Bruce Kuwabara: Ourtopia Essay

[rdaner]

Has anyone else read this? I found it really helpful to put the current crop of cultural buildings in a wider historical context.

http://www.kpmbarchitects.com/images/up_files/up-OURTOPIA_August_2008.pdf

 

[Urban Shocker]

Yes, many of our leading local architects have emerged from the firms of Barton Myers and Jack Diamond, or have worked with mentors such as George Baird.

Kuwabara thinks of the Kitchener City Hall competition, where it was his generation of architects who were shortlisted, as their defining moment in an evolutionary process.

A nice presentation of design culture in general and the values that inform Toronto Style in particular.

 

[Tewder]

Enjoyable article, though I'm not sure I agree with the concept of a rigid grid system as being the ultimate representation or facilitator of the city's potential for creativity and growth. I do agree that a grid facilitates flow, but in the end I feel that that flow has to be channeled and has to merge with other flowing forces, which is why I suspect that a grid punctuated by urban nexuses such as public squares and circles etc is extremely important, and that perhaps we should be considering more of them. As a case in point, the energy of Yonge Street, the Yonge/Dundas Intersection and the Eaton Centre seems to be merging in interesting ways in the public space at Dundas Square. On the other hand, although Queen Street West flows with creativity and potential there is little ability, aside from within the private realm, for that energy to coalesce in a similar way. Perhaps a 'Soho Square'-type space in the heart of the area would provide a similar sort of node or hub for this to happen.

 

[Urban Shocker]

Kuwabara also talks about intersections. In the extended version of the article ( below ) he says, "One of the conditions within the grid, which I believe is specific to Toronto, is how the corners where the residential streets intersect the arterials - ie. College Street, Queen Street or King Street - contain sidewalk cafes and retail on the corners. This is a condition that I believe is uniquely Toronto: it is a city of intersections - of urban conditions, cultures, communities."

http://www.architecturedays.com/tor_doc_keynote.pdf

With Ourtopia he advocates for diversity ( a sort of built Multiculturalism ) of forms: "At an urban scale, Canada's National Ballet School / Radio City project offers a portrait of Toronto architecture and urbanism in the twenty first century - with generations of architecture organized as an ensemble of old and new, solid and transparent, high-rise and low-rise, around shared open space." And: "In architectural terms, mutual accommodation is about generating a dialogue between what is new and what exists." It parallels his idea of a strong community: "To remain open-ended and non-conformist, to embrace people of different cultures and backgrounds and allow them to exist as themselves is a fundamental condition of a civil society and therefore of Ourtopia."

 

[Tewder]

I agree with the above assessment of Radio City/National Ballet School, and there are so many other examples that share the same inspiration, with the Distillery District immediately coming to mind (even as many here are upset by what is perceived as an encroachment into the heritage realm).

As for intersections truly functioning as communication nodes I am more sceptical. The example given of cafes and retail on corners underlines the non-public reality of these spaces which is inherently limiting. Over-programming or over-privatizing the Waterfront would start to have the same feel. Maybe this is what European cities and towns tend to do better, though through necessity and not through choice (in the absense of grid patterns).

 

[Urban Shocker]

Well I think one of the examples he's given - the corner restaurant Fresh on Queen West - illustrates the idea of design as an animator of public spaces, with an intersection of the grid matrix as an enabler in that process. The other example, the institutional CCBR, animates through a transparency that reveals new/old building contrasts and landscaping within. He's talking about a creative approach to enhancing how we experience the city. Unlike Jack Diamond, who believes that "cities are made up of continuities, not discontinuities", he welcomes both the Crystal and the Four Seasons Centre as examples of how this process can transform a city. I agree - the City Room and the Spirit House are two equally magical new spaces to experience.