Toronto Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts | ?m | 5s | COC | Diamond Schmitt

I like Coroner's Courts. It's got a clean design and generally fits in to the landscape. It's a Mies sandwich.
 
It's Toronto's own Alfred P. Murrah Building. (But you're right. It's got one to Toronto's most underrated curtain walls...)
 
Except when it comes to the street level, where things always seems to get messed up.

AoD
 
I sit in the Y and look at that building. It's alright...the parking garage is a little Detroit-ish though, but not in a too-terrible way (in that Detroit buildings always seem to have a garage next to them, like a suitcase laying on it's side, next to the building, which is waiting.....to leave detroit).

I was on the roof of the Y yesterday and notiched they park cars on the top of the Cadillac dealership. Neat.

Also from the Y, i sit and look at police HQ, glowing blue and fortresslike. Why/how did it happen? Museums to the recent past when the city got away from us. Or you people, got away from you people. I didn't live here yet.
 
The old Y was there before the constabulary moved in, so Shawn is benefiting from what the previous generation did. My Dad stayed at the old Y for a couple of weeks when he came to T.O.in 1970. He said the shower room was crawling with homosexuals.
 
Awful. They did retain the original archway to the Y in the police HQ....it's up that long ramp, underneath all that pink stone shit.

There's a police musuem in there i haven't been to. From the outside, it looks like one of those "warning" musuems the cops bring to grade schools. Smashed up cars, found guns, etc. I'd rather go to the Winners across the street.
 
I sometimes wonder if the so-called "awfulness" we read into Police HQ is less in the architecture than in the tenancy--after all, there was/is real architectural thought and effort (and state-of-the-art by mid-80s standards) here. Methinks what when it comes strictly to the design, it's simply because 80s Late/PoMo is at a popularity low ebb these days.

Wait a decade or so, and a new generation will--justifiably, perhaps?--"rediscover" it...
 
I recently joined this board because I thought this is a free board to state one's own opinions. I didn't realized that, wow, if your opinions are not shared by others, they have the right to attack you and call you names.

It's funny that you people think my criticism is wrong about the Opera House...yet's it's ok for you guys to criticize me, whom you don't know.

I never force anyone to agree with me, but what's wrong with simply stating how I view about certian structure or the city? You can state yours and I can't state mine?

This just shows how classy and mature some of you really are.
 
I never force anyone to agree with me, but what's wrong with simply stating how I view about certian structure or the city?
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In my opinion, nothing.

While I am glad and excited that the interior will serve performances in the best of possible ways, I can honestly say that I like the exterior of the building, and do not love it. The fronting onto University is great, the Queen Street side is okay, the rest is unfortunate in my opinion. A missed opportunity.
 
I don't believe that we're criticizing you Yelluskys. What we don't feel is appropriate is that you shout through your keyboard (ALL CAPS) and if you generalize an opinion (Toronto sucks) you should at the very least explain how you came to that deduction.
 
Yelluw: Not to belabour the point, but you may have misunderstood the etiquette which prevails on this board, and most others which I have seen. Typing in all caps is considered the equivalent of yelling, or picking a fight. As already mentioned you also managed to convey a tone of not respecting others' opinions. Don't know if that's what you actually intended, but that's how it came across.

If you check this thread and others you will see that there is a range of opinions posted about the Opera House, as with several other topics. Differing opinions make for a more interesting discussion. I have found that differing opinions are almost always respected here, unless they are obviously unreasonable or backed up with no evidence.

I hope you will continue to post your opinions, which would be as valid as anyone else's. If you can keep it respectful, I can't see how anyone here would have a problem.
 
bizorky:

What opportunity was missed when the loading area on York was designed? What would you have had this delivery area look like instead?

What opportunity was missed when the back-of-house offices and stage door entrance on Richmond was designed? What would you have had these offices and this entrance look like instead?

Both of these sides of the building are as different from one another, and from the Queen and University sides of the building, as the functions going on behind them - which they reflect and define.
 
Hate to be frank, but I think the real problem in this thread and others is that too much of the horn-blowing on behalf of the 4S Centre is by practically self-admitted opera-fop vested interests.

It doesn't mean they're wrong; indeed, I'm more prepared to side with than against them--though more as a disinterested third party...
 
I, for one, would be the first to complain loudly if the COC had commissioned a vacuous piece of starchitecture with lousy acoustics that ignored the requirements of those who use the building.

But the COC hasn't done that.
 
I think the real problem in this thread and others is that too much of the horn-blowing on behalf of the 4S Centre is by practically self-admitted opera-fop vested interests.
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So you'd place a higher value on uninformed comment?
 
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