Toronto Hotel X (was Hotel in the Garden) | ?m | 27s | Exhibition Place | NORR

This is an awful idea. how the heck did this get approved? the building is mundane, creativity that equates to a 5 year old stacking wooden blocks, without the originality of the toddlers chaotically short attention span. It also kills a portion of a classic bit of Toronto skyline, not to mention now disrupting the view of every south facing apartment and condo going up in liberty village. Talk about a waste, an area ripe for a world class development, or a great park space. It was awful as parking lot, hard to argue this is better.
 
I must comment on the proposed landscaping. It seems to me by shoving bits and pieces done in good taste in other locations, that they should add up to something decent here as well. Water jets from Dundas square, water features not unlike the Sherbourne commons, concrete patterns from the high line in New York. A couple dozen tree lines plopped onto rectilinear zippering of grass and concrete and a curved edge water feature, does not a green space make.
 
Allowing this hotel was such a big mistake - bad architecture notwithstanding. This could have only been approved through shady backroom dealings.
 
How is a hotel beside a convention centre (with the addition of the Allstream Centre) a mistake?
 
atodaso said:
Allowing this hotel was such a big mistake - bad architecture notwithstanding. This could have only been approved through shady backroom dealings.
Click to expand...

Oh yes, clearly those developers and the city just love themselves some shady backroom deals, the past 15 pages of this thread discussing the development of this project and it's history, dating all the way back to 2006, notwithstanding. :rolleyes:

truthiness.jpg
 
Last edited:
maestro said:
How is a hotel beside a convention centre (with the addition of the Allstream Centre) a mistake?
Click to expand...

Red October said:
Personally I prefer the vast expanse of parking surrounding a historic building like Stanley Barracks.
Click to expand...


The vast parking lots, though not desirable, are a transitional use and do not permanently define the area. They can easily be changed. Once the area is built up with bad hotels it can not be changed back. It's defined.

What is the Exhibition site after this? It's no longer a monumental precinct - open parkland punctuated with monumental architecture. With this hotel it resembles a suburban node - a bit like the hotels that crop up around airports or casinos in the suburbs. It's not part of the city in an urban sense, and it will have lost it's potential to be a garden-like gateway to the city. It will have lost it's sense of openness and it's monumentality. It is more bad architecture in the absence of planning. Another notch in Toronto's legacy of lost opportunities.

This stretch of the lakeshore was once going to be part an Olmstead designed parkway - an extensive network of park-like thoroughfares much like Boston's Emerald Necklace, Central Park, Or the Chicago Waterfront, until business interests put a stop to the plan almost a century ago.

Some things in Toronto don't change - short sighted business interests still rule. This hotel is the final nail in the coffin.
 
Last edited:
anonymous0024 said:
Oh yes, clearly those developers and the city just love themselves some shady backroom deals, the past 15 pages of this thread discussing the development of this project and it's history, dating all the way back to 2006, notwithstanding. :rolleyes:

truthiness.jpg
Click to expand...

Cute.

If it's not a backroom deal then it's at least caving to pressures with absolutely no vision or foresight.
 
Your desire for the exhibition lands was lost long before the concept for the hotel was conceived. What you present feel as much as a wasted opportunity for this prime site as the architecture chosen for the hotel. Some nostalgic geenspace reflecting the southwest end of the CNE grounds has little use beyond being pretty in appearance.

atodaso said:
The vast parking lots, though not desirable, are a transitional use and do not permanently define the area. They can easily be changed. Once the area is built up with bad hotels it can not be changed back. It's defined.

What is the Exhibition site after this? It's no longer a monumental precinct - open parkland punctuated with monumental architecture. With this hotel it resembles a suburban node - a bit like the hotels that crop up around airports or casinos in the suburbs. It's not part of the city in an urban sense, and it will have lost it's potential to be a garden-like gateway to the city. It will have lost it's sense of openness and it's monumentality. It is more bad architecture in the absence of planning. Another notch in Toronto's legacy of lost opportunities.

This stretch of the lakeshore was once going to be part an Olmstead designed parkway - an extensive network of park-like thoroughfares much like Boston's Emerald Necklace, Central Park, Or the Chicago Waterfront, until business interests put a stop to the plan almost a century ago.

Some things in Toronto don't change - short sighted business interests still rule. This hotel is the final nail in the coffin.
Click to expand...
 
maestro said:
Your desire for the exhibition lands was lost long before the concept for the hotel was conceived. What you present feel as much as a wasted opportunity for this prime site as the architecture chosen for the hotel. Some nostalgic geenspace reflecting the southwest end of the CNE grounds has little use beyond being pretty in appearance.
Click to expand...

What is it you think that I am proposing?

Have a look at Valencia's reclaimed Turia riverbed (minus the darth vader architecture), or the monumental precincts of just about any European city. Architecturally excellent pavillion-type public buildings, less than 25m in height, situated in a park like setting with little or no visible surface parking. Museums, galleries, and other public functions, improved convention facilities, and restored historic sites. An enhanced version of what is already there, where parking becomes park. A stage and a playground for the city, and an access point to the lakeshore. There are so few public spaces in Toronto with a sense of openness, and this could (have been) a great one.
 
Last edited:
maestro said:
Your desire for the exhibition lands was lost long before the concept for the hotel was conceived. What you present feel as much as a wasted opportunity for this prime site as the architecture chosen for the hotel. Some nostalgic geenspace reflecting the southwest end of the CNE grounds has little use beyond being pretty in appearance.
Click to expand...

Are you saying High Park is of no significant value to Bloor west village? Hyde park to London, Central park in New York, Millennium park in Chicago?
It should be preserved as a parade grounds and public fair space. it's not going to help the already waining CNE which is still the biggest draw to the property. Two or three buildings of 5-7 story's spread over a 100 meters apart, in stately fashion with long tree lines mass plantings rolling over a long grade change towards picturesque views of the lake and what will be a re-vamped Ontario place. this is so short sighted and menial. How men and women that aren't former or current architects, urban planners or landscape architects are even allowed to vote on these sorts of matters is just wild to me. These designs are the sort of thing I would expect to see from some of the slightly less creative students enrolled in college design programs. even the originals are all flash and no substance, even for 6 years ago. If Jennifer Keesmaat wants a job for much longer, she'd do well to put a stop to this, and invest some genuine interest in what should be a crowning jewel in the crown of Toronto park land.
 
I don't think you understand what she can do if you honestly think that she can just get up and build a huge park.
 
innsertnamehere said:
I don't think you understand what she can do if you honestly think that she can just get up and build a huge park.
Click to expand...

[/QUOTE]

The exhibition grounds have always functioned as an exhibition/civic/park area. However in the 50's and 60's much of it got paved for parking - as did almost everything. But that is easily undone, and is not that much of a stretch.
 
what I am trying to say is that is the job of politicians to do, they are the ones with the decision making power, planners simply do the "dirty work" for them. (collect information, advise them, work out the details etc) They simply can't get up and say "lets build a park here!" without council first directing them to look into building a park here.
 
You must log in or register to post here.

Back
Top