shade of medium grey. A very dark shade of grey can be quite decent but most developers are just giving us these bland, ugly shades.

Even if grey was an attractive colour, that still doesn't justify making everything in this neighbourhood grey. Our love of diversity is certainly not reflected in this neighbourhood. Red paved streets would have been a huge improvement. I hate the fact that we are so timid and afraid to try anything bold or just something different. This city is afraid to take any risks at all, including something as non-threatening as colour.
 
Torontovibe said:
Well, there are different shades of grey. I find the colours used in Paris to be much more attractive then what we usually get in Toronto. For some reason, many Toronto condos pick the ugliest shade of medium grey. A very dark shade of grey can be quite decent but most developers are just giving us these bland, ugly shades.

This city is afraid to take any risks at all, including something as non-threatening as colour.
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I agree somewhat with your more specific criticism about the shades of grey. There is certainly always room for improvement. However, once you make the downtown core look like a peacock's tail it's hard to fix it. I think adding colour cautiously is a good way to go. If we are going to mess something up with colour let's do it to a smaller project and not a marquis one like this. Again, though, I do agree more with your clarified point about there being many shades of grey.

I originally responded in part as sometimes I just feel like giving a little resistance to the Gloom Crew and their many members here on this board. I don't think the city has boring architecture compared to other cities that were established around 1800 or later as so many here claim to think.
 
Here is a quick look at the Pan-Am Village and a bit of Corktown Common. (park)
[video=youtube_share;0ga59ab3VTQ]http://youtu.be/0ga59ab3VTQ[/video]
 
nfitz said:
Ah yes, Montreal.



... though I guess that's what happens when you let the Mafia develop real estate ...
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What is your point exactly? I could come up with a similar picture of a Toronto development.

Montreal's architecture and design blows Toronto's out of the water.
 
I drove by the site this morning and my first impressions were, similar to others, that it looked somewhat...boring. I'll definitely reserve judgment until the project is done before I have a better look at the streetscape to make my final assessment but, all in all, it's a big, bold project and I welcome it to this neighborhood. I do like the new brick road that they added to Cherry Street.
 
^ That picture of the cluster of multiplexes in Montreal is one of the less than stellar examples of architecture in that city. I certainly don't miss it. That said, there's a lot of wonderful examples of architecture in Montreal too, that shouldn't be overlooked. Montreal architecture has good points and bad points, just like any city.
 
TheKingEast said:
What is your point exactly? I could come up with a similar picture of a Toronto development.

Montreal's architecture and design blows Toronto's out of the water.
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Hardly. What little condo development is happening in Montreal right now is generally safe new modernism. Good contemporary architecture is mostly limited to their universities and public institutions. Our 3 universities easily compare. You can show me a handful of good Montreal buildings that are similar to what aA, HP and Teeple are doing project after project, but contemporary construction in Montreal is mostly unremarkable. In the end, no one even cares about a city's new B buildings; it's the L Towers, Absolutes and Gehrys that get people's attention like the cathedrals and ornate bank buildings on St. James Street once did. Montreal hasn't seen any spectacle in architecture in the past few decade at all.
 
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