A
alklay
Guest
ouch! (but true)
Toronto Nathan Phillips Square + Spirit Garden | ?m | ?s | City of Toronto
A
adma
Guest
I'd still recommend relative kid gloves w/the walkways.
Nevertheless, though I'm pro-walkway in principle, I've been laying my own kid gloves on Rogers Marvel; not that I approved their scheme, just in that they proved that, yes, maybe liberties *can* be taken against the grain of "official" recommendations. (And I reckon that the reality of RM's scheme is what triggered the thrust of Lisa Rochon's column. I couldn't have seen her advocating that degree of liberty w/NPS otherwise.)
Nevertheless, though I'm pro-walkway in principle, I've been laying my own kid gloves on Rogers Marvel; not that I approved their scheme, just in that they proved that, yes, maybe liberties *can* be taken against the grain of "official" recommendations. (And I reckon that the reality of RM's scheme is what triggered the thrust of Lisa Rochon's column. I couldn't have seen her advocating that degree of liberty w/NPS otherwise.)
D
DavidsonAve
Guest
All these entries, including PLANT, have missed the point, which was to open the square up to the downtown neighbourhood, and the four entrant's proposed designs and the winner fail to do so.
First and foremost, the elevated walkway should be torn down, post haste. It blocks the view of the square and makes it feel isolated--separating it from the city. Imagine Dundas Square ringed by an elevated walkway? It'd look pretty ugly if it were.
Second, why is it that Revell is treated like a God and his design of City Hall and the Square as perfect? The walkway is poor design and the ramp is a huge mistake. In fact, after I did some perusing of the world's greatest public squares, I didn't come across a single one with an elevated walkway or with a ramp which cars could drive up. Here's the site: www.pps.org/great_public_...type_id=13
Third, what's with all this planting of trees? It's a square, not a park. One of the best public squares I visited was in downtown Mexico City called Zocalo, and I didn't see a single tree. It's a largel square, surrounded by a really old cathedral on one side, a government building on the other, and two colonial looking buildings used for commercial purposes. There's a massive flag of Mexico right smack in the middle of the square and that's it. No cluttering. When I visited Zocalo and stood in the square, I remember feeling like I was standing at the center of the world. It was an amazing feeling (Good architecture really does make you feel good) NPS inspires no such feeling. You can view Zocalo at this site www.delange.org/Zocalo/Zocalo.htm
If I could do three things to improve NPS, I would rip down that concrete walkway mistake, move the peace garden, and re-tile the whole square. Don't know how much that would cost, but probably a lot less than tens of millions the city has budgeted.
Just some thoughts.
DavidsonAve,
First and foremost, the elevated walkway should be torn down, post haste. It blocks the view of the square and makes it feel isolated--separating it from the city. Imagine Dundas Square ringed by an elevated walkway? It'd look pretty ugly if it were.
Second, why is it that Revell is treated like a God and his design of City Hall and the Square as perfect? The walkway is poor design and the ramp is a huge mistake. In fact, after I did some perusing of the world's greatest public squares, I didn't come across a single one with an elevated walkway or with a ramp which cars could drive up. Here's the site: www.pps.org/great_public_...type_id=13
Third, what's with all this planting of trees? It's a square, not a park. One of the best public squares I visited was in downtown Mexico City called Zocalo, and I didn't see a single tree. It's a largel square, surrounded by a really old cathedral on one side, a government building on the other, and two colonial looking buildings used for commercial purposes. There's a massive flag of Mexico right smack in the middle of the square and that's it. No cluttering. When I visited Zocalo and stood in the square, I remember feeling like I was standing at the center of the world. It was an amazing feeling (Good architecture really does make you feel good) NPS inspires no such feeling. You can view Zocalo at this site www.delange.org/Zocalo/Zocalo.htm
If I could do three things to improve NPS, I would rip down that concrete walkway mistake, move the peace garden, and re-tile the whole square. Don't know how much that would cost, but probably a lot less than tens of millions the city has budgeted.
Just some thoughts.
DavidsonAve,
M
MetroMan1000
Guest
While I agree that the whole square should be retiled, I don't think that making the square a blank expanse would work to its advantage. Large open spaces work if their surroundings take up the job of making it beautiful. In Nathan Philips Square's case, while the North, West and East ends are beautiful, I wouldn't think so for the South end.
I think the proposals all identified NPS as an oasis in the city and ran with the idea that it needs to find a role as a place where people can spend time in.
Using the walkways as a place to contemplate the square and City Hall is appropriate. Dedicating a quiet space on the West end for the peace garden, the children's playground and the Tree Top Restaurant is also welcome.
Most of all, all proposals recognize that the major issue here is that the entry into the square was severely limited. Bay St. had almost no entry points, the West side is a dead entry point because of the parking garage entrances and the main point of entry, Queen St. is blocked at most entry points by muddy grass and benches.
The Plant proposal makes Queen St a long wide promenade which becomes a front porch for NPS. This entire front porch allows for entry into in the square. Bay St once again becomes a useable sidewalk with entry points along its entire length and the West side is attractive with the restaurant and the Peace Garden.
At first, I identified PLANT as a winning proposal but was distracted by Zeidler's fireworks. In retrospect, this well thought, useful and -- most important of all -- buildable proposal is the best thing for NPS.
I look forward to seeing it implemented and possibly even contributing to helping fund it.
I think the proposals all identified NPS as an oasis in the city and ran with the idea that it needs to find a role as a place where people can spend time in.
Using the walkways as a place to contemplate the square and City Hall is appropriate. Dedicating a quiet space on the West end for the peace garden, the children's playground and the Tree Top Restaurant is also welcome.
Most of all, all proposals recognize that the major issue here is that the entry into the square was severely limited. Bay St. had almost no entry points, the West side is a dead entry point because of the parking garage entrances and the main point of entry, Queen St. is blocked at most entry points by muddy grass and benches.
The Plant proposal makes Queen St a long wide promenade which becomes a front porch for NPS. This entire front porch allows for entry into in the square. Bay St once again becomes a useable sidewalk with entry points along its entire length and the West side is attractive with the restaurant and the Peace Garden.
At first, I identified PLANT as a winning proposal but was distracted by Zeidler's fireworks. In retrospect, this well thought, useful and -- most important of all -- buildable proposal is the best thing for NPS.
I look forward to seeing it implemented and possibly even contributing to helping fund it.
G
Greg29Toronto
Guest
I always thought the walkways and ramp were mistakes. I remember as a kid thinking I "wasn't allowed" to go past them, they created a barrier for me even as a young child. Today the south walkway helps to block that mess on the south side of the street, but trees could have done a nicer job in it's absence.
A
AlvinofDiaspar
Guest
From the Globe:
Building a team harder than landing right prom date
Artists, architects and designers come together to rebuild Nathan Phillips Square
JENNIFER LEWINGTON
CITY HALL BUREAU CHIEF
When the city launched a design competition last fall to refresh Nathan Phillips Square, Toronto architect Andrew Frontini turned down overtures from several firms to bid on the prestige project.
But he says "a little light bulb started shimmering" when a call came in from Chris Pommer, now a partner with Plant Architect Inc., with whom Mr. Frontini had worked at another firm in the 1990s.
Within 24 hours, he joined a seemingly oddball team to compete for the $40-million project.
Mr. Frontini is a partner with a large Toronto architecture and engineering firm, Shore Tilbe Irwin, founded in 1945.
Plant Architect, set up by Mr. Pommer, Lisa Rapoport and Mary Tremain in 1995, is a small up-and-coming firm that blends architecture and landscape design.
Plant also recruited Toronto architect and urban designer Adrian Blackwell, an internationally noted artist and architect, and Chicago-based landscape architect Peter Lindsay Schaudt.
Assembling the right people, says Ms. Rapoport, is "like trying to get a date to the prom, but so much worse." But the combination worked.
In the biggest coup of their 40-something professional lives, the six-person team was named last week to refurbish a scruffy icon -- what Mayor David Miller calls "the most important public space in Toronto and I think in Canada."
By chance, not premeditation, a common thread links the team. With the exception of Mr. Schaudt, all graduated from the University of Waterloo's school of architecture in the late 1980s.
Ms. Rapoport and Mr. Pommer, former classmates, are married to each other while their partner, Ms. Tremain, graduated two years later. Mr. Frontini and Mr. Blackwell, former classmates, knew the others as well.
"There was a moment when we look around the table and said 'hey, we are [almost] all from Waterloo,' " Ms. Rapoport says.
"It was not intentional. But there is a dialogue you can have with the background you have."
In announcing the winner, international jury chairman Eric Haldenby, director of Waterloo's architecture school, praised the team for the way it "imaginatively reinvented elements of the square, enhanced the experience of the public realm and integrated exemplary new sustainable design approaches."
Beyond the Waterloo connection, the team also shared a "political ethos," says Mr. Blackwell, on the value of incremental, not radical changes, to realize the potential of the square designed by city hall architect Viljo Revell.
Simply put, the design makes major changes to liven up the underused perimeter of the square while freeing up the interior space.
For example, the Queen Street edge will be transformed with a 50-per-cent increase in trees (to 230 from 160 at present), with shady oaks and maples planted in special soil to encourage long-lived growth.
New paving stones will replace grass that never survives a season. A glass pavilion at Queen and Bay, with a tourist kiosk and bike rentals, replaces a bunker-like structure on the southeast corner.
The "urban forest" effect continues along Bay Street, with a new line of trees to recapture the dead zone on the east side of the square.
As well, the footprint of the square extends to Bay Street with paved pedestrian areas for people and chip wagons relocated from Queen Street.
The benefit is twofold: the new tree canopy replaces less-shade-giving locusts and adds to usable areas for people to walk, sit or play chess before entering the square.
Other changes will make it easier for the public to watch the goings-on in the square from existing raised walkways, now closed, along the square's edge.
A new two-storey glass restaurant on the southwest corner has elevator access to the upper deck, while a new permanent stage when not in use doubles as an "urban bleacher" with stairs up to the walkway.
"We finally will be able to realize the potential of an integrated landscape in the spirit of Revell, but also of the time," Mr. Schaudt says. "It is about fitting like a glove rather than making a grand gesture."
In the most controversial change, the designers shift the Peace Garden to the northwest corner to free up the interior of the square.
To those upset the garden has been shunted aside, Ms. Rapoport argues that it will triple in size, with a new, long wading pool.
In all, she says, the team's core idea is to enhance Nathan Phillips Square as a place for people, with "a million incremental things" to make that happen.
One week after winning, the significance of the victory has begun to hit home.
"It is just sinking in now that a lot of people will be walking by [the square] for decades to come," Mr. Frontini says.
AoD
Building a team harder than landing right prom date
Artists, architects and designers come together to rebuild Nathan Phillips Square
JENNIFER LEWINGTON
CITY HALL BUREAU CHIEF
When the city launched a design competition last fall to refresh Nathan Phillips Square, Toronto architect Andrew Frontini turned down overtures from several firms to bid on the prestige project.
But he says "a little light bulb started shimmering" when a call came in from Chris Pommer, now a partner with Plant Architect Inc., with whom Mr. Frontini had worked at another firm in the 1990s.
Within 24 hours, he joined a seemingly oddball team to compete for the $40-million project.
Mr. Frontini is a partner with a large Toronto architecture and engineering firm, Shore Tilbe Irwin, founded in 1945.
Plant Architect, set up by Mr. Pommer, Lisa Rapoport and Mary Tremain in 1995, is a small up-and-coming firm that blends architecture and landscape design.
Plant also recruited Toronto architect and urban designer Adrian Blackwell, an internationally noted artist and architect, and Chicago-based landscape architect Peter Lindsay Schaudt.
Assembling the right people, says Ms. Rapoport, is "like trying to get a date to the prom, but so much worse." But the combination worked.
In the biggest coup of their 40-something professional lives, the six-person team was named last week to refurbish a scruffy icon -- what Mayor David Miller calls "the most important public space in Toronto and I think in Canada."
By chance, not premeditation, a common thread links the team. With the exception of Mr. Schaudt, all graduated from the University of Waterloo's school of architecture in the late 1980s.
Ms. Rapoport and Mr. Pommer, former classmates, are married to each other while their partner, Ms. Tremain, graduated two years later. Mr. Frontini and Mr. Blackwell, former classmates, knew the others as well.
"There was a moment when we look around the table and said 'hey, we are [almost] all from Waterloo,' " Ms. Rapoport says.
"It was not intentional. But there is a dialogue you can have with the background you have."
In announcing the winner, international jury chairman Eric Haldenby, director of Waterloo's architecture school, praised the team for the way it "imaginatively reinvented elements of the square, enhanced the experience of the public realm and integrated exemplary new sustainable design approaches."
Beyond the Waterloo connection, the team also shared a "political ethos," says Mr. Blackwell, on the value of incremental, not radical changes, to realize the potential of the square designed by city hall architect Viljo Revell.
Simply put, the design makes major changes to liven up the underused perimeter of the square while freeing up the interior space.
For example, the Queen Street edge will be transformed with a 50-per-cent increase in trees (to 230 from 160 at present), with shady oaks and maples planted in special soil to encourage long-lived growth.
New paving stones will replace grass that never survives a season. A glass pavilion at Queen and Bay, with a tourist kiosk and bike rentals, replaces a bunker-like structure on the southeast corner.
The "urban forest" effect continues along Bay Street, with a new line of trees to recapture the dead zone on the east side of the square.
As well, the footprint of the square extends to Bay Street with paved pedestrian areas for people and chip wagons relocated from Queen Street.
The benefit is twofold: the new tree canopy replaces less-shade-giving locusts and adds to usable areas for people to walk, sit or play chess before entering the square.
Other changes will make it easier for the public to watch the goings-on in the square from existing raised walkways, now closed, along the square's edge.
A new two-storey glass restaurant on the southwest corner has elevator access to the upper deck, while a new permanent stage when not in use doubles as an "urban bleacher" with stairs up to the walkway.
"We finally will be able to realize the potential of an integrated landscape in the spirit of Revell, but also of the time," Mr. Schaudt says. "It is about fitting like a glove rather than making a grand gesture."
In the most controversial change, the designers shift the Peace Garden to the northwest corner to free up the interior of the square.
To those upset the garden has been shunted aside, Ms. Rapoport argues that it will triple in size, with a new, long wading pool.
In all, she says, the team's core idea is to enhance Nathan Phillips Square as a place for people, with "a million incremental things" to make that happen.
One week after winning, the significance of the victory has begun to hit home.
"It is just sinking in now that a lot of people will be walking by [the square] for decades to come," Mr. Frontini says.
AoD
Josh Rachlis
New Member
Make the square green!!!
The Mayor claims he wants Toronto to be the greenest city in North America. How about starting with his own front yard? The concrete expanse is SO depressing. Imagine a vast expanse of green and local vegetation and trees... It would literally give life to our city. The green would be calming... Soothing... Refreshing for all citizens. It would help dampen the oppressive summer hear. Heck, how can we complain about smog if we won't plant trees instead of concrete structures? Make it a world-class Cith Hall Park/Garden. Call it Miller's Garden for all I care. People will be drawn to it, and it will represent what Toronto stands for.
The Mayor claims he wants Toronto to be the greenest city in North America. How about starting with his own front yard? The concrete expanse is SO depressing. Imagine a vast expanse of green and local vegetation and trees... It would literally give life to our city. The green would be calming... Soothing... Refreshing for all citizens. It would help dampen the oppressive summer hear. Heck, how can we complain about smog if we won't plant trees instead of concrete structures? Make it a world-class Cith Hall Park/Garden. Call it Miller's Garden for all I care. People will be drawn to it, and it will represent what Toronto stands for.
ShonTron
Moderator
Member Bio
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You're talking about Nathan Phillips Square? It is a square, not a lawn.
There's plenty of greenery and trees next door at Osgoode Hall, which is pleasantly secluded but fully open to the public.
There's plenty of greenery and trees next door at Osgoode Hall, which is pleasantly secluded but fully open to the public.
salvius
Active Member
What's depressing is that the only public space many Canadians will tolerate come in the form of parks.
ganjavih
Senior Member
Regardless, it is depressing.
JasonParis
Moderator
That's exactly what's happening.
adma
Superstar
unimaginative2
Senior Member
I'm actually nervous about all those trees on Queen Street. If they ever grow to the size in the rendering, they risk cutting off the view of City Hall from the street even more than the walkways already do. On the other hand, they could provide some much needed warmth to the square. I just hope that the walkways are renovated very thoroughly. They're the kind of architectural feature that really has to be well-maintained to be successful.
wyliepoon
Senior Member
Post
Link to article
Peace Garden pavilion may survive redesign
Review panel backs saving structure
Kelly Patrick
National Post
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Toronto's peaceniks won a compromise at City Hall yesterday.
A council committee reviewing the $40-million-plan to revitalize Nathan Phillips Square endorsed saving the Peace Garden's pavilion -- a structure that was to be torn down under the winning design unveiled in March.
"Keep it!" Father Massey Lombardi, a priest at St. Wilfrid's Catholic Church in North York, begged the government management committee.
"What are you going to say? That this garden isn't important any more? It has no value? Because it's got to fit and be au courant with the rest of the city? Well, look, I tell you I'm really upset about that. Keep it, keep it, keep it!"
Fr. Lombardi helped found the Peace Garden in 1984.
Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, Pope John Paul II and Queen Elizabeth II all played parts in dedicating the garden that year.
The Peace Garden features a sundial, a reflecting pool, an eternal flame and a purposefully damaged pavilion whose missing corner is supposed to summon the ravages of war.
The winning blueprint for Nathan Phillips Square, submitted by Toronto firms Plant Architect, Inc. and Shore Tilbe Irwin & Partners, envisions building an expanded Peace Garden on the western edge of the square, behind a new permanent stage.
The architects suggested moving the reflecting pool, the sundial and the flame, but not the pavilion.
Councillor Joe Mihevic suggested a compromise that would ask the architects to "examine" the possibility of moving the pavilion as well, and, if that was not possible, report back to the committee.
The full council still has to approve the change.
"We're going to honour the past," Mr. Mihevic said.
"We're going to ask [the architects] to honour it and to put it into the design, and if it can't be done, we want to hear about it."
The revitalization of Nathan Phillips Square is scheduled to begin next year and finish by the end of 2010.
City council has agreed to pay $16-million of the project's $40-million price tag.
The rest is to be raised from donors, private-public partnerships and other levels of government.
Link to article
Peace Garden pavilion may survive redesign
Review panel backs saving structure
Kelly Patrick
National Post
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Toronto's peaceniks won a compromise at City Hall yesterday.
A council committee reviewing the $40-million-plan to revitalize Nathan Phillips Square endorsed saving the Peace Garden's pavilion -- a structure that was to be torn down under the winning design unveiled in March.
"Keep it!" Father Massey Lombardi, a priest at St. Wilfrid's Catholic Church in North York, begged the government management committee.
"What are you going to say? That this garden isn't important any more? It has no value? Because it's got to fit and be au courant with the rest of the city? Well, look, I tell you I'm really upset about that. Keep it, keep it, keep it!"
Fr. Lombardi helped found the Peace Garden in 1984.
Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, Pope John Paul II and Queen Elizabeth II all played parts in dedicating the garden that year.
The Peace Garden features a sundial, a reflecting pool, an eternal flame and a purposefully damaged pavilion whose missing corner is supposed to summon the ravages of war.
The winning blueprint for Nathan Phillips Square, submitted by Toronto firms Plant Architect, Inc. and Shore Tilbe Irwin & Partners, envisions building an expanded Peace Garden on the western edge of the square, behind a new permanent stage.
The architects suggested moving the reflecting pool, the sundial and the flame, but not the pavilion.
Councillor Joe Mihevic suggested a compromise that would ask the architects to "examine" the possibility of moving the pavilion as well, and, if that was not possible, report back to the committee.
The full council still has to approve the change.
"We're going to honour the past," Mr. Mihevic said.
"We're going to ask [the architects] to honour it and to put it into the design, and if it can't be done, we want to hear about it."
The revitalization of Nathan Phillips Square is scheduled to begin next year and finish by the end of 2010.
City council has agreed to pay $16-million of the project's $40-million price tag.
The rest is to be raised from donors, private-public partnerships and other levels of government.
Urban Shocker
Doyenne
I'd like it for my back garden. The UTGA chorus could perform baroque opera there.