Southcore Financial Ctr: PricewaterhouseCoopers Tower (18 York St, bcIMC, 26s, KPMB)

jje1000 said:
It looks like a big sheet of jade. The glass will ultimately be what catches people's eyes for this particular building.

It's regrettable the rest of the building is so bland, though. It's not even the era- when you see buildings like the Shard, the Heron Tower or St. Mary's Axe going up in London, you have to but wonder if this is not but a product of Toronto's mentality.
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It deserves to be criticized for having no face, as Hipster Duck put it. It's one thing to ask for good architecture, it's another to have to ask for any architecture at all. That's low. However, Toronto's new high-rise buildings are quite generally good suggesting a positive mentality, particularly in looking at the portfolios of aA, Rudy Wallman, and the landmark projects being built by Cityzen. London never had many high-rises, so it's reasonable that they're doing something bold early on. It might remind one of Toronto in the Modernist era, when building a large complex of skyscrapers like the T-D Centre would have been just as powerful as London's landmark projects today.
 
I was actually referring to the area south of the railroads, and more specifically, the new office architecture going up (apologies that I did not put these in words). The rest of Toronto has relatively good architecture. It's just when you look at utter bland architecture at the Pinnacle Center and the other condos and buildings around it (possible exempting ICE), it makes you wonder if we could have created a more engaging neighbourhood.
 
jje1000 said:
I was actually referring to the area south of the railroads, and more specifically, the new office architecture going up (apologies that I did not put these in words). The rest of Toronto has relatively good architecture. It's just when you look at utter bland architecture at the Pinnacle Center and the other condos and buildings around it (possible exempting ICE), it makes you wonder if we could have created a more engaging neighbourhood.
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Completely agree! It is too bad that we're not getting better design of buildings and better engagement to the street with many new developments in Toronto...

It's as if this current boom has run its course and now the designs are too repititive/over-done and boring so perhaps it's better in the long run if the current boom slows down significantly, hopefully resulting in better future developments??? (Just thinking out loud.)
 
I think when a new design esthetic comes along it appears overdone since we pay so much attention to what is being constructed. But when viewed against a city's overall stock of completed buildings it is not excessive. As has been said before we still have more pre-cast than anything else. Personally I like the Bremmer area. I like its mass, energy, clean lines, quality glass, and especially its scale fitting its anchors - Air Canada, Sydome, CN Tower.

Its not for everyone, but it is unique. And rather than a hodgepodge of styles its fairly consistent and in many places that is considered a good thiing.
 
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I like good high-rise architecture as much as anybody here, but I don't mind having so-called "bland" buildings either since they can make good architecture stand out even more (as long as the bland buildings meet good urban design principles). Personally I'm not a huge fan of places like Pudong in Shanghai or Sheik Zayed Road in Dubai where skyscrapers try to outdo each other with their designs. What I would like to see is 10-20% of the high-rises in each high-rise cluster designed as "landmarks", while the others can be relatively bland. This also seems to fit in with the reality that in the architecture world only a minority of designers are capable of consistently designing landmark towers (such as Norman Foster, KPF or Cesar Pelli, to name a few).

As for the York/Bremner area, I have yet to see that landmark building appear. I'd like to see the proposed Delta Hotel at the corner of Simcoe and Bremner go through a redesign (maybe even as a supertall, if the hotel and the proposed office tower next to it could be combined into one building). That location is highly visible and screams for some sort of bold design.
 
wyliepoon said:
I like good high-rise architecture as much as anybody here, but I don't mind having so-called "bland" buildings either since they can make good architecture stand out even more (as long as the bland buildings meet good urban design principles). Personally I'm not a huge fan of places like Pudong in Shanghai or Sheik Zayed Road in Dubai where skyscrapers try to outdo each other with their designs. What I would like to see is 10-20% of the high-rises in each high-rise cluster designed as "landmarks", while the others can be relatively bland. This also seems to fit in with the reality that in the architecture world only a minority of designers are capable of consistently designing landmark towers (such as Norman Foster, KPF or Cesar Pelli, to name a few).

As for the York/Bremner area, I have yet to see that landmark building appear. I'd like to see the proposed Delta Hotel at the corner of Simcoe and Bremner go through a redesign (maybe even as a supertall, if the hotel and the proposed office tower next to it could be combined into one building). That location is highly visible and screams for some sort of bold design.
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Although I agree with every tower not being a landmark being a good thing, it's when all of the "bland" buildings in one concentrated area come out of the same aesthetic era that it becomes extremely underwhelming. There are many areas throughout the city that have a bunch of decent, but bland buildings but it's not so startling because they're not all glass faceless buildings.
 
wyliepoon said:
I like good high-rise architecture as much as anybody here, but I don't mind having so-called "bland" buildings either since they can make good architecture stand out even more (as long as the bland buildings meet good urban design principles). Personally I'm not a huge fan of places like Pudong in Shanghai or Sheik Zayed Road in Dubai where skyscrapers try to outdo each other with their designs. What I would like to see is 10-20% of the high-rises in each high-rise cluster designed as "landmarks", while the others can be relatively bland. This also seems to fit in with the reality that in the architecture world only a minority of designers are capable of consistently designing landmark towers (such as Norman Foster, KPF or Cesar Pelli, to name a few).

As for the York/Bremner area, I have yet to see that landmark building appear. I'd like to see the proposed Delta Hotel at the corner of Simcoe and Bremner go through a redesign (maybe even as a supertall, if the hotel and the proposed office tower next to it could be combined into one building). That location is highly visible and screams for some sort of bold design.
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So wait foe ICE - that will stand out.
 
condovo said:
PoMo is too easily discredited, like Modernism before it. I'm sure it'll get its due in another ten years or so. Just thought I'd point out the group think.
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True , it's not right to dismiss an entire movement but, I don't care. Most of it reminds me of tacky fast food outlets. We may see an adaptation of offshoots such as deconstructivism and historicism will never die but, I doubt we'll see Michael Graves types ever peak again.

I must say that I am mildly amused that the ass end facing the rail corridor is garnering so much attention as being faceless. Don't get me wrong, as much as I love the glass and disagree with it being a cheap building representative of the 905, it certainly does have some shortcomings. However, for a simple box , we should do our due diligence and wait to see how the features such as the lobby and crown are unveiled before offering up personal critiques.
 
maestro said:
True , it's not right to dismiss an entire movement but, I don't care. Most of it reminds me of tacky fast food outlets. We may see an adaptation of offshoots such as deconstructivism and historicism will never die but, I doubt we'll see Michael Graves types ever peak again.
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"Getting its due" needn't mean being aped wholesale--besides, in a way, I prefer PoMo in the cheeky-radical days when Memphis and Michael Graves ruled than in its subsequent morph into wholesale Chedingtonista retro-schlock...
 
I also object to retro schlock like Cheddington. But I like 38 Avenue Road which is also somewhat retro. Perhaps, like all things, its a matter of degree.
 
maestro said:
I must say that I am mildly amused that the ass end facing the rail corridor is garnering so much attention as being faceless. Don't get me wrong, as much as I love the glass and disagree with it being a cheap building representative of the 905, it certainly does have some shortcomings. However, for a simple box , we should do our due diligence and wait to see how the features such as the lobby and crown are unveiled before offering up personal critiques.
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This isn't the ass end of the building. Being viewed from the north is how 99% of Torontonians will see this building. And as for my original comment about its facelessness, how would we feel if this buliding were nothing but a 20-storey monotone precast wall? This is exactly what this building is, only sheathed in reflective glass.

We know there is no crown coming because there is nothing in the rendering, and the lobby is an interior matter and not relevant to this debate - I'm sure one of the units inside the Chedington has a beautiful Scavolini kitchen, but that doesn't excuse the awful exterior.
 
Hipster Duck said:
This isn't the ass end of the building. Being viewed from the north is how 99% of Torontonians will see this building. And as for my original comment about its facelessness, how would we feel if this buliding were nothing but a 20-storey monotone precast wall? This is exactly what this building is, only sheathed in reflective glass.

We know there is no crown coming because there is nothing in the rendering, and the lobby is an interior matter and not relevant to this debate - I'm sure one of the units inside the Chedington has a beautiful Scavolini kitchen, but that doesn't excuse the awful exterior.
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Actually, most people will " experience ", ( use the term term loosely ), this building from a more southerlyn aspect. I'm prepared to say, in defence of the exterior architecture, that when this pop avenue between the Rogers and the ACC is complete, this very nondesrcipt feature will blend seemlessly into the mirroring vernacular of the canyon. What the overall experience of this hall of mirrors will be, in the end, is anyone's guess. Even now, looking east from Rogers, the precinct with the downtown core as a backdrop is quite eyecatching. Like unending criticism over the ROM's Crystal addition, I try to be positive.
 
It's unusual, even in boomtown Toronto, to see all corners of an intersection getting built out with buildings of this scale, designed by local architects, in a few short years. I'm looking forward to enjoying the full ensemble effect in due course. This stocky glass box, and the lighter Telus, the Maple Leaf Square towers and podium and the upcoming Ice buildings will have enough collective differentiation to make this a distinctive expression of what we're about.
 
Urban Shocker said:
It's unusual, even in boomtown Toronto, to see all corners of an intersection getting built out with buildings of this scale, designed by local architects, in a few short years.
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And an intersection which didn't even *exist* some fifteen years ago, to boot.
 
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