Toronto Velocity at the Square | 122.52m | 40s | HNR | P + S / IBI

you really have no sense of humour do you? my statement is not personal towards you. (unless you truly are Dame Edna) It was meant to lighten the mood... and its ironic because your fashion sense doesnt match your architectural tastes. ah well, I guess I'll just refrain from addressing you in any way.
 
Redroom Studios said:
you really have no sense of humour do you? my statement is not personal towards you. (unless you truly are Dame Edna) It was meant to lighten the mood... and its ironic because your fashion sense doesnt match your architectural tastes. ah well, I guess I'll just refrain from addressing you in any way.
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I have a theory. I think Us and Adma live together. It would explain a lot.:D
 
Urban Shocker said:
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!
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That's the point - the Square is the 'antidote'. The Square was designed to this way, and very purposefully. Your suggesting this building fills an essential role that it simply doesn't need to fill.

It doesn't really echo the verticality of the towers that well either - if anything, it simply detracts from the other towers.
 
adma said:
...I agree that the "necessary sacrifice" of the 1920 Hermant Annex is among them. Like, I like the Hermant Annex, it's definitely got a grungy sidestreet-industrial-modern feeling to it, and it's *ahem* "authentic"-to-the-point-of-euphemism and an urban explorer's/discoverer's delight. But unless there was some sentimental personal connection, I wouldn't bawl my eyes out at its demolition.
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adma said:
And by the same token, I don't feel the Diamond/Schmitt design is such a comedown, designwise, as to motivate me to rally on behalf of the Annex. If it were slated to be replaced by bathetic treacle like French Quarter, maybe--but not D+S.
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Perhaps I am over-sentimental, but I can't help but see this proposal as the latest in a long line of little defeats around Toronto, and ceding even an inch to such short-sighted interests is particularly galling to me. The new building contributes nothing to the area: it's one of the most densely-trafficked 'hoods in the one of the richest cities in North America, and the best they can come up with is a selfish, insular little high-rise slab that wouldn't look out of place in Rexdale? I'm a bit shocked at the lack of vision we demand from the companies that are building the bones of our city. Somebody's going to look at this thing in thirty years when it's run-down and owned by York West and wonder, "how did this get here?" At least 258 Vic (along with the theatres and the Senator & co) contributes to an under-appreciated historic streetscape along Victoria, that's already basically effing gone anyway so I should just stop talking. Thanks for your thoughtful reply, adma.

Ugh. If this city is going to look like Vancouver in ten years I'd love some advance notice so I can get the hell out now.
 
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The real antidote to an overload of ads and neon - not that Dundas Sqaure has anywhere near enough of either - is something called the sky. Why fill the sky up with blank walls unless they're going to be covered with ads? It makes no sense.
 
tapesonthefloor said:
Perhaps I am over-sentimental, but I can't help but see this proposal as the latest in a long line of little defeats around Toronto, and ceding even an inch to such short-sighted interests is particularly galling to me. The new building contributes nothing to the area: it's one of the most densely-trafficked 'hoods in the one of the richest cities in North America, and the best they can come up with is a selfish, insular little high-rise slab that wouldn't look out of place in Rexdale?
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Hyperbole. In fact, if you want something that from a degraded aesthetic standpoint "wouldn't look out of place in Rexdale", that's what my reference to "bathetic treacle like French Quarter" is all about.

I'm a bit shocked at the lack of vision we demand from the companies that are building the bones of our city. Somebody's going to look at this thing in thirty years when it's run-down and owned by York West and wonder, "how did this get here?"
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It depends on what kind of "somebodys" you're talking about. After all, there've been those who've mulled over the rundown/unused state of the NPS walkways asking "how did these get here?", too.

Besides, if it gets rundown to the point of outright slumminess, that'll be part of a wider-range collapse of downtown Toronto to a Detroit/Sao Paulo/Johannesburg level.

It isn't like I'm singing the praises of D+S; more that the design just isn't underwhelming enough to merit the kind of hyperbolizing in this thread. But neither is the G+C alternative superior enough (even if more "flamboyantly Times Square-ish") to endorse--that is, if it's superior at all...
 
Urban Shocker said:
You're a rube, sweetie.

I can't think of a building that expresses the connection between location and passage of time better than the Harbour Commission building does. There's a profound eloquence in it remaining exactly where it is in the face of transitionary forces that have reordered everything around it.

And I say that as the person who ( hereabouts at least ... ) first threw the concept of "Facade District" into the mix. THC isn't a facade, though, it's a "truth squad"-like reminder of where we've been that perfectly illuminates where we are.
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And keep in mind that even when it was built, the landfill was happening or in the verge of happening around it--it was built with the knowledge that it'd soon be landlocked and hemmed-in. The original end-of-the-pier context was a temporary condition; so to paint THC as "requiring" a waterfront position is, indeed, falsifying history. And US's "remaining in the face of transitionary forces" is truer to how whatever passes for a preservationist consensus would approach this situation--all the more so when one considers the raw cost involved in moving a structure like this any distance. The most practical thing, never mind the "historical correctness" issue, would be to keep the thing in situ. (Or else to demolish it; which in its way, might be the more "historically correct" solution, if one wants to approximate a 1910s/20s judgment call.)

Tewder: to you, my "notions of preservation" may be "painfully constipated"--but in these particular instances, I know the deck in question, and it's stacked; sorry. It's just like arguing that the Harper Conservatives understand Toronto's true urban needs more than any gov't or opposition party over the past generation isn't going to get a Harper Conservative elected or anything less than keelhauled in Trinity-Spadina...and not without reason, either...
 
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syn said:
That's the point - the Square is the 'antidote'. The Square was designed to this way, and very purposefully. Your suggesting this building fills an essential role that it simply doesn't need to fill.

It doesn't really echo the verticality of the towers that well either - if anything, it simply detracts from the other towers.
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The Square is a viewing platform for the wall of advertising that surrounds it. It has no semblance to a quiet design-opposite. It is a public space - covered with throngs of vendors selling stuff from carts at weekends, home to corporate events and product launches held in big tents at other times, used by buskers, used for concerts, used for parties, used for political rallies, with a large booth selling tickets to concerts at one side, you name it. It is entirely given over to commercial interests for much of the time. Functionally, a residential building with office space is quite different - which is why the tower adapts to the character of 19 and 21 Dundas Square which it has more in common with.
 
adma said:
The most practical thing, never mind the "historical correctness" issue, would be to keep the thing in situ. (Or else to demolish it; which in its way, might be the more "historically correct" solution, if one wants to approximate a 1910s/20s judgment call.)

Tewder: to you, my "notions of preservation" may be "painfully constipated"--but in these particular instances, I know the deck in question, and it's stacked; sorry. It's just like arguing that the Harper Conservatives understand Toronto's true urban needs more than any gov't or opposition party over the past generation isn't going to get a Harper Conservative elected or anything less than keelhauled in Trinity-Spadina...and not without reason, either...
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That you would advocate tearing down THC or Hermant Annex, all the while claiming sensitivity to preservation issues is puzzling beyond belief, and only underscores the dangerous consequences of fusty thinking, whether the issue is preservation options or political/funding neglect.

US's approach is not wrong. It is an option, and a perfectly viable one under existing circumstances, but other choices are possible as I describe at length in the previous post. And to be clear I would absolutely not advocate moving any or all heritage buildings gratuitously. This building's very unique original context is lost here, and that it was indeed designed for a waterfront location is abundantly clear from pictures posted.

As for 21 Dundas, it is beyond dismal to quietly accept the proposed design merely on the basis that it doesn't offend enough to deserve criticism.
 
Given one debacle after another around this intersection in the past decade or so (Yonge-Dundas Square excluded, mostly), to me this building just rubs salt into the wound. It's not bad but it's uninspiring. What I would have liked to see is something that compliments the excess of the area, something akin to a hyped-up Marilyn, Ice, a real blue CrystalBlu, or a Parade with an exciting lighting feature on top. More height too, this is the area for it. A slim, 500' head turner would be much more dramatic than the 400 footer that is being proposed.
 
At the very least a dramatic roof element would have been nice here and the colour of precast needs to change.
 
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