Museum Station

[adma]

That's ridiculous!

I'm only suggesting that sometimes we can work outside the strict-utility box. Not everything has to be a high-order intellectual/aesthetic experience. Our subway system is used by people of all stripes, of all backgrounds, it should play to them occasionally as well.

However, maybe it's less a matter of altering the way the subway looks, than of altering how we frame the way it looks? Case in point (and oddly unmentioned/overlooked through this phase of discussion): the Spacing subway buttons. As a popular success, they've done more to redeem the so-called "strict-utility box" than any drastic alterations away from strict utility can. Believe it or not, they've "popularized" the so-called bathroom-tile banality, to the point where vilifying it seems increasingly a step backward into yesteryear, somehow.

If that building was falling apart and in terrible need of a renovation, and there were 12 others much the same beside it, I'd entertain the idea of changing the envelope and seeing how it could be changed or updated.

Considering the edifice in question, your entertaining the idea of changing the envelope would be vetoed on the spot. And if there were 12 others much the same beside it--presumably all by Parkin, if you're trying to draw a subway analogy (and almost like a mind-blowing Toronto answer to this)--it'd still be deemed highly questionable. Maybe not in 1988 (when Modern was "out", Postmodern was "in"), but absolutely in 2008...

 

[TKTKTK]

However, maybe it's less a matter of altering the way the subway looks, than of altering how we frame the way it looks? Case in point (and oddly unmentioned/overlooked through this phase of discussion): the Spacing subway buttons. As a popular success, they've done more to redeem the so-called "strict-utility box" than any drastic alterations away from strict utility can. Believe it or not, they've "popularized" the so-called bathroom-tile banality, to the point where vilifying it seems increasingly a step backward into yesteryear, somehow.

People fall in love with all sorts of things. It doesn't mean those things can't then change. No one's suggesting a forceable transformation of the system. We're only talking about new possibilities for the stations we have when the time comes to renovate them. Incidentally, I don't think the Museum or St. Andrew station makeovers go quite far enough (which is probably why they're so lame in part). Should they go so far as staging a subway station in the belly of a beast? Maybe not. Dare to dream though!

Considering the edifice in question, your entertaining the idea of changing the envelope would be vetoed on the spot. And if there were 12 others much the same beside it--presumably all by Parkin, if you're trying to draw a subway analogy (and almost like a mind-blowing Toronto answer to this)--it'd still be deemed highly questionable. Maybe not in 1988 (when Modern was "out", Postmodern was "in"), but absolutely in 2008...

Maybe in 50 years we'll think it needs a neon dolphin splashing out the side. The future's a funny place, just ask the ROM.

The comparison is flawed though, I'm not suggesting dragon buildings or beaver dam entrances. Interior decoration (or over-decoration) is different than architecture.

But maybe there is a further application of it. Maybe instead of waiting for people to fall in love with the beautiful utility of it all, we should actually try to give them some razzle dazzle.

Imagine crazy streetcars flickering up Spadina:

 

[nfitz]

Clarify this for us: Are you talking about the heterogeneous YUS line or the homogeneous Bloor, Sheppard, and Scarborough lines?

I think we've been talking about Bloor mostly.

Badly. The tracking is wrong and they’re installed at the wrong height.

Yeah, but is anyone who doesn't have a stick up their ass going to notice? Us geeks might see it, but the general public (for who the system is built) will be happy.

 

[junctionist]

Of course a lot of people will notice that the station name is awkwardly placed.

TKTKTK- The problem with all that razzle dazzle is that it ages horribly. It tends to deteriorate quickly. But looking at this from a public perception standpoint, it gets boring quickly. You'd have to do something new every decade at stations like Museum if you wanted to impress the razzle dazzle crowd.

 

[junctionist]

I noticed today that they've installed four black frames for advertising on the panels now near the exit, and unlike the ones at every other station, these also have the name of the advertising company on the bottom panel of the frame.

Are they going to do anything with the painted concrete sections of the wall?

 

[TKTKTK]

Of course a lot of people will notice that the station name is awkwardly placed.

TKTKTK- The problem with all that razzle dazzle is that it ages horribly. It tends to deteriorate quickly. But looking at this from a public perception standpoint, it gets boring quickly. You'd have to do something new every decade at stations like Museum if you wanted to impress the razzle dazzle crowd.

Cheap things deteriorate quickly. The TTC has a lot of that already, so it's not like it won't fit in. You don't have to do it cheaply though, or you can do it so cheaply that part of the business plan is to frequently redo a couple of the stations.

Quality and longevity aren't really concerns for brainstorming - they're details you fuss out once you've exhausted all the possibilities.

I suspect this is part of the problem: we're not interested in entertaining any idea that isn't already proven. Yawn, eh?

 

[Urban Shocker]

Uncle Walt proved it could be done decades ago, as did Mel and his moose more recently. I think the question is, do we want the TTC to run a line that leads to the Magic Kingdom?

 

[smuncky]

Uncle Walt proved it could be done decades ago, as did Mel and his moose more recently. I think the question is, do we want the TTC to run a line that leads to the Magic Kingdom?

if the fare stays $2.75, i wouldn't mind going to florida for that price. it sure beats driving down.

i imagine the stops would be in buffalo, washington dc, richmond, charlotte, jacksonville and last stop in orlando. to cut down on travel time, there would be a tunnel going under lake ontario instead of going around the golden horseshoe.

 

[adma]

The thing is: sure, we can do little things to juice up the B-D stations and make them a little more site-reflective. But, does it *have* to negate the existing aesthetic, much less treat it as something expendably non-aesthetic--especially in the post-Spacing-button era?

Maybe it's ideally a matter of simple gestures rather than extreme makeovers--like, to take a modest example, some of the yesterday-and-today photos that have popped up at Bloor, Sherbourne, etc. Sure, you can toss a Garrison Greek theme into Ossington or Christie, but you don't have to be overwrought about it--even Garrison Creek Project architects Brown & Storey would likely agree to that. (Especially, in our transit-cash-strapped age, because overwrought costs money.)

In that light, if we think of all the renos/upgrades to the 1954 Yonge line stations, the most instructively successful from a "subway heritage" POV was one of the if not the first: the c1980 Queen Station makeover which added the John Boyle murals and the red/blue ceiling crisscrosses, but kept the Vitrolite. Simple as pie. Unfortunately, the clods at the TTC had to go and replace the Vitrolite in the late 90s, and throw in a crude subway-font replacement for good measure--but consider Queen Station before that time, and you may get a hint on how ideally to handle a whole slew of B-D stations...

 

[wyliepoon]

I think the question is, do we want the TTC to run a line that leads to the Magic Kingdom?

Hong Kong's MTR does...

 

[nfitz]

The Paris RER goes to do Disneyland as well! And a direct Eurostar from St. Pancras in London. I guess it's the new Rome!

 

[TKTKTK]

Uncle Walt proved it could be done decades ago, as did Mel and his moose more recently. I think the question is, do we want the TTC to run a line that leads to the Magic Kingdom?

So boring!

Disney World and Disneyland blow the TTC out of the water.

Frankly though I'm not sure which is funnier - that you think your comments contribute anything but old-lady-grumbling, or the fact that you take these suggestions at face value. Either way, where's a dancing banana when you need it?

 

[TKTKTK]

The thing is: sure, we can do little things to juice up the B-D stations and make them a little more site-reflective. But, does it *have* to negate the existing aesthetic, much less treat it as something expendably non-aesthetic--especially in the post-Spacing-button era?

Get over it! We'll keep a couple examples so that people know where we came from, otherwise our transportation system should reach higher. We're a very different city than when we first built this system - it's time to reflect that.

This is a city, not a museum.

 

[adma]

Get over it! We'll keep a couple examples so that people know where we came from, otherwise our transportation system should reach higher. We're a very different city than when we first built this system - it's time to reflect that.

This is a city, not a museum.

Okay them, Gehry's AGO concept was compromised by typical Toronto conservatism. He should have started with a clean slate, no more Walker Court, no more Grange, etc...

Listen, TKTKTK: if anything *really* epitomizes a reaching-higher Toronto, it's Spacing, buttons and all....

 

[TKTKTK]

Okay them, Gehry's ROM concept was compromised by typical Toronto conservatism. He should have started with a clean slate, no more Walker Court, no more Grange, etc...

That sure showed me, except you're forgetting that Libeskind DID tear down Kinoshita's extension to do just that. None of our subway stations are the equal of the older bits of the ROM, now...the equal of the Kinoshita bits perhaps. As for the AGO, there's barely any of the original building left to be recognized, he obliterated Barton Myer's work. Kept the awesome, razed the ok.

Again though, these comparisons to architecture really aren't appropriate. We don't have 20 ROMs or AGOs nearly all identical and nearly all in a state of shambles. We don't have the opportunity to restore and preserve a couple of those ROMs and AGOs back to specific design-periods they might have had, freeing us to modernize and update the others.

The inside of a subway station, moreso than the outside of a museum, is intimately used on a daily basis. I would love to see more stations like Downsview, stations that really rise above the austere grind of public transit.

Listen, TKTKTK: if anything *really* epitomizes a reaching-higher Toronto, it's Spacing, buttons and all....

I love my spacing buttons, too. That doesn't mean I love Wellesley station or King station when I'm inside them. I think there are likely a lot of people in my boat.