egotrippin
Senior Member
Yeah, I agree, an orange version of 40 Bond would look fantastic. Here's hoping.
Toronto Sixty Colborne Condos | 82.29m | 25s | Freed | a—A
- Thread starter Edward Skira
- Start date
Red October
Senior Member
It sounds like Aa is taking some cues from Herzog and DeMeuron with their 40 Bond Street Project in New York:
Okay that would look fantastic, hoping it turns out like that and not just some coloured glass a la M5V.
exstasie
Active Member
I'm looking forward to it! Love Freed's designs, and think this will add something to the neighborhood. I live in a condo near by, and based on the prices...looks like my place might go up in value a bit haha
Urban Shocker
Doyenne
A Toronto condo takes a cue from its neighbours
JOHN BENTLEY MAYS
From Friday's Globe and Mail
Four years ago, I had a conversation about contextualism with Peter Clewes, the Toronto tall-building designer. (He was doing a sleek residential high-rise in the Distillery District that strongly differed, in style and materials, from the rusty Victorian industrial fabric round about.)
Why shouldn’t contemporary architects play the contextualist game, I wondered aloud, and make new structures that bow politely to their elderly neighbours?
“Because they’re wrong,†Mr. Clewes replied. “We need to create buildings of our time. Architecture is a record of where a city and a culture was at a particular time. … The exceptions in the urban framework articulate the city.†Referring to some recent Distillery District towers that had tried hard to fit in, he remarked: “They speak of a time in Toronto when people said, ‘Let’s be apologetic, let’s say we’re not inserting additional density in this precinct.’ This isn’t what we should do now.â€
I don’t want to suggest that architects should never vary their approaches to creative problems as they go along. Sometimes they have to change up, simply because the residential developers who employ them bend to the pro-contextualist breezes that occasionally blow in from the market, neighbourhood groups, or the planners and urban designers at city hall.
Still, I was a little surprised recently to find just how context-conscious the formerly militant Mr. Clewes has become – at least when drawing off plans for the new downtown Toronto condominium proposal that he and developer Peter Freed will soon bring before the local community and the city.
Called Sixty Colborne, and slated to fill up a parking lot at that address near the intersection of Church Street and King Street East, the 25-storey, 281-unit complex will rise (if approved) alongside two warehouse and commercial blocks, both finished in 1889. One of them was designed by E. J. Lennox, the eclectic architect of Old City Hall, Casa Loma and other Toronto landmarks.
These buildings should surely be cherished as what they are – attractive traces of the short-lived Victorian vogue for Romanesque styling – but not as anything more important than that. Ponderous, expensive and super-serious, the Romanesque manner would seem to be an unlikely basis for architectural thinking in the 21st century. For Mr. Clewes, however, the fusty old façades next door to his site have become sources of inspiration for a new structure that will occupy a conspicuous spot in Toronto’s downtown landscape.
The buxom, boxy podium of Sixty Colborne, Mr. Clewes told me, will “reinterpret†its neighbours’ ruddy colour and deep openings. The faces it shows the city will be grids of glass strips tinted rusty orange. Like the glazing in the antique structures, the windows of Sixty Colborne’s base will be set sharply back from the outer edge of their frames.
In yet another studious reference to the Romanesque, the architect will have cars enter the project through a broad, ceremonious rainbow arch. The result of these design moves, if renderings are to be believed, will be something that’s formally prim and dull, decked out in a strange and glittering skin – like a post-modern Christmas tree ornament, though not a really delightful one.
So much for the orange podium. Above it sits a flat, oblong, multi-storey glass attic. Then, suddenly, improbably, from one end of this shiny composition sprouts a tower that is as avant-garde as anything Mr. Clewes has ever done. Neat, compact, completely free of allusions to any defunct architectural style, it’s a loose stack of light and dark slabs, some pulled back, some thrusting outward – a well-proportioned tall building (or at least the upper body of one) with distinctive rhythm, flair and swing.
But what’s an interesting modern tower like this doing on top of a Christmas tree ornament?
“It’s a matter of reinventing yourself,†Mr. Clewes said of Sixty Colborne. “I could have done a 40-storey green glass building, something generic. But I am not trying just to be different. I’m trying to make a contextual response.†When I asked Peter Freed to describe his most recent assignment to Mr. Clewes, he said, citing two widely admired modernist high-rises by the architect: Not another 18 Yorkville, not another Spire.
Mr. Freed is one of Toronto’s most active young developers and, we know from his extensive residential revitalization of the old blue-collar district around Victoria Memorial Square, a thoroughgoing modernist at heart. Mr. Clewes is a prolific, talented modernist architect who has fashioned several of the most handsome condo towers to go up in Toronto since the start of the current real-estate boom. For the sake of the city, I hope that both men quickly get over their stylish romance with “context†and get back to doing what they have shown they do best: brightening the city with modern buildings.
.............................................................................
Despite what Mays suggests, Sixty Colborne is no different from the Distillery in that the red brick podium buildings at the latter do exactly what the podium at Sixty will do - fit in with the materiality of the heritage buildings.
JOHN BENTLEY MAYS
From Friday's Globe and Mail
Four years ago, I had a conversation about contextualism with Peter Clewes, the Toronto tall-building designer. (He was doing a sleek residential high-rise in the Distillery District that strongly differed, in style and materials, from the rusty Victorian industrial fabric round about.)
Why shouldn’t contemporary architects play the contextualist game, I wondered aloud, and make new structures that bow politely to their elderly neighbours?
“Because they’re wrong,†Mr. Clewes replied. “We need to create buildings of our time. Architecture is a record of where a city and a culture was at a particular time. … The exceptions in the urban framework articulate the city.†Referring to some recent Distillery District towers that had tried hard to fit in, he remarked: “They speak of a time in Toronto when people said, ‘Let’s be apologetic, let’s say we’re not inserting additional density in this precinct.’ This isn’t what we should do now.â€
I don’t want to suggest that architects should never vary their approaches to creative problems as they go along. Sometimes they have to change up, simply because the residential developers who employ them bend to the pro-contextualist breezes that occasionally blow in from the market, neighbourhood groups, or the planners and urban designers at city hall.
Still, I was a little surprised recently to find just how context-conscious the formerly militant Mr. Clewes has become – at least when drawing off plans for the new downtown Toronto condominium proposal that he and developer Peter Freed will soon bring before the local community and the city.
Called Sixty Colborne, and slated to fill up a parking lot at that address near the intersection of Church Street and King Street East, the 25-storey, 281-unit complex will rise (if approved) alongside two warehouse and commercial blocks, both finished in 1889. One of them was designed by E. J. Lennox, the eclectic architect of Old City Hall, Casa Loma and other Toronto landmarks.
These buildings should surely be cherished as what they are – attractive traces of the short-lived Victorian vogue for Romanesque styling – but not as anything more important than that. Ponderous, expensive and super-serious, the Romanesque manner would seem to be an unlikely basis for architectural thinking in the 21st century. For Mr. Clewes, however, the fusty old façades next door to his site have become sources of inspiration for a new structure that will occupy a conspicuous spot in Toronto’s downtown landscape.
The buxom, boxy podium of Sixty Colborne, Mr. Clewes told me, will “reinterpret†its neighbours’ ruddy colour and deep openings. The faces it shows the city will be grids of glass strips tinted rusty orange. Like the glazing in the antique structures, the windows of Sixty Colborne’s base will be set sharply back from the outer edge of their frames.
In yet another studious reference to the Romanesque, the architect will have cars enter the project through a broad, ceremonious rainbow arch. The result of these design moves, if renderings are to be believed, will be something that’s formally prim and dull, decked out in a strange and glittering skin – like a post-modern Christmas tree ornament, though not a really delightful one.
So much for the orange podium. Above it sits a flat, oblong, multi-storey glass attic. Then, suddenly, improbably, from one end of this shiny composition sprouts a tower that is as avant-garde as anything Mr. Clewes has ever done. Neat, compact, completely free of allusions to any defunct architectural style, it’s a loose stack of light and dark slabs, some pulled back, some thrusting outward – a well-proportioned tall building (or at least the upper body of one) with distinctive rhythm, flair and swing.
But what’s an interesting modern tower like this doing on top of a Christmas tree ornament?
“It’s a matter of reinventing yourself,†Mr. Clewes said of Sixty Colborne. “I could have done a 40-storey green glass building, something generic. But I am not trying just to be different. I’m trying to make a contextual response.†When I asked Peter Freed to describe his most recent assignment to Mr. Clewes, he said, citing two widely admired modernist high-rises by the architect: Not another 18 Yorkville, not another Spire.
Mr. Freed is one of Toronto’s most active young developers and, we know from his extensive residential revitalization of the old blue-collar district around Victoria Memorial Square, a thoroughgoing modernist at heart. Mr. Clewes is a prolific, talented modernist architect who has fashioned several of the most handsome condo towers to go up in Toronto since the start of the current real-estate boom. For the sake of the city, I hope that both men quickly get over their stylish romance with “context†and get back to doing what they have shown they do best: brightening the city with modern buildings.
.............................................................................
Despite what Mays suggests, Sixty Colborne is no different from the Distillery in that the red brick podium buildings at the latter do exactly what the podium at Sixty will do - fit in with the materiality of the heritage buildings.
urbandreamer
recession proof
Indeed, the podium is what I love! Is JBM still stuck in 2006?
thecharioteer
Senior Member
Anyone expecting anything near the quality of 40 Bond will be severely disappointed. The detailing and materials of 40 Bond far exceed the capability of aA and our local residential contractors. The construction cost alone would probably be more than double our "typical" Toronto residential building, and would result in selling prices far in excess of Toronto's market today. A sure clue that what is being proposed is 40 Bond "lite" is the presence of the glass tower atop. Truly luxury buildings like 40 Bond usually have relatively few units and don't try to spread their risk by adding commodity-style product.
SP!RE
°°°°°°
"Truly luxurious buildings like 40 Bond"... So a building has to be that luxurious to be good?
I was ALMOST with your statement up until that last ridiculous, almost wealth-supremacist line.
Last edited:
johnr
Active Member
40 Bond
Location: 40 Bond St., Manhattan
Architect/based: Herzog and de Meuron/Basel, Switzerland
Completed: 2007
Number of units/size range in s.f.: 24/1,200 to 2,400
Construction cost per s.f.: $500
Sales price per s.f.: $3,000
http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20111127/REAL_ESTATE02/311279985#ixzz1qh12n7BW
Location: 40 Bond St., Manhattan
Architect/based: Herzog and de Meuron/Basel, Switzerland
Completed: 2007
Number of units/size range in s.f.: 24/1,200 to 2,400
Construction cost per s.f.: $500
Sales price per s.f.: $3,000
http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20111127/REAL_ESTATE02/311279985#ixzz1qh12n7BW
DSC
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This is (presumably) the same Mr Clewes who is the architect for the building proposed for 154 Front Street East (the former Greyhound site) which really fails to consider its context and which is off to the OMB any day now.
TheKingEast
Senior Member
I guess there was a VIP event today? Anyways, I checked out the sales centre. The prices are out of control. I tried my best to hold in the laughter when I saw the price list. Bravo on the eye candy, though.
Exterior-wise, very nice looking building.
Exterior-wise, very nice looking building.
UrbanFervour
Active Member
He is right though. Exclusivity makes 40 Bond and buildings of that calibre all the more appealing to the super-rich who buy units in them. They can be profit making developments without having to build vast numbers of units for varying budgets.
P.S. "wealth-supremacist" is a ridiculous term. Of course money buys quality. We live in a free market system wherein one gets what one pays for.
Searchlight
New Member
just went to the sales event on Saturday. lovely hors d'ouerves. prices were as expected. kitchen finishings were very poor I'd say (did anyone see the skinny flimsy kitchen facet?). location is great.
TheKingEast
Senior Member
I can't really remember the kitchen besides those orange cabinets. I thought they were pretty nice. The faucet was nice too, but not sure how practical it is in a kitchen. I figure the kitchen is marketed to non-cooks.
greenleaf
Senior Member
