Toronto Manulife Centre Podium and Streetscape Renewal | 9.75m | 2s | Manulife Real Estate | MdeAS Architects

alienhenny said:
Yikes the current building is hideous.
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Sorry, this concrete is beautiful.

Strong lines, nice little details including cantilevering on the office building with the fantastic strength and feel of a mountain: what's not to like? Between the disgust here and for what used to be Sutton Place, it seems some more education on the joys of brutalism are needed here.
 
Wow yes, speak of differing taste, this is one of my favourite buildings in Toronto !
 
greenleaf said:
Sorry, this concrete is beautiful.

Strong lines, nice little details including cantilevering on the office building with the fantastic strength and feel of a mountain: what's not to like? Between the disgust here and for what used to be Sutton Place, it seems some more education on the joys of brutalism are needed here.
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What is there to like about this building, or buildings of this sort. The grey/beige concrete looks cold and uninviting, and it looks very dated.
 
alienhenny said:
What is there to like about this building, or buildings of this sort. The grey/beige concrete looks cold and uninviting, and it looks very dated.
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There was a time when the popular imagination equated large expanses of concrete walls with minimal flourishes as signs of progress. And many truly beautiful structures were designed and built with that mindset. But as is true with everything, tastes, philosophies and ideas evolve over time as new technologies are invented. And this is what I think make observing a city's evolution so exciting: Seeing different "period pieces" coexist.

I love the way the floors slope outward from the ground up to support a vertical structure above. I remember seeing it for the first time as a child and being amazed by it and wondered whether the building might collapse. It really is a show-off piece of superior engineering with concrete. My concern with the upcoming renovations is that it will diminish the visual drama by shielding the ground-floor incipient slope with a glass skirt. But that is the nature of many enduring structures as they evolve with, and adapt to, new economic realities subsequent to inauguration.
 
Things that I love about the architecture of Manulife Building:

The concrete feels like a mountain. That's just cool.
The building has a textured feeling, something that glass clad buildings will never have.
The proportions feel pleasing. The slenderness of the tall tower feels slick and the slab north and south fronts feel overwhelming in a good way. It's massive and doesn't apologize for it.
The office building hovers over you, but is inviting. The skinner base magically makes the building feel less heavy as a pedestrian. I love that.
The building makes no apologies for its urbanity. The Balmuto side could use a refresh but otherwise is a fully functioning part of the community. It is probably the most important building in Yorkville and Yonge/Bloor neighbourhood for its integration at Street and below level and for the services it has.
 
alienhenny said:
What is there to like about this building, or buildings of this sort. The grey/beige concrete looks cold and uninviting, and it looks very dated.
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There was a time when Victorian architecture was seen as very dated and worth destroying in the name of "progress." I doubt anyone would feel the same today.
 
There's also just a confidence to good brutalist architecture that is so sorely lacking in much of contemporary architecture. It doesn't feel the need for angled balconies trying to mask a rectilinear built form, or random flourishes of colour, or try-hard precast, or ornamental fins, or whatever the hell is going on at 365 Church.

It's just standing there proudly, defiantly, confidently.
 
There are plenty of Brutalist buildings where the concrete is ornamented though, like at Uno Prii's Alan Brown building at 77 Elm, John Andrews' Scarborough College buildings, and for a contemporary example, Saucier + Perrotte's River City buildings—the concrete is not always treated strictly functionally—so I'm not sure it's fair to decry decorative elements on buildings of other styles just because they may not be decorated in the same manner (where the decoration is applied to the structure directly).

But otherwise, yes, there is a confidence to good brutalist architecture—no argument there!

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It sure said something about the city when it was first proposed - a 51 storey condo + cantilevered office component at Bloor and Bay , of all places. What were they thinking ?
 
This was developed at the height of a massive building boom in Toronto. This was just one of several competing mixed-use complexes at Yonge/Bay & Bloor. It's a rental tower and always has been.
 
Oddly enough I don't have much problem with the notion of redoing the base - let's face it, the split-level moat thing never worked terribly well urbanistically. The problem is more the current approach isn't terribly sympathetic to the aesthetic - it's just a banal glass podium.

AoD
 
The sadly-lost 'urban oasis' idea which juxtaposed hard, unrelenting concrete with plants, trees, natural rocks and water was another hallmark of better brutalism around the globe:

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Manulife is easily one of the best buildings in the city and one that had a profound effect on me growing up. I don't think I'd be where I am today without its influence...
 
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