Toronto Clear Spirit | 131.36m | 40s | Cityscape | a—A

Pardon my ignorance, but does that podium hide the hideous view of the Gardiner and rail lands at the south end of the site?
 
RJR123 said:
Pardon my ignorance, but does that podium hide the hideous view of the Gardiner and rail lands at the south end of the site?
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Yes, but the people who will be living in the towers will have a grand view of the Gardiner.

Though just because you can't see it doesn't mean it isn't there.
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To what "it" are you referring to? A building yet to be built? The coming demise of the Distillery? A spirit that you have channeled form elsewhere?


Why so cheeky, Urban Shocker, you are getting the development you like?
 
Urban Shocker said:
Yesterday evening, after the Miklos Gaal opening at Artcore, I had another stroll around the site. People weren't fleeing in horror from Pure Spirit or looking up at it in terror as if they'd seen Godzilla. In fact, everyone remains calm in the presence of this handsome new addition to our downtown skyline. If aA continues as they've begun, we're clearly in for a real treat when the whole complex is built. Great design.
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Though to be honest, I'd think most "everyone" remained calm in the presence of Penn Plaza/MSG as it rose upon the site of Penn Station back in the 60s.

Incidentally, that's not meant to be another case of baiting or a lame/sensationalistic comparison point--more a debunking of the myth that people typically react in real-time terror to architectural Godzillas or heritage-rape horrors real or imagined. Hate to say it, but most folk aren't *that* hyper-critically engaged to our ever-evolving built environment; they take it for granted, "it is what it is", and any radical change "must" have a reasonable, logical explanation behind it, etc.

That's just my playing Fumento or Wendell Cox for a second. It isn't like we're dealing with Ceausescu palaces here. In a way, because it's a fundamentally "philistine" explanation, I'm probably debunking Urban Shocker's POV even more than the anti-Urban Shocker POV--that is, "great design" or "handsome new addition" has little or nothing to do with it...
 
You can set your standards as low as you want, adma, but good design affects everyone who comes into contact with it positively, just as bad design has the opposite effect. Our values system is based on standards of excellence in medicine, law, and many other things, including design. Our daily lives are full of encounters with objects, and systems, that weren't given enough thought at the conceptual stage before they were introduced to the public. That leaking coffee-maker at home; riding the TTC and changing trains in a station where pedestrian traffic flow wasn't considered properly; at work sitting in that uncomfortable chair; in the cafeteria where the plates, cutlery, salt, pepper, mustard, sugar, napkins, drinks and food aren't arranged logically before or after the checkout and everyone is criss-crossing one another, etc. The role of design is to solve problems - a process - on the way to producing objects - a solution. Much of design is common sense, plus the magic ingredient of inspiration.

The magic ingredient that makes some buildings great isn't something that you can quantify - but you can recognize and delight in it, as with any work of art, when you encounter it. You can't draw anything out of a finished design that wasn't put into it through the process either - a clunker will always fail to satisfy. In terms of appreciating art and design, "looking" is just the first part of a two-phase process that includes the payoff of "seeing". But not seeing isn't a moral failing either - it's an enticement to visual literacy and the benefits of that are a reward in itself as with any other form of literacy.

Even without analyzing "how" something is done, our lives are better for art because we are affected by it at an emotional level.
 
I want to add that hard as it is to define, there is something that people can recognise that distinguishes good design and execution. Richard Feynman, in one of his books, relates how he was in a room full of old paintings. Knowing nothing of art history, he nevertheless could see that some of the paintings seemed much more 'right' than others. Later, he found out that the paintings he thought were 'right' were all by various Masters, while the rest were by relative unknowns.

Bill
 
Indeed, Mongo. As I indicated, he was someone affected by art at the emotional level, and able to draw more out of some works than others ... because more was put into them in the first place - talent!
 
I was just visiting the Distillery yesterday with my friend who performs regularly at Soulpepper. She was certainly quite disappointed, if fatalistic, about the immense towers going up at the heart of the district. We had a bite at Pure Spirits where her friend works, and saw exactly where the new condo will go. Imagining the completed project, you really get the impression of how the whole development will be one long outdoor condo lobby, the laneways simply a procession to the grand entrance. A band was playing in that open seating area next to Pure Spirits and the Mill House that will become the front entrance to the Clear Spirits condo. I don't see the live music being too welcome with hundreds of condos rising above.

Enjoy the district while it lasts, folks.
 
That stage and the open space is a great performance space, specially in the summer. The 'immense tower' will put an end to the space and the performances, no doubt.
 
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