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Transformation AGO (5s, Gehry) COMPLETE

This thing is so sexy, I just wish the street could better accomodate it's greatness!!

If it was on University or Bloor, it would have created better viewing angles and postcard type shots.

Dundas at this point is so confined (aka cramped), though quite interesting on this block. Of course this does not apply to viewing from the back through the Grange Park.
 
But it is. The Province funds it and the AGO's permanent collection is held in trust for the people of Ontario. The AGO's mandate is to promote the visual arts in Ontario, not in Newfoundland, or Alberta or B.C.
 
Urban Shocker said:
But it is. The Province funds it and the AGO's permanent collection is held in trust for the people of Ontario. The AGO's mandate is to promote the visual arts in Ontario, not in Newfoundland, or Alberta or B.C.
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OMG, quelle suprise. Pedantic semanticism.

One can be a Provincial museum promoting the visual arts in Ontario while still avoiding being "provincial". I note how those quotes keep popping up, I wonder if its an intended point of distinction from the more common Canadian use of the word.
 
You are choosing to be "thick".

Transformation is a big deal in the city, in the province and in the country.

And it might just turn out to be a "famous" jumbled jewel.

Frankly, I think Frank might be smarter than every card-carrying UT poster here.

Grafting all the budget limitations on to this forgettable site... and still creating sumptin' special?

Vive le Frank Gehry libre!!!!!!!!

CLARIFICATION: my post was in response to US (who makes his living as an accountant.. quelle suprise).
 
urbandreamer's complaint that this building doesn't look like "something you'd find in Canada's largest city" reminds me of the ( mostly ) disappointed response from members of this forum on the day the AGO design was revealed. We didn't get the Big Hair Bilbao knock-off that many apparently expected, but something "provincial". Yet, as Gehry has said in relation to his AGO design, "It's a little bit much to assume that I will remodel a building that has already been remodelled before and that will change Toronto." - so clearly he's comfortable with the provincial limits of his design, even though the AGO's collection is diverse.
 
Urban Shocker said:
urbandreamer's complaint that this building doesn't look like "something you'd find in Canada's largest city" reminds me of the ( mostly ) disappointed response from members of this forum on the day the AGO design was revealed. We didn't get the Big Hair Bilbao knock-off that many apparently expected, but something "provincial". Yet, as Gehry has said in relation to his AGO design, "It's a little bit much to assume that I will remodel a building that has already been remodelled before and that will change Toronto." - so clearly he's comfortable with the provincial limits of his design, even though the AGO's collection is diverse.
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I actually don't think people were expecting Bilbao, but neither were they expecting a giant slab overlooking the Grange. To attempt to pass off criticism of this building as nothing more than yearning for someone else's bauble is a bit much.

From the sound sounds of it though, not even Gehry is that happy with the results. I'm not sure when his "Transformation" became a "remodelling", but I believe it's recent.
 
Well, TKTKTK, you weren't on the forum then - and the old thread from January 2004 is long since gone. But the Perth-like yearning for the sort of world class status that stylistic retreads are assumed to bestow was real and palpable, as was the widespread disappointment that Gehry's design solution was merely a very Toronto one.

But the building is practical as well as beautiful. And it does transform. It solves a number of problems - by demolishing the confusing warren of galleries at the north end where the contemporary art was housed for instance. It gives us a distinct building for contemporary art that rebrands the AGO as more of a home for the new than before. It reinstates Walker Court as the heart of the Gallery, and uses it in a practical way to orient the visitor to the new building. We get a long sculpture gallery, and a more open and inviting face along Dundas. We get galleries for the Thomson bequest. Not bad, really, once you abandon the idea of architecture as spectacle and accept it as experiential in nature.
 
Urban Shocker said:
Well, TKTKTK, you weren't on the forum then - and the old thread from January 2004 is long since gone. But the Perth-like yearning for the sort of world class status that stylistic retreads are assumed to bestow was real and palpable, as was the widespread disappointment that Gehry's design solution was merely a very Toronto one.
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I wasn't necessarily contributing to the forum then, but I was most certainly reading it. An interest in Toronto's architecture and urban development didn't suddenly spring into being a couple months ago. Regardless, "Perth-like yearning" is pretty different than being upset we didn't get Bilbao, wouldn't you say?

I'm a little stunned (not really) that you'd try and pull rank on me by suggesting I was new and didn't know what I was talking about.

But the building is practical as well as beautiful. And it does transform. It solves a number of problems - by demolishing the confusing warren of galleries at the north end where the contemporary art was housed for instance. It gives us a distinct building for contemporary art that rebrands the AGO as more of a home for the new than before. It reinstates Walker Court as the heart of the Gallery, and uses it in a practical way to orient the visitor to the new building. We get a long sculpture gallery, and a more open and inviting face along Dundas. We get galleries for the Thomson bequest. Not bad, really, once you abandon the idea of architecture as spectacle and accept it as experiential in nature.
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And a valid retort if the critics were upset over gallery orientation, or whether the addition brought any substantial improvements to the exhibitions areas. But you're answering aesthetic critiques with functional ones. You're suggesting that people unhappy over the look of the building be soothed because inside it'll be a lot easier to get around. I'm generally of the opinion that that kind of interior planning is secondary to the larger architectural gestures being discussed, and could likely be employed in any number of different aesthetic conditions, as such they're largely meaningless in the defense of those gestures.

For me, the jury is still out. I didn't like Bilbao until I'd witnessed it first hand, and I looooooved the Crystal until it was built.
 
People in Perth getting excited over a fantasy rendering that shows a Foster-like gherkin thingy and a Foster-like Hong Kong blobby waterfront thingy and a big seen-from-above swan thingy on their waterfront, and people in Toronto wanting a Gehry that looks like the Bilbao Gehry, are of a kind really.

People unhappy with the look of the AGO may never be soothed by anything if their interest is in spectacle rather than substance.
 
Urban Shocker said:
People in Perth getting excited over a fantasy rendering that shows a Foster-like gherkin thingy and a Foster-like Hong Kong blobby waterfront thingy and a big seen-from-above swan thingy on their waterfront, and people in Toronto wanting a Gehry that looks like the Bilbao Gehry, are of a kind really.
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I don't really think they are of a kind though, other than both groups being far beneath your learned tastes. Anyway you keep trumpeting that Bilbao connection as if anyone seriously felt that way. Nobody wanted Bilbao, or a stylistic retread, but they were hoping for something more than what they've gotten so far. It isn't that subtle a distinction, so I'm not sure why you keep missing it. Perhaps you're being a bit thick again?

People unhappy with the look of the AGO may never be soothed by anything if their interest is in spectacle rather than substance.
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Pretty on the inside is really only half-beautiful though, right? Well, unless you're a mom.
 
Oh lots of people wanted a swoopy-curvy Bilbao-effect Big Hair Gehry retread in January 2004. It is a known product. Look what it did for Bilbao, it can do that for us too and make us world class just like them, etc. etc. There were even a few fantasy renderings from UT members showing fantasist swoopy-curvy Big Hair Gehry things at Dundas and McCaul. The hollow spectacle crowd were going full throttle hereabouts in January 2004 and they voiced huge disappointment over the design once it was released. Others, who see buildings as experiential rather than mere edifices, were rather happy with Gehry's design solution to the AGO's problems.
 
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