Toronto First Canadian Place Rejuvenation | 298.08m | 72s | Brookfield | MdeAS Architects

Interesting that in all the years that I have walked by the podium on the corner of Bay and King never have I thought that there is a building missing here. Now with the modern glass facade I can't help but thinking the podium building is too short. I think the matte concrete that was there just made it look more massive.
 
I never thought a podium as indelicately conceived as FCP's could be dumbed down, but it seems that's just what has happened.
I saw it for the first time a few days ago - the whole podium just doesn't seem to make much sense with itself anymore. The reduction of the podium to a flimsy, generic box with pointless glass enclosures (over existing banks of recessed windows) as it's architectural selling point is not a step up, or even a considerate rethinking.

I wish the base lived up to the tower. The renovation has been a first-rate job. It's a hard to see the base so crudely altered, on a job we've been wanting to see happen for a long time. Especially when the tower itself has worked out so well.
 
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Interior renovations are gaining steam, the lobby and concourse's hoardings keep switching spots every week or so. It's sort of exciting as every time I come down for a cigarette I'm not sure what I'm going to encounter in the lobby.
 
Mississauga Slim said:
We can have a new style: "LEGO Modern." And this style is perfectly fine. Especially for LEGO people.
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I dunno about Lego, but the podium reminds me of this

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I guess the ugly banners are still to come on FCP.
 
I think the "Legoness" is artificially juiced up by the sign allowance on the corner (why, on earth, did they have to make that an *architectural* feature?
 
unimaginative2 said:
The tower looks much better but the podium looks pretty bad. I hope they're not ripping out the interior marble too.
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Not the marble on the walls so far--just the flooring.

And to EnviroTO - there IS a building missing there. It's been missing since about 1975.
 
One thing I've noticed with the podium - and I think the photographs people have taken generally bears this out - is how the new, vitreous cladding on the tower not only reflects the sky conditions more than the marble did, but how the vitreous podium cladding can now reflect the somewhat different lighting conditions that exist at street level so that, as a result, at times the podium is more visually differentiated from the tower than it was with the old design.

I'm so glad they got rid of that ghastly stucco cladding on the exterior podium ceiling.
 
Walking by the podium the other night, I noticed that activity in the 2nd-storey offices is quite visible now. This NBS-style exhibitionism is very engaging. The podium's aloof monumentality is gone. It's much more of a living building with this makeover. Obnoxious branding aside, it's growing on me.
 
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Not an architectural update, but important for those of us who work in/near FCP. The FCP Medical Centre is moving to Royal Bank Plaza at the end of March 2012.
 
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