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Well, I'm glad the talking-point discussion is "back to normal", so to speak. What really concerned me was the initial chorus of cricket-chirps; and then the muller877 invocation of "fake news". Which made me wonder: "aw, jeez, has the tenor sunk *this* low already?

Maybe what scares me more is the thought of the muller877 POV reflecting an age when traditional news media like the G&M (and by extension, columnists like K.Boz) no longer carries the respect and authority it once did--indeed, his perspective on how the Globe works might as well be that of the modern media/news/info consumer who no longer regularly reads newspapers at all, much less the dead-tree variety. Neglect breeds mistrust, "my opinion and that of my buds is as good as anyone's"--the mentality of the comment thread, rather than that of what's being commented on.

Oh, and I agree with Alvin--in some ways, the problem at hand is less practical than philosophical; almost along the lines of "are we in a post-heritage age?" (And as I've mentioned before, the rough mentality catered to and served by this class-A-office-space-at-all-costs way of thinking also happens to be leading the rush-to-teardown in older, affluent-ish residential neighbourhoods.)

Also glad to hear Skeezix invoke Marcus Gee's column on the John Fisher school controversy--whose subject matter invokes, in its way, the worst of the "other side". (It's a little different re Davisville as opposed to John Fisher--like, an architect-led crusade rather than a NIMBY-led crusade.)
 
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adma said:
Actually, Alex Bozikovic is the G&M's architectural critic. A bit different from what you term "opinion/editorial pieces".
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Every degree he has is in English and he has not practised in architecture. He is not an expert on architecture or the realities behind designing a building, so his critique should be taken with a grain of salt.
 
modernizt said:
Every degree he has is in English and he has not practised in architecture. He is not an expert on architecture or the realities behind designing a building, so his critique should be taken with a grain of salt.
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That's a bit dismissive of Alex. Anyone who has spoken to him about architecture comes away with a much higher opinion of him and his credentials.
 
modernizt said:
Every degree he has is in English and he has not practised in architecture. He is not an expert on architecture or the realities behind designing a building, so his critique should be taken with a grain of salt.
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How many architecture critics have practiced architecture, though? I'd guess that most critics come to architecture through the arts. Does that mean they're not experts either?
 
modernizt said:
Every degree he has is in English and he has not practised in architecture. He is not an expert on architecture or the realities behind designing a building, so his critique should be taken with a grain of salt.
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Even though she was married to an architect/designer, Jane Jacobs never had an architectural degree. Ditto re the doyenne of newspaper architectural critics, Ada Louise Huxtable of the NYT (and later New Yorker). Nor did Ian Nairn in Britain have an architectural background. And...there's more where those come from, let me tell you that.

The way you present your argument, I seriously wonder if you ever heard of Huxtable, Nairn, etc; or at least cared one way or another about them. And said argument rather reminds me of hack landscapists snarking at those Dedicated Followers Of Fashion who predominate in the fashionable art press and who presumably have no sense of (or even contempt for) beauty or painterly technique or "what people like", etc. (I also wonder if your own ego's been bruised through negative architectural judgment in the past, directly or by proxy).
 
Nowhere did I say his opinions or evaluations are not worthy of being heard or without merit. I said that they should be taken with a grain of salt. His voice is one in a chorus of different possible analyses for the building. I do maintain, however, that it's a good idea to balance any architectural critic's opinions with information from those in the industry who know the realities of a project that lead to it being executed in x way.

There are a lot of economic, political, and regulatory challenges of architectural design that I rarely see critics touch on in any meaningful way. In fact, I would argue that economics, politics, and regulatory challenges have a lot more to do with how a building turns out than an architect's ideal, vision, or original concept. Sad, but it's the reality.

I am not trying to be pretentious. Critiques from various different viewpoints and backgrounds are valid. I do, however, think it's important to hear voices of those working in the industry because otherwise you're getting an incomplete picture.
 
modernizt said:
Nowhere did I say his opinions or evaluations are not worthy of being heard or without merit. I said that they should be taken with a grain of salt. His voice is one in a chorus of different possible analyses for the building. I do maintain, however, that it's a good idea to balance any architectural critic's opinions with information from those in the industry who know the realities of a project that lead to it being executed in x way.

There are a lot of economic, political, and regulatory challenges of architectural design that I rarely see critics touch on in any meaningful way. In fact, I would argue that economics, politics, and regulatory challenges have a lot more to do with how a building turns out than an architect's ideal, vision, or original concept. Sad, but it's the reality.

I am not trying to be pretentious. Critiques from various different viewpoints and backgrounds are valid. I do, however, think it's important to hear voices of those working in the industry because otherwise you're getting an incomplete picture.
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Somehow, I'm still getting a "I worked so hard on this, and this is the thanks I get?!?" sour-grapes vibe from your argument. Look: if you have to so insist on the "working in the industry" side of the story with that kind of hard-done-by tone, maybe you're not the best person to be offering such an argument. Particularly as you're still speaking of architectural critics in such generic, off-radar-to-you terms.
 
Now, as regards the subject of this thread...being inside EY a couple of times already, I not only have to agree with A.Boz about the disappointing heritage resolution (and the overall bland effect of the tower, lobby, etc), I'd have to augment his disappointment--given the scale and merit of what we're dealing with, this might well be the saddest embodiment of token, forced-issue "preservation" in Toronto, all the more so as we were led to expect more. (I'm discounting cases like the Lyle studio at 1 Bedford, which are more farcically silly than sad.) And it isn't so much the acceptably chewed-up-and-regurgitated façade, as much as it's how the entrance vestibule ceiling has become a mummified underside awkwardly enclosed within a glass cube in the midst of that vast, bland, scaleless lobby with other former lobby ceilings turned on their side and likewise glass-enclosed and mounted like taxidermied beasts. And on top of that, the former party-wall "thunderbirds" pasted onto the back of the building above the parking ramp, with one glass railing gracelessly ramming right into them.

Make no mistake--this is *awful*: the ultimate Joni Mitchell tree-museum solution. And let's not fall back into commercial-real-estate alibis; in fact, scratch the surface of such alibis and you might as well argue that they shouldn't have even gone to *this* effort. That it would've been better off to just demolish the place and build anew without bowing to heritage interests other than by carting the JEH/Thoreau-team stuff off to the ROM or something....
 
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