Toronto Corus Quay | ?m | 8s | Waterfront Toronto | Diamond Schmitt

They should just put CBC Radio 3 on the air. It would bring quality Canadian indie music to the masses and perhaps influence other stations to play more indie music rather than following the generic American formula for programming.
 
interchange42 said:
A.J. Diamond of Diamond and Schmitt Architects described Corus Quay as an urban pioneer building whose big moves and simple glass skin allow it to be read easily from a distance.
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While I admire new buildings such as the sleek-hipped Corus, the tall and hunky Mr. Casa, and the transparent Ice Cube of stacked hockey rinks for their pared down and unequivocal nature, I'd say that 1 Yonge - recently maligned by some here as a result of Hume's Corus critique ( Chris works in a particularly windowless section of that august institution's newsroom, by the way ... ) - is the true pioneering office-building-by-the-lake, built almost 40 years ago.
 
Urban Shocker said:
While I admire new buildings such as the sleek-hipped Corus, the tall and hunky Mr. Casa, and the transparent Ice Cube of stacked hockey rinks for their pared down and unequivocal nature, I'd say that 1 Yonge - recently maligned by some here as a result of Hume's Corus critique ( Chris works in a particularly windowless section of that august institution's newsroom, by the way ... ) - is the true pioneering office-building-by-the-lake, built almost 40 years ago.
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It's also the ugliest building in Toronto..
 
I disagree completely.

Just as Victorian architecture was reviled from the '50s - '80s, so Brutalism is today. Like with everything else, it'll come back into vogue eventually.

In any event, just put some halfway decent buildings around it and it'll look much better.
 
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Is there a weight limit to the slide? and that woman sitting at the bottom of it is gonna get wacked by someone coming down it.
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I had a meeting in the building today. The slide is now off limits. Someone got hurt going down too fast.
 
junctionist said:
They should just put CBC Radio 3 on the air. It would bring quality Canadian indie music to the masses and perhaps influence other stations to play more indie music rather than following the generic American formula for programming.
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I totally agree. the CBC Radio app is a godsend at work, especially the five CBC Radio 3 stations.
 
Northern Magus said:
I disagree completely.

Just as Victorian architecture was reviled from the '50s - '80s, so Brutalism is today. Like with everything else, it'll come back into vogue eventually.
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Hard to say--as I've stated before, I think we're in more of a "red/blue" era of architectural taste where traditionalists remain traditionalists, Brutalists remain Brutalists, and never the twain shall meet.

That said, I can see reason to adore Torstar as an object in and of itself, an architectural statement of the "All The President's Men" era (and the main newsroom still has that feeling). But the "object in and of itself" may be its biggest failing, too; and because the foot of Yonge today isn't the foot of Yonge of 40 years ago, I'm not sure what can be done to remedy its, uh, "Brutalism-at-its-worst-to-its-detractors" non-address of the Yonge/QQ intersection. (Though paradoxically, Torstar--through its "1 Yonge" address--marked the beginning of the glamorization of the idea of the foot of Yonge.)
 
There used to be public tours of the newsroom, with a raised viewing platform where the scribes could be observed at work - like great apes in a zoo seen behind glass at a safe distance.

As an outrider for glamorous media culture situated in Toronto's declining and decidedly unglamorous industrial early '70s waterfront wasteland, the hard-edged Brutalism of 1 Yonge strikes me as a perfectly appropriate form for such an outpost. Think Great Wall of China, or the castles of Henry III and Edward I.
 
And as such, it's both the first office-building-by-the-lake *and* (by virtue of the on-site printing facilities) the last industrial-building-by-the-lake...
 
As opposed to how I made it seem, I'm actually generally a fan of Brutalism, I love the J Edgar Hoover building, love Robarts Library, love the University of Waterloo Math Building, etc..
I just personally think that specifically 1 Yonge is a generally boring Brutalist building, though I do agree that it is a symbol of Toronto at the time it was built.
Besides, wasn't it voted Toronto's Ugliest Building in none other than the Star?
 
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