whatever
Senior Member
Actually, nothing was demolished or transformed for 1 St Thomas. That was a surface parking lot for awhile before the tower got built.
Urban Shocker
Doyenne
There's no connection between 1 St. Thomas and the Distillery when it comes to repurposing old buildings and enhancing them with contemporary additions, yet syn keeps picking at the scab of the late and unlamented Rack House 'M' ( he's a fan of such elderly, second-rate architecture it seems ... ) and trying to make such links.
jje1000
Senior Member
Rack House M, though ugly, was part of the history of the site and had this hulking industrial presence that you would be hard-pressed to find today in Toronto. It also had a sweet neon sign up on top.
I'd say it would have made a unique podium for Clear Spirit with some windows punched into it.
From ToBuilt:
http://www.tobuilt.ca/php/tobuildings_more.php?search_fd3=2974
Earlier in the thread, Rack House M is on the left.
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Urban Shocker
Doyenne
It was grossly out of scale with the adjacent - and much more comely - Victorian-era industrial buildings. The good news is that the replacement structure, which will function as a podium, will have windows and be of a scale to match those earlier treasures.
urbandreamer
recession proof
Strange Shocker, I thought you were a fan of blank unadorned walls?
Perhaps you're just very bourgeois and find industrial spaces uncomfortable?
I would've kept the building as a living 3D "industrial sculpture" and gasp, perhaps even kept it as a functioning rackhouse to a boutique distillery label. Gooderham Whiskey? Why not! Perhaps insert some glass frames into the blank spaces showcasing art or Victorian era industrial tools?
Perhaps you're just very bourgeois and find industrial spaces uncomfortable?
I would've kept the building as a living 3D "industrial sculpture" and gasp, perhaps even kept it as a functioning rackhouse to a boutique distillery label. Gooderham Whiskey? Why not! Perhaps insert some glass frames into the blank spaces showcasing art or Victorian era industrial tools?
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GenericUser
Banned
Defending the architectural merits of a featureless rectangle? Really, jje1000? It seems like anything built 100+ years ago is considered a "heritage structure" these days. Nostalgia shouldn't determine the fate of a structure. While I agree that architecturally interesting heritage structures need to be preserved, much of what is classified as "heritage" by the city is garbage and needs to be removed to make way for future development.
urbandreamer
recession proof
Welcome back, ____. Let me guess you want to bulldoze all of what you think is WASPy/Presbyterian Toronto heritage? You want beige stucco Timbitrailer Parks put up around town instead, right?
BobBob
Senior Member
By that logic, featureless pyramids are just as dispensable...
jje1000
Senior Member
Indeed. Really, GenericUser, why don't we demolish the other Rackhouses as well, since the're also just ugly featureless rectangles as well? We might as well demolish most of Queen Street West since most of it is nondescript, right?
I didn't see this "rectangle" as an impediment to future development, but instead an opportunity for creative reuse.
dt_toronto_geek
Superstar
Since when is Queen Street West is nondescript?
syn
Senior Member
You might be thinking of U Condos. There were some older buildings removed for 1 St. Thomas from what I recall.
syn
Senior Member
That's the problem. They didn't repurpose Rackhouse M, they tore it down.
No, I simply have a respect for history and would've preferred a creative solution which retained a building that was part of the Distillery since the 1920s.
Rackhouse M was out of scale but 40 storey condos aren't??
syn
Senior Member
The Distillery District isn't simply a collection of structures. It's a National Historic Site and the largest collection of preserved Industrial Victorian bulidings in NA.
Rackhouse M may not have been pretty, but it was a large and very prominent component of the district and has been for nearly a century. A great design would've incorporated this structure.
Urban Shocker
Doyenne
1 St. Thomas isn't an example of repurposing anything, whereas the Distillery contains North America's largest surviving collection of Victorian industrial architecture.
It isn't only at the Distillery where this process is happening - all sorts of other creative solutions involve removing unsuitable buildings and repurposing others - Bridgepoint saves William Thomas's important Don Jail and the architecturally unimportant Modernist addition is being removed, for instance.
Rack House 'M' was out of scale with the surrounding set of earlier buildings, such as the ones that include the Young Centre.