Toronto Forma | 308m | 84s | Great Gulf | Gehry Partners

Red October said:
I don't get why they couldn't use the old designs, but with the cloud white glass wrapping around the warehouses... It easily could have worked well.
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Agreed. The contrast could've been fantastic too.

I actually like this new base better with a blend of the old and new. At the same time, I really miss that incredible white tower. These two towers just seem kind of lacking relative to the previous iteration.

Hopefully there's one more iteration that really nails it.
 
I wonder if this redesign at all affects the likelihood of Pinnacle II on Adelaide getting built given that the westernmost tower has been scrapped.
 
I might have missed this, but we seen any detailed elevations or floor plans for the cloud glass wrap?

I'm curious how it actually was supposed to work

The development docs on the city's website are for this version.
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“Three towers gave the scheme a sculptural quality. With two, it ain’t there." Frank Gehry

Even Gehry doesn't think this will be a real Gehry. It's a compromise, not a masterpiece he'd been aiming to leave in his home town as his final final bow.
 
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waterloowarrior said:
I might have missed this, but we seen any detailed elevations or floor plans for the cloud glass wrap? I'm curious how it actually was supposed to work
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Nope, I haven't seen how the curved cloud glass wrap would work - it might actually be a secondary skin like it was in his Paris Louis Vuitton Foundation or the Novartis Building in Basel, Switzerland.

AoD
 
^^ He's been holed up in LA for most of his adult life. He saw his home town flourishing and thought it was finally ready to embrace something special... except we weren't. No wonder he's dejected.

Ramako said:
We've got a Gehry-designed supertall on our hands that has planning staff support and all you can do is complain?
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That's a cop out. We've been waiting this whole building cycle for that one iconic project. Every city on the planet would kill for this proposal, but what do we do? We screw it up. Yes it's still a beautiful proposal, but it's just maddening to watch a group of bureaucrats meddle and meddle and meddle some more till the original vision is lost and we end up with something less. And for what? NOTHING!

This might be a satisfactory outcome for you, but I'm just stunned that we've sabotaged this opportunity. This kind of thing comes along once in a generation. This was going to be our Bilbao Guggenheim. Sorry, but this just leaves my faith in this city severely tested.

Ramako said:
I'm generally with you when it comes to being pro-height but your expectations are so out of whack with reality that it's verging on the absurd.
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I'm generally in agreement with most things you say, but this is one area where a great gulf seems to exist. You may find my expectations absurdly high, but I'm a little aghast at how low yours are. I don't expect every project to be a home run, but I did view this as the 1 proposal out of the last 200 that would be that show stopper many of us had been longing for. 1 knockout proposal in the biggest building boom this country has ever seen? Sorry, but I don't consider that an absurdly high expectation.

Good god Canada.
 
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MetroMan said:
Even Gehry doesn't think this will be a real Gehry. It's a compromise, not a masterpiece he'd been aiming to leave in his home town as his final final bow.
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Some of you give this man way too much credit and buy far too easily into his schtick. The whole "sculptures" thing and the attitude that this is some sort of "gift" from him to Toronto make me chuckle and then sigh.

EDIT: By the way, looking at the model photos from the previous page, I'm enjoying how the two towers play off the CN Tower from various angles to create that nice "odd number" / "trifecta" of tall towers effect. It's a much nicer effect than the wall of three towers we had previously.
 
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isaidso said:
That's a cop out. We've been waiting this whole building cycle for that one iconic project. Every city on the planet would kill for this proposal, but what do we do? We meddle make compromises here and there, then meddle some more. Yes it's still a beautiful proposal, but it's just maddening to watch a group of bureaucrats meddle and meddle and meddle some more till the original vision is lost and we end up with something less. And for what? NOTHING!

This might be a satisfactory outcome for you, but I'm just stunned that we've sabotage this opportunity. This kind of thing comes along once in a generation. Sorry, but this just leaves me throughly dejected.
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Perhaps you should ask why other cities build more than one iconic tower while all of our private sector could only come up with this project (and this is one that is rather out of the ordinary, at that). Don't blame the bureaucrats for that one - I don't see all that many cities approving 300m towers on the fly, much less "kill for this project".

AoD
 
New proposal

MafaldaBoy said:
I think it's great. After all, what represents Toronto more than "tall glass boxes stacked on glass boxes" [omg supertall!!11!] /s

In all seriousness, while I'm not happy that the geometry has been "dumbed down" (boxify-ed, cheapened, etc.), the massing is still good. We finally get something over the arbitrary 300m mark, still designed by a world-renowned architect, while also pleasing city planning staff. The fact that the design's more conservative doesn't mean that it's a disaster.
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Totally agree with you.
Way to go!
 
As AoD says above, no city in its right mind builds whatever a developer (or architect) wants. Proposals have to evolve.

Also, I'd love for people here to stop pretending that what we originally saw is how it would be built; architects put projects through a design PROCESS with their clients, starting with a very early, conceptual plan. The final towers and podium would not have been what we saw so far, and even the floorplans we saw were conceptual. Stop mourning something that never was a reality in the first place.

Everyone is acting like what we saw was a given and was going to move ahead as-is. That was never realistic, never the plan, and even with approvals in place, Gehry's team would have had to make significant changes and developments in the design before construction went ahead. Welcome to the real world of architecture and development.

You can't build a rendering. There are so many details of a proposal that have to be worked out before construction begins. Yet so many people here see a rendering or 3D model, fall in love with it, and wonder "Why can't you just build that?!". It's tiresome.
 
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modern™ said:
EDIT: By the way, looking at the model photos from the previous page, I'm enjoying how the two towers play off the CN Tower from various angles to create that nice "odd number" / "trifecta" of tall towers effect. It's a much nicer effect than the wall of three towers we had previously.
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Wait till the MTCC Foster project eventually get added to the mix (hopefully).

AoD
 
I'm a big fan of the stepping down to meet the towers in the area, the previous proposal had them sticking out like sore thumbs in the neighbourhood, the current proposal fits better despite being even taller.
 
AlvinofDiaspar said:
Perhaps you should ask why other cities build more than one iconic tower while all of our private sector could only come up with this project (and this is one that is rather out of the ordinary, at that). Don't blame the bureaucrats for that one - I don't see all that many cities approving 300m towers on the fly, much less "kill for this project".

AoD
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On the fly? You know that's not a fair account of things. One thing I do know is this: when a once in a generation opportunity gets presented to a city by a celebrated world famous architect you recognize it for what it is. We don't seem to recognize a gift when it smacks us in the face.
 
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