News   Jul 15, 2024
News Roundup for July 15, 2024
 447     0 
News   Jul 15, 2024
Twilight Glow
 558     1 
News   Jul 12, 2024
199 Church Showcases Heritage Facade and Artwork at Street Level
 2K     1 

Museum Station

I don't know if anyone's mentioned this, but they've put in new subway maps on the platform levels at St Andrew and Union (as far as I've seen today) on the pillars (denoting direction of travel). Well not new, but updated and more informative than the old ones.
 
joeclark said:
To bring your complaints to their ultimate expression, we’d have to rip up every station and refinish each one in… what? Fake Helvetica? Fake Egyptian columns?
Click to expand...
Much of the failure of the stations is the lack of design features in the stations. A lack of open space. A lack of any elements of natural light (which is quite regrettable given how shallow the line is). Simply retiling the stations really doesn't do much. You'd really have to do a Westminster-style gutting of the station to achieve much.

I'm not saying that we have to change the entire thing. But if there's some design that does work - I don't see any need to preserve the bathroom-tile feature of every station.

But that doesn't mean that the station fonts can't be preserved in the new scheme. Museum has done that, along with their fake Egyptian columns. But while fake columns work at Museum - they won't work anywhere else in the system again.

And I don't think the tiles HAVE lasted. Many of the stations you can see a massive change in colour where replacement tiles have been used. New elevators and entrances have used different tiles. Station names are partially obscured. There seems to be much more tile replacement in the stations, that I see, say, in these 1966 stations, compared to 1966 stations in other systems.

I just don't think there is any value in preserving the current features and colours for the sake of simply preserving in them.
 
Nfitz (+ TKTKTK): if the 1954 Yonge Line still had Vitrolite in its near-entirety, would you still be making such arguments?
 
I don't think I ever saw enough of the 1954 Vitrolite to appreciate it. Most of the stations from Bloor to King were redone before I ever remember seeing them - except perhaps Bloor, before it was widened. And north of Bloor I don't have a good understanding of what is original. St. Clair and Summerhill maybe ... but Rosedale and Davisville don't seem to look 1950s to me. Is there a good history of the original tiles, and the renos of those stations?

I spend a lot more of my time stairing at the Danforth stations, that I do at the Yonge stations.
 
To my knowledge the tiling used in Eglinton Stn is still Vitrolite as it was in 1954.

I actually like the uniformity of the BD line. In fact I'd advocate redoing Kipling and Kennedy (perhaps after an extension where they're hence no longer terminii stops) such that they reflect the sequence of colours used for the line, green for Kipling and white for Kennedy.
 
nfitz said:
I don't think I ever saw enough of the 1954 Vitrolite to appreciate it. Most of the stations from Bloor to King were redone before I ever remember seeing them - except perhaps Bloor, before it was widened. And north of Bloor I don't have a good understanding of what is original. St. Clair and Summerhill maybe ... but Rosedale and Davisville don't seem to look 1950s to me. Is there a good history of the original tiles, and the renos of those stations?
Click to expand...

Nope, if we're talking about tiling, none is "original"--only the basic form of the stations and surface structures (in which case, Rosedale and Davisville don't have any less claim to 50sness than St. Clair or Summerhill--in fact, they may have *more* claim, as Rosedale's never been added to and Davisville also hasn't, really, since TTC headquarters was plopped on top in the late 50s...)

Oh, and next to Eglinton, the last original-tile survivor was Queen (it only got reclad in the late 90s)
 
adma said:
Nfitz (+ TKTKTK): if the 1954 Yonge Line still had Vitrolite in its near-entirety, would you still be making such arguments?
Click to expand...

I think we should be preserving a couple exemplary examples of our subway architecture as heritage spots. Others should be renovated as needed, with an eye towards creating engaging and user-friendly spaces. If no Vitrolite stations exist any longer (do they?) then we should renovate one back to that state. I think Wellesley is a prime candidate for restoration, it has the whole exterior intact.

Otherwise, bring on the dragons at St. George!
They could imagine the tunnel approach as the Dragon's mouth swallowing the train whole. You disembark right inside the Dragon, ribs arcing above, the tip of a sword pierces the roof and hides an elevator. Everyone waits, sitting on rounded benches in deep reds and pinks. A boney looking staircase leads to the surface.

Museum should have been an archaeological dig-theme at the fare level, showing bones being uncovered and the entrance to an underground passage, leading down a dark twisting staircase and entering into a bright and gold-covered temple. Animatronic archeologists dismantle some of the plating near the ceiling on the west wall, putting it into sacks to be carried back up. On the north platform wall, slaves pry the rubies from the eyes of a giant idol whose mouth opens periodically to allow passengers to disembark from the elevator. Statues and piles of gold coins and chalices lie in piles in the jail, now redone in ornate gold bars - sticks of dynamite wrapped around the locked gate, ready for a light.

They write themselves. Honestly, and all they could come up with was vitrolite, tiles, and coded colours?
 
I wonder if 50 years from now, people will be complaining about an attempt to tile over the bare concrete walls in the stations on the Sheppard Line.
 
nfitz said:
Much of the failure of the stations is the lack of design features in the stations. A lack of open space. A lack of any elements of natural light (which is quite regrettable given how shallow the line is). Simply retiling the stations really doesn't do much. You'd really have to do a Westminster-style gutting of the station to achieve much.

I'm not saying that we have to change the entire thing. But if there's some design that does work - I don't see any need to preserve the bathroom-tile feature of every station.

I just don't think there is any value in preserving the current features and colours for the sake of simply preserving in them.
Click to expand...

They're preserved for the identity of the line, it's place in time, and even for the aesthetic. If you get rid of them, there's little left except for the exterior of the station by the bus stops. These are the things that should be saved for the character of the line, if some is going to rebuild the stations. I never suggested that they should only consider retiling.
 
TKTKTK said:
They write themselves. Honestly, and all they could come up with was vitrolite, tiles, and coded colours?
Click to expand...

Honestly, at Harvard, with all its illustrious architecture and atmosphere, all Walter Gropius could come up with is this?
harvard.jpg

;)
 
TKTKTK said:
I think we should be preserving a couple exemplary examples of our subway architecture as heritage spots. Others should be renovated as needed, with an eye towards creating engaging and user-friendly spaces. They write themselves. Honestly, and all they could come up with was vitrolite, tiles, and coded colours?
Click to expand...

I don't think it was possible or practical or dignified :rolleyes: in the 50's to have animatronic dragonheads built into the subway lines. The subway's about utility not grandiosity. If it ain't broke, why fix it?? Museum's a special case because it happens to be the only station in the system named for an universally abstract locale ergo Hospital Stn or Library Stn. Everywhere else doesn't have to be that specific because the stations don't uniquely represent what's on the surface. For a system that's swimming above bankruptcy we sure devote alot of funds towards nightmare rennovations (again I like Museum but St Patrick, Pape, etc. :confused:).
 
There's something curiously '70s about the theme park nature of the Museum station reno, and TKTKTK's retro craving for a Disneyfication of the system.

This is particularly odd at a time when the ROM has abandoned ersatz experience for the real thing, ditching the "interpretive" approach in favour of displaying beautiful, original objects from their collection.
 
Urban Shocker said:
There's something curiously '70s about the theme park nature of the Museum station reno, and TKTKTK's retro craving for a Disneyfication of the system.
Click to expand...

I would hardly call Museum's reno "Theme park", though my idea certainly is.

I'm being cheesy and populist, but I really do think our system could use some populism and cheesy exuberance. As a city we're always so worried about being gauche or tacky, that kind of fear will hardly ever lead to some new outrageous success.
 
So crank up the gauche, tacky and cheesy quotient all round and Toronto gets "outrageous success" ( whatever that is )?
 
You must log in or register to post here.

Back
Top