Toronto Ïce Condominiums at York Centre | 234.07m | 67s | Lanterra | a—A

Tewder said:
related perhaps, but a cheap effect nonetheless. The building doesn't need them and is not better for them, no matter how much one may like cheese and cheese.
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Are you lactose intolerant, or just plain intolerant? It's no more Cheddingtonista © for the Ice cap to express the podium below than it is for the exterior I-beams on the TD Centre to reflect that building's structure. NAK, Ice's landscape architects, also designed at the Cheddington, but that doesn't make Ice's green roof evidence a Cheddintonista © insurgency. Methinks you doth protest too much.
 
It doesn't look like ice, it looks like cheese, and swiss cheese in fact which I don't really like. Now a cladding or roof design inspired by roquefort would be far better, and far more eco-friendly if live cultures are used...

These cornball elements are extraneous to the aesthetic of the towers no matter how much the roof slice clumsily references the podium block. They cheapen modernist minimalism in a way that Cheddington-like faux-historicism cheapens other retro styles.

Urban Shocker said:
NAK, Ice's landscape architects, also designed at the Cheddington, but that doesn't make Ice's green roof evidence a Cheddintonista © insurgency. Methinks you doth protest too much.
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Perfect:I wasn't even aware of an actual Ice/Cheddington connection. Makes sense.
 
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No sensible person who looks around our city at the work aA are doing could possibly equate their buildings with historicist pastiche - the Ice condo towers, roof, and podium respond to the shape of the site, are entirely contemporary from top to toe, and tie together as a whole. Even when Clewes adopts a former style, as with the Regency row house inspired Corkstone Brownstones, they're clearly of our time.
 
Urban Shocker said:
No sensible person who looks around our city at the work aA are doing could possibly equate their buildings with historicist pastiche - the Ice condo towers, roof, and podium respond to the shape of the site, are entirely contemporary from top to toe, and tie together as a whole. Even when Clewes adopts a former style, as with the Regency row house inspired Corkstone Brownstones, they're clearly of our time.
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Totally agree....
 
"the Ice condo towers, roof, and podium respond to the shape of the site, are entirely contemporary from top to toe"

Please please explain how these towers are contemporary and "of our time".
They look very much like the buildings in GM's "city of tomorrow" at the 1939 World's Fair and buildings like them have been built for decades.
How are these not "historicist pastiche"?
What is 21st century about them?
 
aA's marketing department has nothing to do with selling an idea to a developer, let alone a 'mies-idea.' I'm not sure if you notice, but there are quite a few rectangular planned, vertically expressed Towers around this city. If it wasn't black in colour, I'm sure you wouldn't even compare the two.

Often the client has an initial idea of what they would like. Proposed GFA, parking ratios, and targeted market. Then the designers came to a decision, client bought into it, client's marketing team made a brochure, project came onto the market.
 
alklay said:
historicist pastiche is exactly the X condo.
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Agreed.

Urban Shocker said:
No sensible person who looks around our city at the work aA are doing could possibly equate their buildings with historicist pastiche - the Ice condo towers, roof, and podium respond to the shape of the site, are entirely contemporary from top to toe, and tie together as a whole. Even when Clewes adopts a former style, as with the Regency row house inspired Corkstone Brownstones, they're clearly of our time.
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Sensible people are not dazzled by local starchitects and judge individual buildings for their own merits or lack thereof. Clewes and Diamond have done better buildings and less better buildings, and even failed ones if you consider Diamond's coal bunker on the lake. An architect's body of work is not a free pass from objective criticism. What a shame that Clewes decided to jump on the big hair (citing US) architecture bandwagon. This design without the cheesy elements would be another solid addition to the city and to his portfolio, truer in spirit to his larger body of work.
 
Oh you must always hire the best talent. Anorexic Clewesian point towers are so today. You can never have too much of a good thing.
 
Tewder said:
This design without the cheesy elements would be another solid addition to the city and to his portfolio, truer in spirit to his larger body of work.
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To my mind you're taking this too seriously: the coordinated roofs of both condo towers and of the podium add a bit of whimsy to a very rectangular area. Despite that bit of fun (remember fun?!), the detail remains nicely restrained and disciplined, thus admitting it to the realm of modernist design, albeit with a knowing wink.

I'm not a fan of Swiss cheese myself (although I do like the way it looks), but I am a huge fan of Wink however, (the older, dryer version), and cannot wait for these particular winks to be added to the skyline.

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+1 for "its not a box" !

though I'm generally not a huge fan of Clewes, I give him marks here for the very fact of the strong break with the rest of his body of work. Finally a breath of fresh air in this otherwise generic looking neighbourhood. And if the buildings are to be of a copper tint as suggested by the model pic on the previous page, even better to stand out in the green glass district!
 
I agree that the shape of these towers offers a refreshing sleek and curvy form to the area. Very happy about this. I will also check my reservations about the more whimsical flourishes and the scale and form of the podium, and wait to see what emerges.
 
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