Sheraton Centre (123 Queen West, new windows & exterior repairs)

[LowPolygon]

Not true. The difference between good and bad taste is very much a function of experience and knowledge. To borrow your wine analogy: there tends to be a pretty clear progression of taste the longer one drinks wine and the more experienced one's pallet becomes, i.e. from simplistic boldly fruity wines to ones that are not (different taste profiles, more subtle etc).

The fact is, the pretension and snobbery you mention comes about when one's taste is asserted as 'equal' even in the absence of experience or knowledge... which is why, in the past, when we were young and inexperienced we learned to keep our mouths shut. This didn't mean we didn't have an opinion (and likely a very impassioned one), only that we were too naive to understand our opinions were immature, largely uninformed and certain to incur mockery. Ah the good old days before the internet! Now any schlub with a computer is a self-professed expert on any subject.

Edited to add- This doesn't mean you can't have an opinion that differs (or taste), only that to be taken seriously and respected you better have a better line of reasoning than 'most of the unwashed masses side with me so i must be right and you must be an out-of-touch snob'.

exactly.

 

[condovo]

Bingo

 

[adma]

Queen between Bay and Osgoode is an absolute mess and the citizens of this city deserve a better civic block. Some old farts adjudicated the look of the hotel, the dumb and useless overhead walkways (all of them, including the one over Queen) and the bad bad bad forecourt in front of NPS. A wistful and populist approach would be refreshing over the present day crap. Alas the area will probably stay as is for another fifty years.

Oh, no, not the knocks against the NPS walkway again.

Y'kinow, in one of the Rob Ford-related threads, you stated that you'd consider leaving Toronto if Ford was in some way or reelected--well, as I like to say, if the anti-Ford argument is to fail, it's when it's metaphorically fighting Brutalism when it should really be fighting McMansions...

 

[Ayan]

The difference between good and bad taste is very much a function of experience and knowledge. To borrow your wine analogy: there tends to be a pretty clear progression of taste the longer one drinks wine and the more experienced one's pallet becomes, i.e. from simplistic boldly fruity wines to ones that are not (different taste profiles, more subtle etc).

Not always and not necessarily, especially in the context of subjective concepts such as architectural beauty. Impressionist painters were originally ridiculed and dismissed by the so-called experienced and knowledgeable art critics. Sadly the trend continued - Vincent van Gogh did not receive the recognition he deserved during his lifetime. I am sure you can think of at least one movie panned by the critics but loved by the masses.

Knowledge and experience (real OR perceived) can make people behave without humility and openness so I find your statement quite worrying.

 

[condovo]

subjective concepts such as architectural beauty

Concepts such as architectural beauty are not entirely subjective. There are universal principals at play: unity, balance, hierarchy, scale, emphasis, contrast. There's also history, context, appropriateness, usefulness, functionality.

It takes a years of education, training and experience to truly know what one is seeing and why. Some grasp it sooner, some later, some never. Although everyone is entitled to an opinion, not everyone's is equally informed or valid.

 

[Waterloo_Guy]

Concepts such as architectural beauty are not entirely subjective. There are universal principals at play: unity, balance, hierarchy, scale, emphasis, contrast. There's also history, context, appropriateness, usefulness, functionality.

It takes a years of education, training and experience to truly know what one is seeing and why. Some grasp it sooner, some later, some never. Although everyone is entitled to an opinion, not everyone's is equally informed or valid.

There is zero truth to this. Most of those 'principles' are nothing but opinions. Appropriateness is entirely subjective. There is no such thing as an education in such things and there is nothing to 'grasp.'

This is the most snobbish and absurd thing I've seen on this forum in a long time.

 

[LowPolygon]

Most of those 'principles' are nothing but opinions. Appropriateness is entirely subjective. There is no such thing as an education in such things and there is nothing to 'grasp.'

 

[interchange42]

There is zero truth to this. Most of those 'principles' are nothing but opinions. Appropriateness is entirely subjective. There is no such thing as an education in such things and there is nothing to 'grasp.'

This is the most snobbish and absurd thing I've seen on this forum in a long time.

It's not snobbish nor absurd to claim—essentially—that taste is acquired through an education over the years.

That is not to say, however, that concepts of architectural beauty or the principles by which we arrive at them are not entirely subjective: they are. It's just that there are collective agreements of what the principles are, though these are not singular but plural.

These agreements result in architects, art historians, musical theoreticians, etc., gaining their degrees, and artists, dancers, singers, etc., their metiers—and livelihoods when these practitioners of the arts create work which others collectively agree merit spending money on.

Again, there isn't a singular measure of what is considered beautiful, but in our cultural context the prevailing agreement is often referred to as the classical western/European notion of beauty. Challenges to what would be included in the prevailing notion appear over time—at one point few would agree that Mies van der Rohe's Barcelona Pavilion, posted above by thedeepend, would fit comfortably within the range of acceptable expression—but time allows for the refinement and reapplication of principles and the gradual acceptance of styles such as Modernism, or Impressionism to refer back to another recent post, into the canon.

Do we get universal acceptance of what is in the canon? No. Do we as a pluralistic culture have prevailing notions of what is? Despite the plurality, yes. Do we become more familiar with recognizing and creating objects that fall within the scope of the canon through an education? Theoretically we can, "improving" or refining or better attuning ourselves to the notions of beauty throughout our lives. Can we challenge the notions? Yes, but it's the rare individual or group that successfully introduces new original thought or styles, most of us are just followers.

Can expression which lies outside notions of classical western beauty be considered beautiful? Sure, within subsets of society. I fully understand that as a fan of Brutalism that I'm part of a group of societal outliers in that regard. Was I innately a fan of Brutalism from birth? No, I acquired my taste for it through a mostly informal education.

Is education snobbery? No, it's life, including life on the internet.

42

 

[Waterloo_Guy]

I'm saying that someone who claims to be educated in such things is mistaken. It's like claiming to be educated in hotdog appreciation. It's nonsense.

 

[interchange42]

And I'm saying it's not nonsense.

You've offended lots of hotdog fanciers, BTW.

42

 

[LowPolygon]

You're seriously equating cultivation of a taste for great art, architecture and aesthetics with the appreciation of street meat?
One wonders why you are even on this site, since you care so little about this field of endeavour.

 

[condovo]

There's a misguided and anti-intellectual sense of entitlement, particularly in the internet age, that his view is equal to her view is equal to Joe Blow's view. No education, no training, no experience required. That's all elitist bunk. We can just jabber away spewing nonsense, safe in our anonymity, without humility, without listening, without learning.

Guess there's nothing to learn anyway, right? It"s all subjective. It's all the same.

 

[adma]

And remember that none of this is to equate the Sheraton Centre to the Barcelona Pavilion. But it doesn't mean that a prudent "framework of respect" cannot be built around the former--better that than to rush forward and make a hash of it.

And in practice, those who have it more ingrained that the existing Sheraton Centre in toto (never mind certain faulty elements) is a horrible horrible concrete eyesore, are more likely to make a hash of it.

 

[Tewder]

Knowledge and experience (real OR perceived) can make people behave without humility and openness so I find your statement quite worrying.

The hyperbole is unnecessary, quite frankly, but please don't ignore my addendum:

Edited to add- This doesn't mean you can't have an opinion that differs (or taste), only that to be taken seriously and respected you better have a better line of reasoning than 'most of the unwashed masses side with me so i must be right and you must be an out-of-touch snob'.

Experience and knowledge do not preclude experimentation, innovation or iconoclasm, and in many cases they facilitate these things... not always though, of course!

 

[modernizt]

I'm saying that someone who claims to be educated in such things is mistaken. It's like claiming to be educated in hotdog appreciation. It's nonsense.

Yeah, the years and decades of architectural education that lay ahead of me is pretentious nothingness and there is "nothing to grasp". All the structural design, engineering, detailing, attention to aesthetics, functionality, and problem-solving are a bunch of nothingness. That's why architects take till their 50s and 60s to master the profession... it's just decades of nothingness.

You can call others here pretentious but your words on UT lately are up there with some of the most offensive I've seen in awhile. You clearly know VERY little about the complexities of architectural design.