Toronto 401 Bay Street | 143.86m | 33s | Cadillac Fairview | WZMH

MichaelZ said:
Anyways, to get the discussion back on track, I still stand by my opinion that the cladding looks fine on the building, it's not above average but it's also not in the bottom decile of cladding jobs.
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And I still stand by this opinion I expressed earlier...

Well, as I've said, the design is like a real-life version of a callow, message-boarder's fantasy rendering of a "tired, dated" building "refreshed". And I guess in a case like this, the poster's perspective is akin to that of such a message-boarder--incapable of seeing this as a real-life building, with a real-life history behind it and a real-life urban context. They just see it as a meme...
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IOW you seem to speak from a perspective that, when we're speaking of said "real-life urban context" might as well have never heard of John B. Parkin Associates, *or* of E.J. Lennox, *or* of Viljo Revell, *or* of Edmund Burke, *or* of Chapman & Oxley, and perhaps only know Zeidler and WZMH because they're still active firms w/their labels all over the place. Basically, going beyond even the mere matter of cladding quality, you come across as rather bone-headedly ignorant and insensitive when it comes to seeing the bigger historical and contextual picture here--which is what *really* informs the gist of the criticism here; what might "look fine" on a suburban car dealership does ***not*** look fine as a recladding of a significant building in a sensitive inner-urban location.

If that's the case: sure you have a right to express an opinion. But others have a right to express an opinion on your opinion as well--and under the circumstance, in grappling such "contextual matters", you're as out of your depth as a first-year survey-course undergrad would be in an advanced grad-student course. That is, even if it's for the sake of mere "working knowledge", you need more remedial education and seasoning before your opinion can be taken seriously...
 
While I'm not sure I can ever get behind the "need to be in the field expertise" to comment, because I am pretty sure that would exclude most of us posters from posting here. And that still doesn't entirely prevent any individual who does from saying stupid things about it. But I digress...

...I do agree from a historical perspective that the recladding of this building was and is an unfortunate travesty, to put it mildly. When there was all the options on the table to bring this building up to speed in efficiencies and whatnot without changing the overall design, look and feel for this building originally...especially coming from a developer with seriously deep pockets as CE. There was simply no excuse for this. And adding further insult, using the worst sort of design choices with cladding and materials to cheapen and clown suit it's looks, even within the vicinity of newer buildings that have gone up. It's embarrassing really. So it's my sincere wish that CE would take a serious look of what they have done here and plan to restore this building to it's former self, IMO.
 
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UtakataNoAnnex said:
While I'm not sure I can ever get behind the "need to be in the field expertise" to comment, because I am pretty sure that would exclude most of us posters from posting here. And that still doesn't entirely prevent any individual who does from saying stupid things about it. But I digress...
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But I think it's also a matter of recognizing, going into conversation, that there *are* people in certain pertinent fields of expertise, and having enough of an advance working knowledge of said fields in order to know how to play, or *not* to play, one's game in an environment.

Sort of like, when you're in a wild animal park, you know well enough to keep a measured distance from the animals in the absence of trained experts. Otherwise you risk death or injury--or put the animals at risk as well.
 
adma said:
Well, as I've said, the design is like a real-life version of a callow, message-boarder's fantasy rendering of a "tired, dated" building "refreshed". And I guess in a case like this, the poster's perspective is akin to that of such a message-boarder--incapable of seeing this as a real-life building, with a real-life history behind it and a real-life urban context. They just see it as a meme...
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I will respond to this only and assume it's entirely genuine, but I do agree with PinkLucy that attempts to move off-topic with 'sniping' should be discouraged.

Can you elaborate on what "a callow, message-boarder's fantasy rendering of a "tired, dated" building "refreshed"" means?

I'm also not sure what " They just see it as a meme..." refers to. Is the 'meme' the visual design of the exterior or something else?
 
adma said:
But I think it's also a matter of recognizing, going into conversation, that there *are* people in certain pertinent fields of expertise, and having enough of an advance working knowledge of said fields in order to know how to play, or *not* to play, one's game in an environment.

Sort of like, when you're in a wild animal park, you know well enough to keep a measured distance from the animals in the absence of trained experts. Otherwise you risk death or injury--or put the animals at risk as well.
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Not denying that. Rather it should be pointed out that it's not critical for commenters to get wrong here. Rather those that know and in the know should educate them when they do get it wrong as why it's wrong for the benefit and learning of everyone else who is reading it. Not sure that will ever deal with those who want to argue it in bad faith adequately, but the rest of who are enlightened on the matters is likely a good thing, IMO.

...and that's all I am going say for that too. 😺
 
MichaelZ said:
I will respond to this only and assume it's entirely genuine, but I do agree with PinkLucy that attempts to move off-topic with 'sniping' should be discouraged.

Can you elaborate on what "a callow, message-boarder's fantasy rendering of a "tired, dated" building "refreshed"" means?

I'm also not sure what " They just see it as a meme..." refers to. Is the 'meme' the visual design of the exterior or something else?
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What I'm referring to is more along the lines of 13-year-old suburban-shut-in skyscraper geeks and message-boarding fanboys who might offer a scheme like this as a sort of architectural "fan art", but through their youth and callowness and the fact that their conditioning has been *exclusively* through the realm of fan forums (and perhaps as an outgrowth of how, more often than not these days, their primary foundational "urban conditioning" might be through video games and related virtual worlds rather than architecture IRL), have absolutely *no* positive sense of the architectural or urban history they're dealing with. To them, the buildings are just memes: pretty pictures posted, answering only to the immediacy of one's encounter.

The funny thing about the democratization of CAD is how, in a sense, it's democratized "architectural creation" as well--I mean, up through the end of the last century, the realm of said creation was more rarefied and bound to academe and certain "official" institutions and organizations (and that includes the early days of CAD when it was more of a high-end tool). But now, even an regular kid can use standard CAD software to create their own architectural designs for gaming-or-whatever purposes.

Except that in practice, it's like the dumbed-down Sunday-paintering of architectural creation--only, fan art is the new Sunday painting.

And they're incapable of relating to real-life urban or historical context, in roughly the same way that newer cohorts raised on talking GPS are freehanded geographic illiterates.
 
adma said:
What I'm referring to is more along the lines of 13-year-old suburban-shut-in skyscraper geeks and message-boarding fanboys who might offer a scheme like this as a sort of architectural "fan art", but through their youth and callowness and the fact that their conditioning has been *exclusively* through the realm of fan forums (and perhaps as an outgrowth of how, more often than not these days, their primary foundational "urban conditioning" might be through video games and related virtual worlds rather than architecture IRL), have absolutely *no* positive sense of the architectural or urban history they're dealing with. To them, the buildings are just memes: pretty pictures posted, answering only to the immediacy of one's encounter.

The funny thing about the democratization of CAD is how, in a sense, it's democratized "architectural creation" as well--I mean, up through the end of the last century, the realm of said creation was more rarefied and bound to academe and certain "official" institutions and organizations (and that includes the early days of CAD when it was more of a high-end tool). But now, even an regular kid can use standard CAD software to create their own architectural designs for gaming-or-whatever purposes.

Except that in practice, it's like the dumbed-down Sunday-paintering of architectural creation--only, fan art is the new Sunday painting.

And they're incapable of relating to real-life urban or historical context, in roughly the same way that newer cohorts raised on talking GPS are freehanded geographic illiterates.
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Such "13-year-old suburban-shut-in skyscraper geeks and message-boarding fanboys" might indeed exist as you describe, but how does that relate to the cladding on 401 Bay?

Does the mere existence of these niche demographic groups imply something important?
 
MichaelZ said:
Such "13-year-old suburban-shut-in skyscraper geeks and message-boarding fanboys" might indeed exist as you describe, but how does that relate to the cladding on 401 Bay?

Does the mere existence of these niche demographic groups imply something important?
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By persisting in asking, you're feeding the sniping.
 
Yesterday:

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