Toronto St Lawrence Centre Redevelopment | ?m | ?s | CreateTO | Hariri Pontarini

Preferred choice for the St. Lawrence Centre Redevelopment Competition

  • Brook McIlroy, Trahan Architects, and Hood Design Studio

    Votes: 11 13.9%
  • Diamond Schmitt, Smoke Architecture, and MVVA

    Votes: 12 15.2%
  • Hariri Pontarini, LMN Architects, Tawaw Collective, Smoke Architecture, and SLA

    Votes: 39 49.4%
  • RDHA, Mecanoo, Two Row Architect, and NAK Design Strategies

    Votes: 16 20.3%
  • Zeidler Architecture, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Two Row Architect, and PLANT Architect

    Votes: 1 1.3%

  • Total voters
    79
  • Poll closed .
Think maybe there's a possible "in between" repair vs. tear down/rebuild. The Bluma at nearly 900 bums in seats and the Jane Mallet at 500 bums in seats... do service much needed "sweet spot" programming-wise (especially if Canadian Stage remains viable with good artistic leadership).

So I'd say see you later to the concrete castle facade, at least facing Front Street. Signage can only do so much.

It's real heritage happened inside.

But assuming it still has decent production bones like backstage staging, dressing rooms and a viable fly-tower. etc. .. I could suggest/welcome a "major facial" on the north side (well beyond previous lipstick fixes).

Know nothin' about needed seats/auditorium issues, lobby, leaky pipe upgrades... but maybe this could be a $60 million day at the spa. Just wondering.
 
Think maybe there's a possible "in between" repair vs. tear down/rebuild. The Bluma at nearly 900 bums in seats and the Jane Mallet at 500 bums in seats... do service much needed "sweet spot" programming-wise (especially if Canadian Stage remains viable with good artistic leadership).

So I'd say see you later to the concrete castle facade, at least facing Front Street. Signage can only do so much.

It's real heritage happened inside.

But assuming it still has decent production bones like backstage staging, dressing rooms and a viable fly-tower. etc. .. I could suggest/welcome a "major facial" on the north side (well beyond previous lipstick fixes).

Know nothin' about needed seats/auditorium issues, lobby, leaky pipe upgrades... but maybe this could be a $60 million day at the spa. Just wondering.
I was thinking of exactly that the other day- assuming that the issues in the auditoriums can be fixed in an economic manner, one other solution could be to rip the entire Front Street frontage of the building off- leaving only the auditoriums behind- and rebuild the space. Decapitate the building to save the building, a bit of irony in that.

That way, you aren't constricted by the lobby's rather subpar bones, and can improve the programming in the space. Retail/community space could be introduced on the ground floor, with a 'grand stairway' that leads to a second floor 'great room' (sort of following the form of the Four Seasons Centre).

The new frontage could be made taller to match the roofline of the heritage block beside it (maybe an additional floor), and could even incorporate amenities like public rooftop access to create a more layered urban experience.

But of course, there'll always be surprise curveballs in doing heavy reconstruction like this (i.e. possible structural/utility constraints & the need to shore up the remaining structure in a tight space).
 
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Mods, we might want to remove the "30-ish" from the title, looks like this project won't have a condo or office component. Maybe we should also remove "diamond-schmitt"? Or would we start a new thread?
 
Canadian Stage announces 2020-2021 season as its home, the St. Lawrence Centre, faces uncertain future

J. KELLY NESTRUCK

Next season, Canadian Stage plans to bring some epic drama back to the main stage of the St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts – the Toronto civic theatre currently the subject of its own epic drama off stage at City Hall, where council will be debating whether to consider demolishing and replacing the complex later this week.

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On Tuesday, Healy will officially reveal this and the rest of his 2020-2021 programming in an announcement now overshadowed by the looming decision over the fate of the St. Lawrence Centre and Canadian Stage’s place in it.

Might these be the last new Canadian Stage productions at the St. Lawrence Centre – or, at least, this St. Lawrence Centre?

“One of the main things that attracted me to Canadian Stage was the ability to provide opportunities for Canadian artists on a larger stage,” says Healy, who came out of a meeting with Mayor John Tory and Councillor Gary Crawford last week assured that the interest of legacy tenants would be strongly considered in the redevelopment.

 
This item was not held by anyone on Council this morning. So the redevelopment option is approved by default.
 
This item was not held by anyone on Council this morning. So the redevelopment option is approved by default.

Guess in the end that despite the outrage from the chattering classes on Twitter, no one felt strongly enough about the St. Lawrence Centre to demand an alternative.

Let's see how things end up.
 
Guess in the end that despite the outrage from the chattering classes on Twitter, no one felt strongly enough about the St. Lawrence Centre to demand an alternative.

While I agree with redeveloping this building, I am not sure if we should be condemning the "outrage of the chattering classes" that definitively. It is always a good thing that someone is interested in our built heritage, and just because there are different beliefs for this project doesn't mean they don't intersect in others - and you will need allies in those cases.

AoD
 
While I agree with redeveloping this building, I am not sure if we should be condemning the "outrage of the chattering classes" that definitively. It is always a good thing that someone is interested in our built heritage, and just because there are different beliefs for this project doesn't mean they don't intersect in others - and you will need allies in those cases.

AoD
Not condemning, but noting that outside of the limited outrage (1-2 tweets/twitter comments at most) confined mostly to Urban Toronto/Twitter/a few opinion articles in the papers, no one really particularly raised any strong opposition to it.

Of course, demolition is years away, and push might come to shove when the bulldozers finally come, IMO.
 
Not condemning, but noting that outside of the limited outrage (1-2 tweets/twitter comments at most) confined mostly to Urban Toronto/Twitter/a few opinion articles in the papers, no one really particularly raised any strong opposition to it.

It's Toronto, how often do you see *anyone* raising strong opposition to tearing buildings - heritage or otherwise - down?

AoD
 
It's Toronto, how often do you see *anyone* raising strong opposition to tearing buildings - heritage or otherwise - down?

AoD
I'd say that the major battles have mostly been fought long ago, but it unfortunately probably speaks to the fact that not a lot of Toronto is architecturally noteworthy or stirring, even in many of its modernist structures (it doesn't mean that Toronto isn't a charming or habitable city, it just means that most of the current heritage battles revolve around less prominent fabric buildings).

We'd probably see some stronger voices being raised if something like the ROM Crystal was up for demolition. But something like the Davisville School? Fewer voices are going to be raised.

The second element is that Toronto does sort of actively (and selectively) preserve its older buildings in a flawed but tangible sort of way (think 65 King)- in that a lot of buildings that would normally be demolished in other cities are preserved in some format, taking the edge off of redevelopment. In those cases, 'heritage' isn't technically going away, even if it is.
 
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We'd probably see some stronger voices being raised if something like the ROM Crystal was up for demolition. But something like the Davisville School? Fewer voices are going to be raised.

When it comes to the reality of Toronto's heritage community, the fact that you're singling out Davisville as a "fewer voices" example has a way of placing your dismissiveness of the SLC in an unflattering light.
 

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