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

That video was quite depressing. The greenery is nice but the buildings look are depressing and sterile.

I had very high hopes for Toronto's Waterfront but with the acres of blue glass of Southcore and the grey of this area, I think Toronto has squandered the opportunity of a lifetime and if this is the plan for the rest of the Waterfront area then Toronto will go from having the ugliest to the most monotonous Waterfront on the planet.
 
junctionist said:
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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Right. Montreal can't compete with the sea of grey and green glass boxes. Absolute is in Mississauga and Ghery's hasn't even started construction yet.

In addition, I spoke of Montreal's architecture and design cues in general. Not over the last 10-20 years. That's unfair. Toronto has had a massive building boom while Montreal did not. Are you trying to tell me if Montreal was building structures at the rate they're being built here, the best they would be able to do is grey boxes? Entire master planned communities of grey? No bloody way.
 
A general concensus on Canadian forums that Montreal has built little over the past decade is proof enough nothing worth noting or caring about has been included. 20 medium to highrises a year is no slouch.

The amount of grey is a letdown but plenty of opportunities still exist for non Pam Am development to introduce more colour. To declare our waterfront being among the worst "the worst" over the likeness of the district's buildings is a just tad overblown but, sounds good while standing on a soapbox.
 
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TheKingEast said:
Right. Montreal can't compete with the sea of grey and green glass boxes. Absolute is in Mississauga and Ghery's hasn't even started construction yet.

In addition, I spoke of Montreal's architecture and design cues in general. Not over the last 10-20 years. That's unfair. Toronto has had a massive building boom while Montreal did not. Are you trying to tell me if Montreal was building structures at the rate they're being built here, the best they would be able to do is grey boxes? Entire master planned communities of grey? No bloody way.
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We may never know, but if the iconic grey boxes that proliferate in booming Toronto today allow architects to cut their teeth, then maybe Montreal architecture can benefit when, and if, there's interest enough to build there. There's a segment of posters that always revert to casting Montreal in a better light than Toronto, no matter what the topic is.
 
Can you guys please take this discussion to another thread. If it has nothing to do with updates regarding the Pan Am village it doesn't need to be here.
 
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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Sorry but Montreal's aluminum balcony railings in there new midrise condos are a disaster. And btw, since we're talking about Montreal guess what brick color will be seen in almost every single new condo in Griffintown.....grey.
And if you want to see Montreal's master planned developments take a walk to Le Triangle. I've never seen uglier crap in my entire life.
 
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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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Not to talk less of their public squares and public realm which puts ours to shame. We can learn a lot from the likes of Montreal instead of sticking our heads in the sand.
 
TheKingEast said:
Montreal's architecture and design blows Toronto's out of the water.
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TheKingEast said:
Are you trying to tell me if Montreal was building structures at the rate they're being built here, the best they would be able to do is grey boxes? Entire master planned communities of grey? No bloody way.
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I think you see Montreal in a much better light than reality. Comes off as very "grass is greener".

Toronto has blown Montreal out of the water for the past 40 years in terms of both volume and design. You see the sea of green glass condos and think that's all Toronto is, when in reality Montreal builds the same stuff, it's just not as prevalent because they don't build very much. If you took Montreal's best and Toronto's best from 1970-present you'd see what really happened.
 
Meanwhile back at the Pan Am Village...................

Actually I prefer the scale of the buildings in the area to the skyscrapers of the Southcore area. They seem to have a lot of interesting architectural features, offer a pedestrian friendly environment, good access to the lake, and are built to a human scale. In short, there clearly has been a lot of effort into making sure this area is not just another CityPlace/McDevelopment.

It's the colour {or complete lack thereof} that I find shocking and unappealing. They want this area to be live/work/play but I can't imagine wanting to open up any business in such a depressing environment save a funeral parlour. Perhaps the colouring is yet to come as part of the finishing of the projects and I certainly hope that is the case but if it's not Torontonians should demand a moratorium on all the rest of the Waterfront area until this issue is quickly addressed before Toronto finds itself with a Waterfront only Stalin could love.
 
The amount of grey seems pretty inexcusable but I'm going to wait a little while longer until I declare a disaster. The commons, streetscaping and (hopefully true to the renderings) amount of green roofs could go a long way towards adding some colour to the neighbourhood. I agree though, not looking great right now.
 
Won't the neighbouring heritage buildings give some color and contrast to the new development? I'm referring the buildings of the Distillery, the couple buildings on Cherry (old hotel and the one up against the track overpass?) and the warehouses on Eastern. I've only seen this development in pictures, but I don't really understand the depth of the criticism. I like seeing more mid-rise structures, and will gladly sacrifice some architectural flair for housing affordability. I don't know that following some standard practices instead of giving each building unique architectural twists necessarily leads us to commie towers. (Nothing here looks particularly bad to me, but I'm no expert.) I'd expect this development to be a tremendous boost to the area, mostly because the Distillery will no longer be an out of the way terminus, become less touristy and more part of the daily fabric.
 
the birds eye view of this new neighbourhood does emphasize the grey, but i suspect that the street-level view will have a field of vision less occupied by the grey and more by the green and heritage brick. It will get better when the trees grow, people move in, and public art is installed. Hopefully most of the remaining buildings can deviate from the grey theme.
 
The only colour I see here is the stop sign. Seriously.

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