JasonParis
Moderator
I don't think it has to compete with the CN Tower though. Just something to give people a view of the fair is all that's really needed. It could also serve to denote where "The Ex" is to people seeing the tower from afar.
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The Shell Oil Tower
- Thread starter jaborandi
- Start date
MetroMan
Senior Member
I think the wind turbine has done that already. Inadvertently, Exhibition Place has created a new landmark that can be seen down Dufferin from as far as Yorkdale!
I like the turbine as an icon for the CNE grounds. It's visible, unique to Toronto and represents the direction that the Ex is going in.
I like the turbine as an icon for the CNE grounds. It's visible, unique to Toronto and represents the direction that the Ex is going in.
ITcomputer
Active Member
freshcutgrass
Senior Member
I'd say Miss City hall is somewhat more than a small blip, and Toronto's best 80's example would be Diamond's Metro Central YMCA, although not easily appreciated walking by on the street.
adma
Superstar
Indeed, it's definitely forgotten these days how Diamond's Y was regarded as the epitome of today's (the 80s) best Postmodern architectural spirit--that is, before the label curdled into denoting the retro(gressive)...
LowPolygon
Senior Member
i always thought Jack Diamond also did quite a nice job with the University of Toronto Earth Sciences Centre from 1989.
its a later pomo style of course, but still very much in keeping with the tropes of the earlier 80's.
its interesting how all the good pomo buildings that have come up, Miss City Hall, YMCA, Lillian Smith Library etc, are largely made of brick and not flashy granite and reflective glass. Myers 'lost AGO' was not a bad example of TO pomo, and it too is almost all brick...
all of them are very sedate looking somehow. i guess its that good old Toronto reserve.
its a later pomo style of course, but still very much in keeping with the tropes of the earlier 80's.
its interesting how all the good pomo buildings that have come up, Miss City Hall, YMCA, Lillian Smith Library etc, are largely made of brick and not flashy granite and reflective glass. Myers 'lost AGO' was not a bad example of TO pomo, and it too is almost all brick...
all of them are very sedate looking somehow. i guess its that good old Toronto reserve.
MetroMan
Senior Member
^ I do not miss this. No wonder the houses across the street are in the state they're in. How depressing.
LowPolygon
Senior Member
i don't miss it either, as i never liked it. i simply cited it as an ok example of 80's postmodernism in the city. given what replaced it i doubt there's a person in the city who misses it.
however, to blame it for the condition of the properties across the street is completely specious.
there are many reasons why that block is the way that it is, but Barton Myers is not one of them. the problems predate his building by at least a decade.
adma
Superstar
IOW you might as well blame 70s Parkin for the state the houses are in, etc...
LowPolygon
Senior Member
to me the problems have always been:
it is a block of victorian homes set back from the curb. hard to know how this could be anything other than what it is. they make for cramped, narrow, pokey commercial spaces. yorkville and kensington market also suffer this problem.
outside of that rather large problem though:
there has never been one restaurant or commercial enterprise of any merit in the entire block.
the shitty galleries facing the AGO are frozen in amber crapmeisters, and have been there since the late 70's. (Bau-Xi is the only remotely relevant gallery and its well past its sell-by date.)
ronald mcdonald house?!
the unresolved seam between Chinatown and the AGO.
the northwest corner of McCaul and Dundas. it has never been able to provide a compelling anchor to the neighbourhood. its just been just one shitty restaurant/pub after another.
and who could forget:
it is a block of victorian homes set back from the curb. hard to know how this could be anything other than what it is. they make for cramped, narrow, pokey commercial spaces. yorkville and kensington market also suffer this problem.
outside of that rather large problem though:
there has never been one restaurant or commercial enterprise of any merit in the entire block.
the shitty galleries facing the AGO are frozen in amber crapmeisters, and have been there since the late 70's. (Bau-Xi is the only remotely relevant gallery and its well past its sell-by date.)
ronald mcdonald house?!
the unresolved seam between Chinatown and the AGO.
the northwest corner of McCaul and Dundas. it has never been able to provide a compelling anchor to the neighbourhood. its just been just one shitty restaurant/pub after another.
and who could forget:
Urban Shocker
Doyenne
The clutter of small galleries at the north end of the AGO's PoMo reno certainly won't be missed. Nor will the navigational confusion created by their addition. The cube-shaped entrance lobby, with doors that led to an underwhelming east-west passageway, wasn't much of a welcome mat either.
I don't think we've made much of a case for T.O.PoMo as a vital expression of who we are ( or were ) yet - a city hall that's in Missisauga, a BCE Place that was designed by a U.S. firm, the Lillian Smith Library, and one or two others notwithstanding.
I don't think we've made much of a case for T.O.PoMo as a vital expression of who we are ( or were ) yet - a city hall that's in Missisauga, a BCE Place that was designed by a U.S. firm, the Lillian Smith Library, and one or two others notwithstanding.
LowPolygon
Senior Member
absolutely agreed.
Towered
Superstar
Poppycock! The Village Idiot is a cozy little pub, and they even have Belle-Vue on tap.
LowPolygon
Senior Member
oh, dear. sorry to have offended your finely honed libacious sensibilities...
i was thinking of that awful restaurant that used to be just north of there, the er, "Sweet Art Coffee House"....
adma
Superstar
and who could forget:
That's the best part. And doubly so for that anachronistic image to actually be on-line...