Toronto Waterlink at Pier 27 | 43.89m | 14s | Cityzen | a—A

Urban Shocker said:
Together with Anish Kapoor, Deacon is the only Turner Prize winning sculptor with a public work in our town, as far as I know. This 1990 Between The Eyes was his first public commission, as is our Kapoor - as befits Toronto's status as a cultural "early-adopter" city.
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And yet it was plunked down in that barren plaza willy nilly, kind of like it fell off a truck and was too big to move.

It needs a reflecting pool!

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Yet, in the second of the links I posted, Deacon says:

Art Interview: In 1990, you received your first public commission to do the work Between the Eyes. That is a very different type of work for you.

Richard Deacon: Yes, although I had done some work outdoors at the Serpentine Gallery, which was manufactured on a large scale.

Art Interview: Was it a big change in process for you to actualise public commissions?

Richard Deacon: There was a big change in terms of scale. Although I had made large objects in the studio before, and I have a structural engineer helping me, in retrospect, I think it was a more significant a change than it appeared at the time. There were more people and details involved. It was supposed to be at the site for a longer time period, and it addressed a very different type of audience. I did an entire group of works between 1990 and 1993 in Toronto, Vienna, Auckland, Villeneuve d’Ascq, Krefeld and Plymouth. I had to learn very quickly how to respond to the site, how to ask questions within a specific context, and how to talk to different sorts of makers. Obviously, the most important part is the relationship of the work to the site and the idea of permanence.
 
How nicely Redpath is set off now, sandwiched between such diversely engaging neighbours - the "industrial" east wall of the Pier 27 development, and the white sand and pink beach umbrellas of Sugar Beach.
 
Urban Shocker said:
Yet, in the second of the links I posted, Deacon says:

I did an entire group of works between 1990 and 1993 in Toronto, Vienna, Auckland, Villeneuve d’Ascq, Krefeld and Plymouth. I had to learn very quickly how to respond to the site, how to ask questions within a specific context, and how to talk to different sorts of makers. Obviously, the most important part is the relationship of the work to the site and the idea of permanence.
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Don't get me wrong, I think it's one of the best pieces in the city. It IS site-specific, but the site is complete crap. A pedestal or pool would help it stand out and create a bit of structure to the space.
 
Tuscani01 said:
Im a bit worried about this project. I don't like the slab like qualities of the towers, and I don't like the spaces between the buildings. I really hope the landscaping/open space between the buildings is nice. From the renderings I have seen so far, they look like nothing but glorified driveways.
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Absolutely. I think the earliest renderings made that pretty clear. In terms of urban design, this is more or less a repetition of the Harbour Square buildings: large landscaped areas and driveways for the use of the condo building and a token public walkway along the water, hidden behind the buildings. I once thought people believed Harbour Square to be a mistake that shouldn't be repeated...and yet here we are.
 
How much public access will exist around these buildings is still in question however, these are nothing like Harbour Square which presents QQ with a 800ft (guess) parkade podium. I also like the idea of the downtown skyline encroaching the water. There are other venues for greenspace.
 
What's surprising about Harbour Square, though, is that there is green space to the south of it - and that, for a pioneering venture that dates from a time when nobody wanted to live by the lake, the green space has been there from the beginning.
 
Urban Shocker's post has nudged me into asking those who were here at the time: What was the feeling about the lakefront during that time (1960s-early 1970s)? Surely people realized that the lakefront was a limited and valuable resource? Or did the industrial wasteland just to its north exert a powerful, and seemingly permanent, negative effect upon it?
 
Mongo said:
Urban Shocker's post has nudged me into asking those who were here at the time: What was the feeling about the lakefront during that time (1960s-early 1970s)?
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As a very young kid during the early 70s my only impressions of the central waterfront was the view from the Gardiner - and it was a pretty depressing view at that. About once or twice a year my parents would take me to Centre Island; that was really the only reason I can ever recall to venture down to the central waterfront - to catch a ferry to the Island.
 
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