dt_toronto_geek
Superstar
This is the most recent rendering, correct?
On topic:
I've noticed very little mention of the Heritage property at 258 Victoria, pictured here:
Any thoughts?
It's simple enough, alklay, most people can grasp the concept of a building that accomplishes several things simultaneously. It's like walking and chewing gum at the same time, ya know?
The new apartment building will accommodate to the heritage buildings at 19 and 21 Dundas Square and contrast with the commercialism of the billboards and signs of the Square. Think of the latter contrast as a minimalist building/visual-overload-of-the-Square one ... much as the Distillery represents a new/old and tall/short contrast.
Nobody is advocating for inferior design by identifying the strengths of D+S's solution. That G+C thing, by contrast, certainly looked like more of the same-old same-old - akin to Torch, H&M and Metropolis - than a design solution that deals intelligently with the various elements at play: heritage buildings, flamboyant commercialism, retail, public space and residential uses, which this one does.
The Square doesn't have any billboards or overt commercialism
Stand in the Square and look around - you're in Ground Zero of it!
The new apartment building will be the antidote. The verticality of the tower - windows, balconies and unadorned space between them - will echo the similar verticality of the heritage buildings at 19 and 21 Dundas Square, so it all connects nicely. Good old Jack to the rescue!
The lack of windows is a clear and responsible solution to the problem of extreme amounts of light emanating from the square and the billboards surrounding it. It seems like the most rational piece of the building to me.
It still doesn't make it good though.
Look, I'm not implying the THC building must be moved. It is still well used and seems to serve a function which at the end of the day is a preservation success story. This building was meant to be on the water, however, and its original context has been lost. The idea of relocating it to a more prominent waterside location to recapture that context and to showcase a beautiful heritage building that was designed to be 'seen' front and centre is simply not the injury to preservation that some zealots will paint it to be. Historical plaques and markers can come in quite handy to point out the evolution/changing locations of sites and buildings.
I doubt even the staunchest preservationist would have a big issue with relocating it to a waterfront site, preserving at least its context and leaving its current location for more appropriate development.
Yeah, allowing for something of lesser historical importance than Old Fort York, that might pass muster with the heritage community...40 or 50 years ago. Today, you'd be horselaughed out of the joint. You're obviously either (a) not terribly versed in heritage currents, or (b) patronizingly contemptuous of them (even your use of "beautiful heritage building" sounds cloying in a Pioneer Village-y way).
Really? In 2009? You truly haven't (or hadn't) a clue, Cletus. What you claim to be "zealots" is actually more like the squarely-in-the-heritage mainstream these days...
However ... if we're dealing with issues that one can "doubt even the staunchest preservationist would have a big issue with" (or at least, all but the staunchest), I agree that the "necessary sacrifice" of the 1920 Hermant Annex is among them [...] unless there was some sentimental personal connection, I wouldn't bawl my eyes out at its demolition.