Toronto 50 Bloor Street West | 230.11m | 70s | Morguard Corporation | Pellow + Associates

but what I am saying is that this is an improvement over pretty much everything in this city.. sure it doesn't match that building in new york, but this will be selling for $700 a square foot, not $7000. Unfortunately, Buildings have budgets. and quite frankly, no matter how much you hope, we will not be getting a one57 here. This design is an incredible design for $700 a square foot, And I am proud that this city is capable of these designs at this pricepoint.

tl:dr This building is great considering the current condo market enviroment, and a A building overall. (pending at least curtianwall, or windowall/curtianwall hybrid)
 
Considering the lack of details, the claim of it being "an improvement over pretty much everything in this city" (compared to what and on what basis?) is rather premature - like you said, we don't even know what cladding system it uses, much less the overall materials.

AoD
 
another thing I just noticed, a seeming lack of balconies..

and from what we have seen so far, this is a definite improvement over anything else. now that could change when more detailed renders/information/real cladding shows up.
 
Including One Bloor? Massey Tower? Ice? Picasso? Much less extant buildings like One St. Thomas? Four Seasons? Shangri-La. I hate to be nitpicking, but there is nothing that is suggestive of this project scaling to such architectural heights. Besides, if the complaint about buildings in Toronto is "boxy" - break the design down and it is nothing but a stacked series of boxes with a slanted roof.

AoD
 
Last edited:
one bloor is a giant box below the balconies. picasso is amazing, though it is hardly a major building skyline wise. four seasons is nice, but again, a giant box. I love shangri-la, but there is a reason i put that 220m in there.. I feel that buildings are often not major skyline changers until they are above that. (unless they are surrounded by buildings 75m shorter than it) massey tower is also largely a box (save for the one side) below the balconies. This has setbacks, and though it could certainly be better, it is good enough for my standards. It still amazes me how people complain about buildings like these but then turn around and rave about buildings like 90 harbour, and 501 yonge. THOSE are bad designs, and yet people take out their hate on this A building. it is not A+, but it is not a C like those buildings.
 
I think it amazes me how people still confound high quality architecture with height and what impact that has on the skyline (which is ultimately "the point", isn't it?). And BTW, if I recall correctly, 90 Harbour isn't a box - it just looked like one from the elevation submitted to the city.

AoD
 
Last edited:
it is.. see here;

1york1.jpg


And I am all for amazing shorter buildings, but what I was trying to convey is that for buildings of this scale, it is an amazing building.
 
CN Tower said:
C'mon UT! This is prime Bloor Street! Toronto deserves something far more iconic than this piece of burnt toast.

http://one57.com/#!/watch
Click to expand...

i don't hate this design [ i wouldn't call it burnt toast, in fact, i like this contemporary box with setbacks and no balconies (or at least very few of them).], however, out of all the locations to build a beautiful box, they HAD to build it at Yonge/Bloor, an intersection/immediate area filled with boxes. lol.

and ya, i always pictured One57 here... it's sleek, tall, iconic, and looks very bloor street to me. weird how in manhattan, One57, the beauty it is, is crammed/wedged in between buildings so it has no podium or anything, unlike this monster which has a HUGE site to work with and HUGE retail podium.

Overall, i think 50 bloor's podium will be pure win. can't complain about a mini mall like that with a huge tower above.

I respect the office tower look too. it has much more class and sorta separates it from just another residential building. a true mixed use building... oh man this shoulda been a Mandarin Oriental hotel midway in the building. woulda been perfect!
 
And I am all for amazing shorter buildings, but what I was trying to convey is that for buildings of this scale, it is an amazing building.
Click to expand...

We will see about that, I do hope you are right considering the disappointment that is the other 220m which isn't a box in execution. At least this one is still just a proposal and subject to refinements.

AoD
 
Last edited:
Sorry, the Hudson Bay Tower won that award, bar none. The window replacement just made it that much worse - dirty beige/grey concrete/seafoam green glazing + awful architecture/Royal Bank/The Bay Bunker + low-ceiling retail concourse + dreadful TTC entrances/mezzaine = Hell. Yes, there is nothing redeemable about that entire complex.

AoD
 
The councillor is right: the driveway on Bloor is a mistake and has to be removed.
 
innsertnamehere said:
It still amazes me how people complain about buildings like these but then turn around and rave about buildings like 90 harbour, and 501 yonge. THOSE are bad designs, and yet people take out their hate on this A building. it is not A+, but it is not a C like those buildings.
Click to expand...

It amazes me that someone would call 501 Yonge or 90 Harbour bad designs when both are still 'works in progress' (as is the uninspired rendering of 50 Bloor W) with nothing to confirm what they may look like one day, although we do sort of have an idea of the shapes of 90 Harbour.
The Post does a story about 83 stories on Bloor West and the thread lights up like a klieg light. We must demand better than most of the designs we have been seeing in the past decade, our kids will one day wonder "what the hell were they thinking back then". With the insane number of buildings going up we should be at a point of seeing many more successes than failures but it's the other way around with buildings going from shiny renderings to cheap, mundane, unimaginative glass shapes in the sky. With something along this important stretch of Bloor Street in Yorkville, and of this extreme height (even if it's hit with a reduction), it can't just be good, it must be great - yes, One57 great.
 
You must log in or register to post here.

Back
Top