Toronto 88 Scott Street | 203.9m | 58s | Concert | P + S / IBI

Hipster Duck said:
To me the "step pyramid" or ziggurat, as you have called it, is very symbolic of New York city skyscrapers (due to the light and shadow ordinance of 1906) and, maybe for that reason, I associate positively with it. I feel it's natural for a skyscraper to have a stepped back design the same way that I think it's natural for a rock band to have a drummer, a bass guitarist and a lead singer - there's nothing that says it has to be that way, it's just the classic way tha skyscrapers were designed in the city that defined the skyscraper.

I don't think it's a "tired" design at all. Some of my favourite skyscrapers in the world, whether they were built in NY or not, have something resembling a step pyramid shape: the Messeturm, Chrysler Tower, International Finance Centre in HK, Jin Mao, etc. It was also natural for almost every pre-WW2 skyscraper to have in every city unless it was one of those Beaux Arts piles that was one solid mass twenty stories up (think Commerce Court North).

It's true that Toronto's best highrises didn't utilize this design, although the Canada Trust tower at Brookfield place (or whatever it's called now) makes a good effort.
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I agree with you. It’s a natural shape for a tower for the reasons you’ve cited, and, well handled, it can be extraordinarily beautiful. I wish Toronto had a lot more good examples of buildings in the historicist style. 1 St Thomas, though too small, is excellent, and Canada Trust Tower is a solid B in my view, although even there I wish it was 10 or 20 stories higher. Even The Esplanade in its way has some redeeming features. Of course both Canada Trust and Esplanade were built in the latter years of postmodernism so they are actually very current designs for the time. 1 St. Thomas is the sole historicist-styled project built in the last 20 years that has any genuine merit. Why is that?:

1. very talented architect
2. very high grade materials
3. extraordinary attention to detail

The problem for me lies in the fact that in every other case, be it Uptown, Trump, ROCP, 1 King West, or any number of smaller less visible projects, the historicist style is so poorly handled that they end up just being giant, cheap eyesores. I hate Trump, ROCP etc, for the same reason I loathe McMansions—they are pastiches of earlier architectural styles, ersatz architecture, mimicking the past without any of the visual integrity and design intelligence that motivated those buildings. There is virtually no possibility that memorable historicist buildings of lasting value can be accomplished with precast concrete, window wall and spandrel.

In Toronto, in 2012, the combination of mediocre to bad architects, the inevitable corner-cutting that eliminates most of the visually interesting details, and the relentlessly cheap and downmarket materials, turns these buildings into dead-on-arrival white elephants every time.

The only way to pull it off is to spend a lot more money on architects and materials than Toronto developers are willing to spend. So they just end up being monuments to kitsch--every time*.

So the question is, why bother?



*According to the Wiki, “an inferior, tasteless copy of an extant style of art or a worthless imitation of art of recognized value. The concept is associated with the deliberate use of elements that may be thought of as cultural icons, while making cheap mass-produced objects that are unoriginal".
 
1 St Thomas is the perfect manifestation of the set-back style (po-po-mo?). Unfortunately it's so small it barely gets noticed. If it were just 10 stories taller it would stand out beautifully and present a Stern lesson to all the corner cutting cheapskates who litter our skyline with 3rd rate junk.
 
There was a time not long ago when everyone was excited about the weekly new project that was coming down the pipes. The love affair is now over after the results are 50-70 stories completed. With few exceptions, there isn't much to get excited about anymore. The same set of architectural drawings are now overused. Someone is going to have to spring for a new etchasketch . Maybe the competition winner of Cityplace will be a stunner, but don't hold your breath.
1 St. Thomas is the nicest building in the last few years.
 
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Hipster Duck said:
To me the "step pyramid" or ziggurat, as you have called it, is very symbolic of New York city skyscrapers (due to the light and shadow ordinance of 1906) and, maybe for that reason, I associate positively with it. I feel it's natural for a skyscraper to have a stepped back design the same way that I think it's natural for a rock band to have a drummer, a bass guitarist and a lead singer - there's nothing that says it has to be that way, it's just the classic way tha skyscrapers were designed in the city that defined the skyscraper.

I don't think it's a "tired" design at all. Some of my favourite skyscrapers in the world, whether they were built in NY or not, have something resembling a step pyramid shape: the Messeturm, Chrysler Tower, International Finance Centre in HK, Jin Mao, etc. It was also natural for almost every pre-WW2 skyscraper to have in every city unless it was one of those Beaux Arts piles that was one solid mass twenty stories up (think Commerce Court North).

It's true that Toronto's best highrises didn't utilize this design, although the Canada Trust tower at Brookfield place (or whatever it's called now) makes a good effort.
Click to expand...

You just worded what I was thinking perfectly. I figured I had to be the only person on this site who actually liked Pomo for the actual thought they put into most of their designs.

I actually like 1KW quite a bit and I like this tower with the exception of a few features. Toronto needs more towers with setbacks IMO. Especially within the downtown core.
 
'Thought' certainly abounds...

postmodern.JPG
 
There's nothing inherently wrong with a tall building that steps back as it goes up. Perhaps too many badly executed stepbacks have soured us on the whole concept, but I think it can be done well.

I'm one of the people who actually likes this building. Its ultimate success will depend greatly on quality of materials, but I don't see this being a disasterous design.

The more important story is that it's a major development in an area that badly needs it.
 
I think thedeepend was referring to the many examples of faux-stepbacks around the city, rather than real stepbacks. You will notice that in all the photos he posted, the buildings often don't actually step back, or step back very little. They're more reflective of '80s PoMo than genuine New York deco.
 
The only one of these recently built "setback" towers worth a pinch of coonshit is the Canada Trust tower, since it's the only one that brings something original to the agéd form.

Specifically, as an aesthetic, it recasts it as a shape that has been carved out of a box - as if, inside every "boring box" there's a deco-inspired building trying to get out, which I think is rather clever and fun.
 
Ramako said:
I think thedeepend was referring to the many examples of faux-stepbacks around the city, rather than real stepbacks. You will notice that in all the photos he posted, the buildings often don't actually step back, or step back very little. They're more reflective of '80s PoMo than genuine New York deco.
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Faux-anything rarely seems to go well.
 
According to the website this is over 50% sold.

I just realized that this project will have some office and retail space !
http://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2012/te/bgrd/backgroundfile-44929.pdf

8772 square feet of retail (seems small giving the giant podium).
52,215.7 square feet of commercial space ... that's a lot more then these typical condos add and a little more then 1/3rd the space the original office building contained.
 
thedeepend said:
The problem for me lies in the fact that in every other case, be it Uptown, Trump, ROCP, 1 King West, or any number of smaller less visible projects, the historicist style is so poorly handled that they end up just being giant, cheap eyesores. I hate Trump, ROCP etc, for the same reason I loathe McMansions—they are pastiches of earlier architectural styles, ersatz architecture, mimicking the past without any of the visual integrity and design intelligence that motivated those buildings. There is virtually no possibility that memorable historicist buildings of lasting value can be accomplished with precast concrete, window wall and spandrel.
[/I]
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+1000 (esp for sneaking "it all depends on the cladding" into your observation)
 
^
you seem to have some deep-seated need to function as a cheering section for bad architecture, (ie. Trump and this Rumpelstiltskin-like mess), and an equally strong need to deride buildings where architects are actually aspiring to do something interesting (George Brown College Waterfront Campus and Sick Kids Research Tower). Rather odd.
 
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