ugly light standards

[ganjavih]

Condo exteriors cluttered with fake historic doodads and pippypoos, new homes with faux styings, fake gold rush era street lights, new street signs that imitate Victorian street signs - we're clinging on to the reassuring past for dear life as we face an uncertain future ...

I don't think that's it, babel. People just have more of an appreciation for historic or historic-looking things these days after decades of the stripped-away, minimalist modern look. Everything goes in cycles. I don't think people are afraid of the future!

As for the backward goldrush look of some of our older streets, meh, why not? At least it's authentic. Why hide our past? There's always Bloor/Yorkville or North Toronto for those who don't want the Muddy York experience. And for the record, I do love those beastly old wooden poles around King and Spadina... they should be given heritage designations!

 

[building babel]

Why hide our present?

 

[Citywriter]

I don't think that's it, babel. People just have more of an appreciation for historic or historic-looking things these days after decades of the stripped-away, minimalist modern look. Everything goes in cycles. I don't think people are afraid of the future!

The postmodernist impulse to resurrect "historical" details goes back a good 25 years now... before many people on this board were born, I bet.

 

[ganjavih]

Why hide our present?

We shouldn't. There is plenty of undeveloped land around the city to showcase our present. Once our past is gone, it's gone for good.

 

[building babel]

Creating faux street furniture isn't a magic talisman you can wave around to bring back what we've lost.

 

[ganjavih]

I wasn't referring to faux anything, I was more referring to those old wooden posts. That said, faux isn't always bad.

 

[fiendishlibrarian]

The new replacement poles along the Queensway are just the opposite of those above: a traditional Toronto arched mount, only with flatter, more futuristic-looking bulbs mounted on the top, a variant of what I think we'll see along St. Clair as it is rebuilt.

 

[jozl]

There should be a Kyoto protocol regarding the excessive visual pollution that Toronto Hydro spews out. Toronto is sinking under it.

 

[TdotTrickyRicky]

Incidentally the move towards these "ugly" light standards in most areas is not a city initiative, the city is far to cheap for that. These are BIA initiatives paid for by local business levies with some matching funding from the city. The faux historic character reflects the desire of the residents and businesses in an area. They would take faux historic over modern architectural features any day and they are the one's footing the bill. The similarity between light standards from one district to another is only psuedo-coordinated but really has more to do with precedent (one area sees what another area is doing) then anything else.

 

[spmarshall]

I went around after work and checked out some of the different lights. I generally like (or at worst, indifferent) to the low-level mounted lights. I like the ones at Queen and Broadview, and the ones in the Cabbagetown BIA are OK. The high-mounted ones like those at Queen and Sherbourne and Danforth and Broadview suck.

I like the modern-style ones - on Spadina, I liked them a bit more with their original traditional fixture, but the new modern lamps affixed aren't too bad (they should have been white like the arm, not grey, but oh well) - and the two versions of the cantilevered ones around the Harbourfront I like as well - modern and classy.

I just hate seeing the suburban standard lights on streets like Queen in Parkdale, where they replaced the traditional white lights with the standard fare arms with the sodium-orange lights. I'm glad that generally, the traditional lamps (with modern, more efficient white lights) are now retained.

 

[adma]

Well, I'm inclined to agree that these look like grotesque mongrels. Y'know, hang "ye olde" lamps from the same-old same-old, because "the people" prefer "ye olde".

Ironically, were they truly heritage-conscious in the sophisticated contemporary sense of the term, they would have been better off sticking to some semblance of the c20 shiny-glass-and-steel-acorn tried-and-true. And Alfred Holden (who'd veto these mongrels on the spot, I'd imagine) would be more than willing to lend his advice to that end...

 

[adma]

These are BIA initiatives paid for by local business levies with some matching funding from the city. The faux historic character reflects the desire of the residents and businesses in an area. They would take faux historic over modern architectural features any day and they are the one's footing the bill.

I'd claim it's more what they naively think they want--and, unchallenged or unnegotiated, naivety wins.

Well, if faux historic's the way, better the all-out no-nonsense Junction way. Y'know, *real* old-style lampposts rather than old/new mongrels (and with the contemporary-end by-product of wire burial, to boot). At least there's an honesty about them.

But otherwise...well, speaking of the Junction, were I to advise BIA's, I'd advise them that some of that 50s modern stuff they have (like that sawtooth-storefront thing at Dundas + Pacific) might actually be cherishable and essential to the "historic" urban character, believe it or not. That is, BIAs can serve a richer purpose if they just loosen themselves up from the martyr's urge to "ye olde". (Though as BIA's go, I think the Junction's got more latent mechanism to understand the point. After all, it's David Miller territory, not Jane Pitfield territory...)

 

[building babel]

The City has, on the one hand, abdicated responsibility for design to BIA's, while on the other hand is trying to kid us that they're working towards a Beautiful City on our behalf.

Either you have city-wide design standards, or we're at the mercy of BIA's with varying amounts of money and different ideas about what the public realm should look like.

Why encourage the consumer's worst instincts for excess and pretension by handing over control of design to commercial interests who will only indulge them?

And, frankly, I think we were sold a bill of goods with Miller and his reform council. We've slid from one grandiose set of bloated promises to the next ... and very little has been done.

 

[Brighter Hell]

They are, in my mind, a memorial to the Toronto that was, and are mini-museums of our industrial, provincial backwater heritage.

that's a good thing?

grit shmrit, they're fugly! a neighbourhood that relies on hydro poles for its character has bigger problems. let me ask you this - have the buried hydro wires in the junction made the area better or worse?

 

[shawnmicallef]

I didn't say relies on them for character. Why does the internet always like to reinterpret what people say?

I go to the juntion fairly often, but didn't realize they buried the lines. When i think of the area now, i picture old wooden powerlines. So, i can't say if its better or worse, buring didn't matter.