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Vancouver icon takes on Toronto
TheStar.com - living - Vancouver icon takes on Toronto
June 16, 2007
Petti Fong
Western Canada Bureau Chief
VANCOUVER –There were highrises, a skyline in Vancouver and even green glass before architect James Cheng put his stamp on the city, but it might be said there was no ``Vancouver style'' until he came along.
Oft-cloned in the city itself and now being copied in other regions and countries, Vancouver style is tall, thin buildings soaring up to the sky with glass from floor to ceiling.
Cheng, the architect behind the 65-storey, $430-million Shangri-La Toronto – a luxury hotel and condominium that is to rise on University Ave. at Adelaide St., across from the new Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts – has become synonymously linked to the revitalization of Vancouver's downtown in his partnership with developer Westbank Developments president Ian Gillespie.
The five-star Shangri-La is slated for completion in 2011, the first foray for both architect and developer in Toronto following the pair's domination of the Vancouver market over the past decade. There will be 220 hotel suites and 352 residences as well as restaurants, retail and a spa. The prices for the suites will range in size from 800 square feet to more than 6,000 square feet and in price from $800,000 to $12 million.
The Shangri-La in Toronto will definitely be Vancouver style and it will open after the 61-storey Shangri-La in Vancouver is finished next year. But that's no indication, says Cheng, that Toronto is following Vancouver's lead.
And though he's often asked to create a Vancouver style in places such as Dallas and San Diego and even Beijing with his designs, Cheng says Toronto is not going to be the next Vancouver.
He says too many Toronto buildings tend to be long corridors and people go up and down elevators, down hallways and into their apartments. He feels that's too inhuman and says his buildings are designed with views and lights, to ward off the grey Vancouver skies, and glass to catch the glimpses of mountain and ocean.
Asked how he would describe the railway lands condo towers by Concord Adex, which has strong Pacific Rim connections, he says they are "more like Vancouver style adapted to the Toronto condition."
The Hong Kong-born Cheng got his first big break in Vancouver by winning the contract to design the Chinese Cultural Museum in the late 1970s. After studying at Harvard and training with Arthur Erickson, Cheng began incorporating gardens in his buildings and creating a social component to how residents lived in his buildings.
High-density living that felt like old-style neighbourhoods was exactly what Vancouver was looking for, according to former city councillor Gordon Price. The city was keen to keep downtown a freeway-free zone where people – lots of people – could live in complete communities of pedestrian and bike paths with vast green space and shopping areas.
Price, an urban affairs professor at the University of British Columbia, says Cheng's legacy was formed when he designed a landmark residential building downtown: 888 Beach is a large-scale tower integrating courtyards and townhouses for the prized street level interaction.
"He has produced a vernacular that is stunning," Price says. "He set a new standard but the only thing is he may be producing too much of maybe the same thing now."
Price says Cheng is a master at doing background buildings and Price would like to see more foreground, bolder buildings.
Buildings designed by Cheng sell well because there is experience and precedent associated with the look, says Bob Rennie, Vancouver's most recognizable condominium seller. "With Jim and Ian, it's all about how it's going to pick up light," Rennie says. "We've ended up educating the consumer in why they think they need it. Consumers are close to what they want, but they need to see the form and have someone realize it for them."
Former visiting UBC professor of architecture Dina Krunic says Vancouverism, or a Vancouver style is now a recognizable brand around the world, immediately bringing to mind the image of thin highrise residential towers of concrete and green glass.
Cheng rapidly recognized the potential of buildings with commercial uses, a street-level component below towers built for maximum occupancy without compromising the access to light and view of residents.
"James Cheng appropriated the modernist idea of healthy living to the traditional urban idea of mixed-use development," says Krunic, who has also taught at the University of Belgrade. "Concrete construction and green glass façade, for which Vancouver is internationally known, are James Cheng's legacy."
That strong legacy has crowded out different styles creating a look that is both dominant and homogenous, she says, but has also transformed an obscure industrial port into a vibrant downtown centre. Vancouver has the fastest-growing downtown population of any North American city and has decreased its number of car users, she says.
The podium-tower building model is now being copied in places like Dubai, Singapore and California as the appropriate typology for their urban growth. The concept works, says Krunic, in places with similar climates with similar government policy ideas of developing its city centres. She finds it troubling, however, when other cities like Toronto, Minneapolis, and Edmonton also welcomed the style as models for their own development because their intense climate differences could lead to energy-demanding building problems.
Cheng himself readily agrees that the Vancouver style won't work everywhere and is even being criticized in Vancouver itself.
"Now there is criticism that everything looks the same," says Cheng. "Once you figured out an economical way to build, it gets used by other people. Now 90 per cent of the towers look the same and that's an unfortunate by-product. But any good designer would want to evolve constantly. The joy is in finding new solutions."
He has started to inject more colours into his buildings, adding stained glass to townhouses and giving different frontages to doors at the street level.
So far, the response in Toronto to his designs has been promising, says Cheng, because he's not promising an exact replica of what has been done in Vancouver.
The climate forces some obvious changes. Toronto's much hotter in summer and much colder in winter, Cheng says, adding that it's a city where residents demand much from their spring and fall. Neighbourhoods and neighbourhood pride are much stronger in Toronto than in other cities and Toronto's downtown has more cultural facilities than Vancouver's centre. That leads to a certainty, says Cheng, that living downtown is not a big leap for residents.
Cheng, 59, was raised in Vancouver, but his first memories of Canada were the Royal York Hotel and the Canadian National Exhibition in 1964. The Shangri-La almost certainly won't be his last Toronto project, what with Gillespie of Westbank telling a Toronto news conference last month that he is eyeing more opportunities in the city.
More work in Toronto – especially downtown – would be just fine with Cheng, though he doesn't like the amount of sprawl he sees here.
"Toronto is at the same crossroad Vancouver was a decade ago," he says. "Toronto is a city of neighbourhoods, but when it comes to downtown, everything becomes aloof. It would be great if we could contribute to the knitting back of downtown into the fabric of Toronto."
TheStar.com - living - Vancouver icon takes on Toronto
June 16, 2007
Petti Fong
Western Canada Bureau Chief
VANCOUVER –There were highrises, a skyline in Vancouver and even green glass before architect James Cheng put his stamp on the city, but it might be said there was no ``Vancouver style'' until he came along.
Oft-cloned in the city itself and now being copied in other regions and countries, Vancouver style is tall, thin buildings soaring up to the sky with glass from floor to ceiling.
Cheng, the architect behind the 65-storey, $430-million Shangri-La Toronto – a luxury hotel and condominium that is to rise on University Ave. at Adelaide St., across from the new Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts – has become synonymously linked to the revitalization of Vancouver's downtown in his partnership with developer Westbank Developments president Ian Gillespie.
The five-star Shangri-La is slated for completion in 2011, the first foray for both architect and developer in Toronto following the pair's domination of the Vancouver market over the past decade. There will be 220 hotel suites and 352 residences as well as restaurants, retail and a spa. The prices for the suites will range in size from 800 square feet to more than 6,000 square feet and in price from $800,000 to $12 million.
The Shangri-La in Toronto will definitely be Vancouver style and it will open after the 61-storey Shangri-La in Vancouver is finished next year. But that's no indication, says Cheng, that Toronto is following Vancouver's lead.
And though he's often asked to create a Vancouver style in places such as Dallas and San Diego and even Beijing with his designs, Cheng says Toronto is not going to be the next Vancouver.
He says too many Toronto buildings tend to be long corridors and people go up and down elevators, down hallways and into their apartments. He feels that's too inhuman and says his buildings are designed with views and lights, to ward off the grey Vancouver skies, and glass to catch the glimpses of mountain and ocean.
Asked how he would describe the railway lands condo towers by Concord Adex, which has strong Pacific Rim connections, he says they are "more like Vancouver style adapted to the Toronto condition."
The Hong Kong-born Cheng got his first big break in Vancouver by winning the contract to design the Chinese Cultural Museum in the late 1970s. After studying at Harvard and training with Arthur Erickson, Cheng began incorporating gardens in his buildings and creating a social component to how residents lived in his buildings.
High-density living that felt like old-style neighbourhoods was exactly what Vancouver was looking for, according to former city councillor Gordon Price. The city was keen to keep downtown a freeway-free zone where people – lots of people – could live in complete communities of pedestrian and bike paths with vast green space and shopping areas.
Price, an urban affairs professor at the University of British Columbia, says Cheng's legacy was formed when he designed a landmark residential building downtown: 888 Beach is a large-scale tower integrating courtyards and townhouses for the prized street level interaction.
"He has produced a vernacular that is stunning," Price says. "He set a new standard but the only thing is he may be producing too much of maybe the same thing now."
Price says Cheng is a master at doing background buildings and Price would like to see more foreground, bolder buildings.
Buildings designed by Cheng sell well because there is experience and precedent associated with the look, says Bob Rennie, Vancouver's most recognizable condominium seller. "With Jim and Ian, it's all about how it's going to pick up light," Rennie says. "We've ended up educating the consumer in why they think they need it. Consumers are close to what they want, but they need to see the form and have someone realize it for them."
Former visiting UBC professor of architecture Dina Krunic says Vancouverism, or a Vancouver style is now a recognizable brand around the world, immediately bringing to mind the image of thin highrise residential towers of concrete and green glass.
Cheng rapidly recognized the potential of buildings with commercial uses, a street-level component below towers built for maximum occupancy without compromising the access to light and view of residents.
"James Cheng appropriated the modernist idea of healthy living to the traditional urban idea of mixed-use development," says Krunic, who has also taught at the University of Belgrade. "Concrete construction and green glass façade, for which Vancouver is internationally known, are James Cheng's legacy."
That strong legacy has crowded out different styles creating a look that is both dominant and homogenous, she says, but has also transformed an obscure industrial port into a vibrant downtown centre. Vancouver has the fastest-growing downtown population of any North American city and has decreased its number of car users, she says.
The podium-tower building model is now being copied in places like Dubai, Singapore and California as the appropriate typology for their urban growth. The concept works, says Krunic, in places with similar climates with similar government policy ideas of developing its city centres. She finds it troubling, however, when other cities like Toronto, Minneapolis, and Edmonton also welcomed the style as models for their own development because their intense climate differences could lead to energy-demanding building problems.
Cheng himself readily agrees that the Vancouver style won't work everywhere and is even being criticized in Vancouver itself.
"Now there is criticism that everything looks the same," says Cheng. "Once you figured out an economical way to build, it gets used by other people. Now 90 per cent of the towers look the same and that's an unfortunate by-product. But any good designer would want to evolve constantly. The joy is in finding new solutions."
He has started to inject more colours into his buildings, adding stained glass to townhouses and giving different frontages to doors at the street level.
So far, the response in Toronto to his designs has been promising, says Cheng, because he's not promising an exact replica of what has been done in Vancouver.
The climate forces some obvious changes. Toronto's much hotter in summer and much colder in winter, Cheng says, adding that it's a city where residents demand much from their spring and fall. Neighbourhoods and neighbourhood pride are much stronger in Toronto than in other cities and Toronto's downtown has more cultural facilities than Vancouver's centre. That leads to a certainty, says Cheng, that living downtown is not a big leap for residents.
Cheng, 59, was raised in Vancouver, but his first memories of Canada were the Royal York Hotel and the Canadian National Exhibition in 1964. The Shangri-La almost certainly won't be his last Toronto project, what with Gillespie of Westbank telling a Toronto news conference last month that he is eyeing more opportunities in the city.
More work in Toronto – especially downtown – would be just fine with Cheng, though he doesn't like the amount of sprawl he sees here.
"Toronto is at the same crossroad Vancouver was a decade ago," he says. "Toronto is a city of neighbourhoods, but when it comes to downtown, everything becomes aloof. It would be great if we could contribute to the knitting back of downtown into the fabric of Toronto."
