1 St Thomas (Lee Development, 29s, Stern)

[interchange42]

I guess maybe Stern does know what he's doing after all.

Well, I think the question has been more of a 'do we want historicist architecture' than 'does Stern give good historicist'. He's definitely the best at the historicist game.

That said, when something is good anything, it makes it a lot easier to be swayed by something that normally goes against one's grain. 1 St. Thomas is good enough for me to overcome my reluctance to see new faux-old in town.

Can you blame me? Up 'til now it's all been Cheddingtonesque or Vic Schtick around these here parts.

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[scarberiankhatru]

How many people truly oppose good faux? A ridiculously tiny amount...basically a trivial amount. It's just that it was a bit hard to tell if Stern was giving us good faux - until it was done. There really was a moment when, suddenly, most doubts vanished and 1 St. Thomas made sense.

 

[interchange42]

How many people truly oppose good faux? A ridiculously tiny amount...basically a trivial amount.

???

People en masse don't oppose anything good. How often do we get good faux-old though? Nearly never, and that's why those like me generally oppose faux-old. And who knows how many of us there are? Sure, maybe our numbers are small, but who knows, maybe we're well armed...

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[scarberiankhatru]

Armed with words that only other archi-geeks like urbantorontoers read, so maybe you do have influence beyond your numbers...

edit - I generally like mediocre faux better than mediocre modern, for what it's worth...and I pretty much always like bad faux more than bad modern stuff.

 

[salvius]

and I pretty much always like bad faux more than bad modern stuff.

Does this extend to the French Quarter?

 

[scarberiankhatru]

I can't answer that unless you give me an example of "bad modern" to compare it with...

 

[Urban Shocker]

This must be a first hereabouts: people discussing what kind of bad architecture they like the most. An appreciation of kitsch, I can see, but rating common-or-garden second rate design? Yikes!

Faux-lovin' is all about aspiring to "good taste", relies on received opinions, and the caprice of ever-changing fashion - rather than a confident ability to appreciate good design.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

I'll admit to liking French Quarter more than Spire, but that's just an arbitrary pair of buildings chosen more for shock value than for any serious points of comparison. I'm certainly not going to compare faux and not-faux starting from a position where faux is automatically inferior like some of youse guys do. It's hard, though - "faux" has certain connotations, implying that not-faux is "vrai," etc.

 

[interchange42]

"Vrai" meaning true-to-the-time of course...

For me true-to-the-time means a modern aesthetic; clean lines, glass, steel, in-kind use of accenting materials such as wood, brick, stone, etc. Precast too I suppose, although it's difficult to type that word and feel good about myself. True-to-the-time can be 'Toronto Style' (boxy), or more flowing (like the AGO's visor will be), or more angular (like Libeskind's Crystal). That last example notwithstanding, I normally expect true-to-the-time projects to have better than 50% glass on their exteriors.

That would be my narrow definition for vrai.

That leaves out the fact however that most of what is being built does not fit my definition. Most stuff is historicist in some way or another. Actually, most stuff is built with little thought to the architecture beyond 'how cheap can I get my building built'? So maybe true-to-the-time architecture is actually the historicist stuff - that's what makes up 98% of the suburbs. Maybe what's vrai to most is the old comfortable brick home with the garage out front, and my vrai isn't vrai, it's really "cutting edge" to various degrees.

I realize I am out-of-touch with the majority on this issue, but I knows what I likes.

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[scarberiankhatru]

Faux can be truer to our time - and can be more cutting edge - than rehashing the same old (and I do mean old) "modern" designs that usually only look good in theory. Sure, it's hard to not consider lots of Gehry- and Libeskind-type stuff cutting edge (especially since you can cut yourself on any of their edges) but me and a zillion other people are not willing to presume such cutting edge is both automatically more attractive and more appropriate.

 

[Hydrogen]

Considerable quantities of "faux" are located in the burbs, where fake georgians and chateaus dominate the otherwise arid suburban landscape - kinda like a faux farm where the crop will never be reaped. Modernist takes on suburban housing are few and far between.

"Faux" towers can be executed properly and be quite pleasing to the eye, and modernist towers can be poorly executed and suck. But as to whether a poorly executed "faux" is better than a badly designed modernist tower, I think it really comes down to the individual buildings standing on their merits (or lack thereof).

 

[buildup]

"For me true-to-the-time means a modern aesthetic; clean lines, glass, steel, in-kind use of accenting materials such as wood, brick, stone, etc"

It's interesting that "true to the time" can appropriate accenting materials such as stone, wood, brick from the past; whereas when historicist buildings use style accents from the past its deemed less authentic?

 

[interchange42]

Historicist stuff doesn't need any of those traditional materials to be historicist. Permit me to illustrate:

This historicist stinker is north of Miami up the beach.

It's all precast, so a modern material, it's all horrible. (If I had never seen this, I would never have believed so much money could be spent in the service of evil outside of a war.)

Here's a local modern beauty.

It features extensive use of traditional materials in its foyer - you can see lots of wood and stone here.

The use of a material does not make something historicist or true-to-the-time. The way, and style in which the material is used, does.

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[Urban Shocker]

This isn't the Age of Reason; absolute monarchs don't run things any more and aren't remodelling their countries in the likeness of classical Greece, prompted by the Enlightenment notions of the leading 18th century thinkers. So, classical temples hold little sway as inspirational models nowadays. And evangelical Christian zealots aren't dredging up Gothic as the house style of a re-energized British empire, as they did in the mid-19th century. Much has happened since then, we express ourselves differently, and our present style is a reflection of that changed substance.

But that doesn't mean creative people don't plunder the past for inspiration, grab what they like the look of, and imaginatively appropriate it. Examples of Picasso's dictum, "Bad artists copy, great artists steal" still crop up.

 

[Urban Shocker]

... just not at 1 St. Thomas!