News   Nov 07, 2024
 14     0 
News   Nov 07, 2024
 194     0 
News   Nov 06, 2024
 1.2K     1 

Toronto's Ugliest Building

How about the ugliest building built in the last 10 years (i.e. the recent condo boom)?

Personally, and many of your would disagree with me here, but I passionately dislike X condos. Putting a few red and a yellow stripes on what is essentially a black brick sticking out of the ground doesn't make it "Mondrian" or elegant. Hard to believe the same architect designed Casa just down the street.

If not X, then 35 Hayden.
 
To paraphrase anti-STD warnings, the trouble with condemning X as a "black brick" is that in doing so, you're condemning all Miesian black bricks that came before it. (Yeah, that may be jumping to conclusions; however, you have to remember that the cheekily-tweaked Miesian-black-brickness is a conscious selling point here.)
 
To paraphrase anti-STD warnings, the trouble with condemning X as a "black brick" is that in doing so, you're condemning all Miesian black bricks that came before it. (Yeah, that may be jumping to conclusions; however, you have to remember that the cheekily-tweaked Miesian-black-brickness is a conscious selling point here.)


Not necessarily--any more than to condemn the dreadful One St. Thomas as a grotesque hulk is to condemn every Art Deco building it cheekily tweaks.

Sometimes a rip-off is just a rip-off.
 
It's a bit plain and extremely post-modern (from what I can tell) but it's a style so I'd say it's not on the good side but decent enough to live in.
 
Mississauga Slim:

You'd be happy to know that 80 Carleton might be in the process of getting an exterior reno.

Another nominee - Campus Commons at Church & Gerrard

AoD
 
Last edited:
The new condo/Winners/future Loblaws building at Queen & Portland.
A hulking mass of 80's/90's styles and colours that looks out of place on many levels.
 
Last edited:
Personally I dislike The Spire. The occasional yellow panels look like plywood replacing broken windows, the street-level retail is boring and uninviting and the low-rise section at Church/Lombard offers what is, essentially a blank wall to pedestrian traffic. (I think it's the gym portion?). It COULD have been SO much better; if it had a real "spire' (like Trump) I would be a bit happier.
 
This thread seems to have, well, lost the thread. The title is Toronto's Ugliest Building, yet many of the buildings mentioned in the last couple of pages are quite good ones, and widely acknowledged as such. Maybe it's time to close this thread and start one on Buildings that Don't Quite Live Up To Their Potential, or Recent Mediocre Buildings.
 
Personally I dislike The Spire. The occasional yellow panels look like plywood replacing broken windows, the street-level retail is boring and uninviting and the low-rise section at Church/Lombard offers what is, essentially a blank wall to pedestrian traffic. (I think it's the gym portion?). It COULD have been SO much better; if it had a real "spire' (like Trump) I would be a bit happier.

Wait, so you don't like it for all those reasons (because you feel they are not well thought-out) yet you are saying that tacking a spire onto the design would make you happier?

Yikes.
 
Wait, so you don't like it for all those reasons (because you feel they are not well thought-out) yet you are saying that tacking a spire onto the design would make you happier?

Yikes.

OK, I was joking but they could put on a spire on top and it might distract one from the base. No matter what they did on top I would still dislike the base treatment and the odd yellow panels. I guess I dislke it because it COULD have been so much better. It offers nothing to the street levels at Adelaide or Church Streets (the Lombard side park is quite nice).
 

Back
Top