A
AlvinofDiaspar
Guest
From the Post:
Needed: more rule-breaking architects
City slowly changing for the better: Alsop
Peter Kuitenbrouwer, National Post
Published: Thursday, March 29, 2007
When Will Alsop, the English architect, is in Toronto, he stays at Le Germain, next door to his office. Today, Mr. Alsop is a little late rising (and he is taking calls from his London office, where it is 2:30 p.m.) He eventually rumbles up the three flights of broad wooden stairs to the top floor of an old factory building at No. 12 Mercer Street (which has no elevator), and comes in, clutching a tall pink mug of coffee, his long, greying hair combed back in a Mordecai Richler look. And, continuing the Richler motif, he sits at a long row of presswood tables that run down the centre of the loft, and lights a cigarette.
It is one of four Benson & Hedges special filters he sucks back during an hourlong chat. A cameraman with CBC Television eagerly films the smoking for Broll in advance of Mr. Alsop's next interview. Is it refreshing to see Europeans ignoring our sanctimonious smoking laws? I'm not sure how the other staff in his office feel (I didn't see anyone else light up), but I'm going to say, yes. We need more rule-breakers in this buttondown, namby-pamby town -- especially if they are architects.
For a guy who hasn't done much in Toronto, it's remarkable how quickly Mr. Alsop has become a household word here. He blew everyone away with his addition to the Ontario College of Art and Design (yes, that checkered box on coloured stilts), and caught hipsters' attention with his wacky sales centre for the much-hated condos proposed across from the Drake Hotel, on Queen Street West. (Alsop says his 19-storey proposed condo, which is south of the train tracks, is not among the condos Mayor David Miller seeks to block.)
With Mr. Alsop, "there is no heavyhanded theory per se," says Greg Woods, a director in Alsop's Toronto office. (A few years ago, Mr. Woods was at Robbie Young & Wright; he called Mr. Alsop and suggested they pitch the OCAD job.) "There's a global perspective in terms of experience."
On the wall here hang clocks showing the time in Toronto, London and Shanghai; SMC Alsop (bought out in part last year by the SMC Group) also has offices in Singapore and Beijing.
Mr. Alsop has made Toronto his North American headquarters; his team here is designing a wacky condo tower to plunk on a grand, retired power plant on the Hudson River in Yonkers, N.Y. A model sits on the table here. Mr. Alsop flies to New York today to meet the locals and tell them his plans.
Mr. Alsop grew up in Northampton, halfway between Birmingham and London; the house next door was a Peter Behrens, England's first modern house, he says, with furniture by Charles Rennie Mackintosh, the Glasgow designer. The woman who owned the house "used to make very good ice cream." Mr. Alsop came to associate innovative design with goodness, and hasn't looked back.
"Toronto is starting to understand that challenging architecture is good for the city," he says, adding, "Increasing the density is a responsible thing to do. This city is only 2.5 million people and occupies a big footprint. That is socially very irresponsible." He is happy to pay a ?250 annual fee to drive a car in the centre of London, and suggests a similar fee here. And, he notes, "If you're over 60 all your public transit is free," (Mr. Alsop reaches that milestone this year).
Mr. Alsop likes the changes he sees in Toronto, the arrival of Frank Gehry and Daniel Libeskind.
"They are the good guys," he says. "The thing we have to worry about is the bad guys who account for most of the architecture that goes on in this city.
"The actual quality of buildings seems to bypass the planners," he says. Still, "If I compare it to 2000, it's much better. There are more things going on, more conversations." He applauds Active-18, the group fighting the Queen West condos, saying, "When we talk to them, they are more imaginative."
"Why doesn't the city impose standards? Maybe what Toronto needs is a more independent body of people with imagination which would look at any project over 3,000 square metres. I'd like to see the Mayor have a bit more power." Mr. Alsop, who met with Mr. Miller on Tuesday, points to the beauty that strong government gave Chicago, Paris and Rome. "In Paris, it's a f---ing dictator who did it and people love it. EUR in Rome? Mussolini did it. In London, mayor Livingstone has more power, and we got more buses." So Toronto needs a Mussolini?
"Don't you dare write that!" he says. He smiles at the CBC crew, waiting patiently for him to wrap up with me. "Sorry. I was slow getting started, but now I'm warmed up!" Good. Toronto can use more Alsop.
- - -
THE CRITICS ON ALSOP
"Will is an architect who, in theory, I should really hate his work," said Rowan Moore, the architecture critic of The Evening Standard, citing Mr. Alsop's exuberant, often oppositional, individualism. "The danger for Will would be if it becomes all personality, all individuality or all artistic gesture --if he lost that tension between imagination and reality."
"Will Alsop used to be famous for failing to get his designs commissioned. Now he is being asked to redesign huge swathes of urban Britain." --The Guardian, London
''Will Alsop's OCAD is just a Big Dumb Box with legs. The building part is as stupid as it gets - a rectangle with minimal interior finishes, ready for those exuberant students to do their worst to its guts, egging them on with the erratic placement of off the-shelf windows. Cheap building quickly out of the way, all the rest of the money goes into the insane legs and glitzy colours. Which create an exuberant embracing of the public realm unprecedented in Canada, and perhaps the world.'' --Peter Ferguson in NOW
"For an elderly bookworm like myself,[ Will Alsop's] Peckham library is a bit challenging. Its top-heaviness seems to court catastrophe. I like my libraries stable, durable, serene. I am looking for adventure in the books, rather than in the building." -- Germaine Greer, pictured, in The Guardian.
AoD
Needed: more rule-breaking architects
City slowly changing for the better: Alsop
Peter Kuitenbrouwer, National Post
Published: Thursday, March 29, 2007
When Will Alsop, the English architect, is in Toronto, he stays at Le Germain, next door to his office. Today, Mr. Alsop is a little late rising (and he is taking calls from his London office, where it is 2:30 p.m.) He eventually rumbles up the three flights of broad wooden stairs to the top floor of an old factory building at No. 12 Mercer Street (which has no elevator), and comes in, clutching a tall pink mug of coffee, his long, greying hair combed back in a Mordecai Richler look. And, continuing the Richler motif, he sits at a long row of presswood tables that run down the centre of the loft, and lights a cigarette.
It is one of four Benson & Hedges special filters he sucks back during an hourlong chat. A cameraman with CBC Television eagerly films the smoking for Broll in advance of Mr. Alsop's next interview. Is it refreshing to see Europeans ignoring our sanctimonious smoking laws? I'm not sure how the other staff in his office feel (I didn't see anyone else light up), but I'm going to say, yes. We need more rule-breakers in this buttondown, namby-pamby town -- especially if they are architects.
For a guy who hasn't done much in Toronto, it's remarkable how quickly Mr. Alsop has become a household word here. He blew everyone away with his addition to the Ontario College of Art and Design (yes, that checkered box on coloured stilts), and caught hipsters' attention with his wacky sales centre for the much-hated condos proposed across from the Drake Hotel, on Queen Street West. (Alsop says his 19-storey proposed condo, which is south of the train tracks, is not among the condos Mayor David Miller seeks to block.)
With Mr. Alsop, "there is no heavyhanded theory per se," says Greg Woods, a director in Alsop's Toronto office. (A few years ago, Mr. Woods was at Robbie Young & Wright; he called Mr. Alsop and suggested they pitch the OCAD job.) "There's a global perspective in terms of experience."
On the wall here hang clocks showing the time in Toronto, London and Shanghai; SMC Alsop (bought out in part last year by the SMC Group) also has offices in Singapore and Beijing.
Mr. Alsop has made Toronto his North American headquarters; his team here is designing a wacky condo tower to plunk on a grand, retired power plant on the Hudson River in Yonkers, N.Y. A model sits on the table here. Mr. Alsop flies to New York today to meet the locals and tell them his plans.
Mr. Alsop grew up in Northampton, halfway between Birmingham and London; the house next door was a Peter Behrens, England's first modern house, he says, with furniture by Charles Rennie Mackintosh, the Glasgow designer. The woman who owned the house "used to make very good ice cream." Mr. Alsop came to associate innovative design with goodness, and hasn't looked back.
"Toronto is starting to understand that challenging architecture is good for the city," he says, adding, "Increasing the density is a responsible thing to do. This city is only 2.5 million people and occupies a big footprint. That is socially very irresponsible." He is happy to pay a ?250 annual fee to drive a car in the centre of London, and suggests a similar fee here. And, he notes, "If you're over 60 all your public transit is free," (Mr. Alsop reaches that milestone this year).
Mr. Alsop likes the changes he sees in Toronto, the arrival of Frank Gehry and Daniel Libeskind.
"They are the good guys," he says. "The thing we have to worry about is the bad guys who account for most of the architecture that goes on in this city.
"The actual quality of buildings seems to bypass the planners," he says. Still, "If I compare it to 2000, it's much better. There are more things going on, more conversations." He applauds Active-18, the group fighting the Queen West condos, saying, "When we talk to them, they are more imaginative."
"Why doesn't the city impose standards? Maybe what Toronto needs is a more independent body of people with imagination which would look at any project over 3,000 square metres. I'd like to see the Mayor have a bit more power." Mr. Alsop, who met with Mr. Miller on Tuesday, points to the beauty that strong government gave Chicago, Paris and Rome. "In Paris, it's a f---ing dictator who did it and people love it. EUR in Rome? Mussolini did it. In London, mayor Livingstone has more power, and we got more buses." So Toronto needs a Mussolini?
"Don't you dare write that!" he says. He smiles at the CBC crew, waiting patiently for him to wrap up with me. "Sorry. I was slow getting started, but now I'm warmed up!" Good. Toronto can use more Alsop.
- - -
THE CRITICS ON ALSOP
"Will is an architect who, in theory, I should really hate his work," said Rowan Moore, the architecture critic of The Evening Standard, citing Mr. Alsop's exuberant, often oppositional, individualism. "The danger for Will would be if it becomes all personality, all individuality or all artistic gesture --if he lost that tension between imagination and reality."
"Will Alsop used to be famous for failing to get his designs commissioned. Now he is being asked to redesign huge swathes of urban Britain." --The Guardian, London
''Will Alsop's OCAD is just a Big Dumb Box with legs. The building part is as stupid as it gets - a rectangle with minimal interior finishes, ready for those exuberant students to do their worst to its guts, egging them on with the erratic placement of off the-shelf windows. Cheap building quickly out of the way, all the rest of the money goes into the insane legs and glitzy colours. Which create an exuberant embracing of the public realm unprecedented in Canada, and perhaps the world.'' --Peter Ferguson in NOW
"For an elderly bookworm like myself,[ Will Alsop's] Peckham library is a bit challenging. Its top-heaviness seems to court catastrophe. I like my libraries stable, durable, serene. I am looking for adventure in the books, rather than in the building." -- Germaine Greer, pictured, in The Guardian.
AoD