Toronto X2 Condominiums | 160.93m | 49s | Lifetime | Wallman Architects

I'm not sure what the state of these Victorian buildings were in, but it's still sad to see them destroyed. Density is the prime mover in downtown real estate. Understandable in a lot of cases.
Maybe this was one of them. The sad thing is, once there gone, never to be seen again. We in Canada have a history of destroying our history. Money, money, money.
 
While I agree, by and large, Canada does have a history of destroying our history, it should also be said that not everything old is precious. While I absolutely advocate restoring and preserving our good examples of architectural history, not every victorian building is worth keeping around forever especially if there is something better, more valuable and more contextually relevant to replace it (not that I am saying X2 is!).

“Change is the essence of life. Be willing to surrender what you are for what you could become.” - Peter Senge
 
In Toronto we face a particularly challenging dilemma of historical preservation, because we have a very healthy city core, yet our historical architecture (Georgian, Victorian-era, etc.) was built on such a low-density scale compared to some other large cities' cores.

The difference in density between a tower like X2 and the small Victorian row-houses that have been there prior to its instigation, is very substantial. It makes it much easier to justify demolition. We also didn't lose lots of heritage buildings in WWII as so many European cities did.

In the end, we are set to be a very modern(ist) city. It's built right in to our DNA as a city. But we need to keep the notable heritage moments we have in our architecture as best as we can, and preserve it with its dignity somewhat intact. It's a fine balance.
 
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The X2 site today. The eastern Victorian is now a pile of rubble, all but the front of the western Victorian with the X2 signage is also down. The western portion of the site before & today

Five years ago Charles Street had well over a dozen Victorians, it's down to about 3 or 4 now.

Click on the thumbnail to enlarge, then click again on the image for full size.



The back of the former Pizza Pizza office coming down

 
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The surrounding context that buildings find themselves in matters more to me than how old they are and/or whether they are representative of a certain period of the city's history. In this case, the old detached buildings with yards were somewhat out of place on a street of sidewalk-meeting highrises; they weren't particularly gorgeous and the law offices or whatever was housed within them didn't do much to animate the street either.

I am not really that sad to see them go, especially since I think that X2 is so much more of a metropolitan building for a very metropolitan street.

Having semi-detached houses with yards in the front was always a pet peeve of mine, anyway. On Dovercourt or out in Riverdale they are certainly very charming, but in the heart of downtown they just seemed to be reminders of our former provincialism.
 
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Since a Miesian complex seems better than just one Miesian tower, I welcome X2 (and perhaps X3 and X4 in the future?).

With these isolated houses, we do need to stop and take a look at them and consider saving them because it is a simple truth that perceived heritage value tends to increase with rarity. That's just the way it works when heritage and threat go hand in hand and when so many people apply that '100 year antique' rule to buildings. But we should approach them from the POV that they are worth discussing, not that they are automatically worth saving. It's probably hard for city policies to adopt a neutral position when many people think you need a damn good reason to demolish anything and many other people think you need a damn good reason to protect anything.

I don't think we should go around targeting Victorian outliers, though, or that we should be encouraging developers to see these outliers as sites with bullseyes on them. A mix of houses and skyscrapers can create a really interesting streetscape, but if more houses go, well, so be it...as long as the replacements contribute roughly equally to the street. No concrete bunkers or blank/bland precast walls.
 
More demolition on the former Pizza Pizza office is happening today. They've taken out most of the back of the offices facing Jarvis.
 
With these isolated houses, we do need to stop and take a look at them and consider saving them because it is a simple truth that perceived heritage value tends to increase with rarity.
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Check out Dundonald, a gem in the Church-Wellesley neighbourhood.
 
I agree with what many of you are saying about not preserving buildings simply because they're old. We in Toronto must remember that great swathes of mediaeval Paris were demolished in order to build the streetscapes that we think of as Paris today. Very little of modern central London is more than 350 years old. Having survived post-war architecture, I think we got into the habit of assuming that everything old was more beautiful because in 1975 that was usually the case. I'm a lot less pessimistic about contemporary architecture now than 30 years ago.
 
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Yes but the problem is the tendency in Toronto to tear down the historical elements of our city and replace them with SH*T!!

If we were like Rotterdam or even Berlin, and actually attempting to rebuild our city with high quality contemporary architecture, then I would definitely share your optimism, dahusbandofbath. Unfortunately, we build a lot of EIFS historicist garbage. Crap like that wasn't built in London ofter the fire or in Haussmann's Paris & unsurprisingly, it still isn't!
 
Sorry if that sounds really pessimistic, but after looking at what's going on on Queen West this weekend its kind of made me a bit grouchy.

I actually think X2 should be a decent addition to the Bloor/Jarvis area and I like the crazy mix and match styles and scales of the buildings around there.... I think a lot of those old houses in the area should be converted into art galleries, restaurants, bars, shops, etc and their suburban front yards should be converted into formal urban gardens & patios... they shouldn't all be torn down for big modernist high-rises. just my opinion.
 
UrbanFervour said:
Yes but the problem is the tendency in Toronto to tear down the historical elements of our city and replace them with SH*T!!

If we were like Rotterdam or even Berlin, and actually attempting to rebuild our city with high quality contemporary architecture, then I would definitely share your optimism, dahusbandofbath. Unfortunately, we build a lot of EIFS historicist garbage. Crap like that wasn't built in London ofter the fire or in Haussmann's Paris & unsurprisingly, it still isn't!
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X2 is an exception (hopefully), but I agree that for the most part interesting, head turning, contemporary architecture is lacking here, with a few notable exceptions. I was watching a hurricane program on the National Geographic channel recently and I noted some smaller southern US cities have a surprising amount of interesting architecture so I wondered why the proportionate difference between us and them.
 
dt_toronto_geek said:
X2 is an exception (hopefully), but I agree that for the most part interesting, head turning, contemporary architecture is lacking here, with a few notable exceptions. I was watching a hurricane program on the National Geographic channel recently and I noted some smaller southern US cities have a surprising amount of interesting architecture so I wondered why the proportionate difference between us and them.
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We have plenty of good architecture here: familiarity breeds contempt. Any place that is building new stuff has a mix of good architecture and bad architecture. Right now in New York, some beautiful buildings are going up. But the city is also building some of the ugliest things on the planet.

And I know we all get into a lather about "historicism," but strictly speaking X and X2 are kinda historicist. And if we want to get picky, most of the Victorian architecture we jizz over is pretty "historicist" (they just called it "revival"). Europeans still build "historicist crap" - look at the sort of architecture Prince Charles supports.
 
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