Ugly Toronto

[FutureMayor]

http://www.uglytoronto.com/

Toronto is ugly Posted on 11/20/07
Written by Amy Greenwood

(The Eyeopener) - When Aaron Yeger looks out his window, he gets a rush of inspiration. But instead of birds, birch trees and Bambi, he sees a structural beast.

“I live across and next to the most monstrous-looking things I’ve ever seen,†chuckles Yeger, a Ryerson film grad and the editor-in-chief of a new book, Ugly Toronto. The perpetrators: the Sears building on Mutual St. and the Ontario Court of Justice on Jarvis St.

Ugly City is a series of books that will highlight the structural flops in cities around the world. And the locals will pick the eyesores.

“I’ve never seen an actual, serious book on something in the art world that’s unappealing,†Yeger says. Yeger recruited Stephen Whitehead, a fellow film student for the
photography, and Adam Baker a friend since the fourth grade, for his skills in web design.

Whitehead says he agreed to do it because he “thought it was a very interesting and unique idea.†He also says that the challenge of capturing the “ugly nature and innate beauty†in buildings around the city was enticing.

Ugly Toronto is the first of what Yeger hopes to be multiple installments in the Ugly City series. He already has designs on an Ugly New York and Ugly Paris, but is focusing on Toronto as a sort of pilot project.

Yeger has a vivid idea of the final product: a high-gloss coffee table book that has 50 stunning photos of shoddy Toronto buildings. It will likely be set up as a countdown, saving the ‘best’ picture for last.

Yeger hopes the project becomes “a cult phenomenon of a book series†for people who have a palette for irony and satire and will be on coffee tables next year.

To vote, go to uglytoronto.com

Louroz

 

[yyzer]

no offence, FM, but what a stupid idea...why dignify the negative aspects of any city by publishing them in a book? The person who has published this is most certainly a cretin, or maybe worse.

 

[TKTKTK]

1. I really like the Sears building on Mutual.

2. I wouldn't buy a beautiful book about ugly.

 

[ProjectEnd]

Yeah - this has to be one of the lamest ideas in awhile. I don't even have much to say about it, I guess that shows how uninteresting it is. Wow.

 

[PukeGreen]

Sounds like someone just trying to draw attention to their work by churning up some controversy. First of all, "ugly" is in the eye of the beholder, obviously.

I spent a number of years living within view of both those buildings mentioned, and I can't say I love or hate them. The Sears warehouse building is unique, to say the least. It makes you look twice. The courthouse has an intricate series of small windows. Both buildings are products of a different decade, and were built to serve a specific purpose. They add some variety to the landscape of the city, why pick on them? If they are ever replaced it will probably be with bland modern glass boxes, which we have enough of already.

 

[Zephyr]

Why is this book a problem?

I've sat here and read all those posts on another thread that said that one building was not going to change an entire city, whether we love that building or hate it. If you accept that logic, then it could be adopted here about 'Toronto is ugly' - just one book with a title meant to get a reaction. There will be other such books on other cities, so this piece forecasts, and the intent will again be to 'stir the pot' as one other poster put it on that other thread in regard to a controversial building.

I don't know if you have ever read Nelson Algren, or haven't read him in a while. He savaged Chicago at nearly every turn - its ugly elevated trains, its flop houses, its corruption, its poverty, its racism - and yet there is no doubt he loved that city. His metaphor was falling in love with a woman with a broken nose.

Some have noted elsewhere outside this world of the internet, that self-deprecation is a Torontonian trait, a counter to outright boosterism found in other cities, and other places, but no less a sign of wanting the best for their city. Perhaps a good dose of that trait would be appropriate.

 

[ShonTron]

The website's tagline (right now, only accepting nominations) is "finding the ugliest buildings in a beautiful city" - my sense that this has some tonge-in-cheek to it, and I'll agree there's some very ugly buildings. All the power to him if he wants to do a series of books, it might actually be interesting.

 

[Bogtrotter]

Well there's a museum dedicated to bad art- http://www.museumofbadart.org/

I think a book or website devoted to 'unattractive' or unsuccesful buildings could work.

 

[Blovertis]

Before we decry this book, let's remember the many threads on this site dedicated to Toronto's ugly buildings, ugly streets, ugly waterfront etc. These discussions invariably get lots of responses.

My criticism of the project has to do with what looks to be its cheap populism. Moreover, I happen to like the two buildings he mentions (Sears, courthouse).

 

[AndreaPalladio]

I think the idea is sort of interesting, if highly unoriginal. There have been websites doing the same thing for old receipes, and clothes, and ads, since the internet began. I don't think he has a snowball's chance in hell of getting a publisher to buy an expensive proposal like that.

 

[Urban Shocker]

The Sears building gets a nice writeup in Concrete Toronto but, because it is rather demurely clad in brick, it's only an honourable mention - "Victorian Brutalism" with a nod to Toronto's history of brick buildings.

 

[FutureMayor]

Likes Book and Sears

I thought the book is a great idea. I did my homework before I posted and checked out the website which had a positive tone about building a great city.

As for the Sears building, I actually really like it!

Louroz

 

[3Dementia]

I don't think the Sears building is getting a fair shake.

Afterall, one of the planet's great mysteries remains how the great pyramids of the Giza plateau were constructed nearly 5000 years ago (aliens?).

And the Sears pyramid is upside-down!!!!!!!


BTW, the word 'pyramid' actually comes from the Greek word 'pyramis' which means 'wheat cake'. The word 'pyramis' was used to describe the ancient Egyptian buildings because they reminded the Greeks of pointy-topped wheat cakes.

The word Sears comes from an ancient greek phrase "seers sucker" which (loosely translated) referred to anyone who paid mystics/fortune-tellers etc. for information and guidance.

 

[AndreaPalladio]

I've always thought that the Sears building was more of an inverted ziggurat than a pyramid. Also, ziggurat is fun to say.

 

[Hydrogen]

I think the book sounds like an interesting idea.

I also think there is a risk of becoming oversensitive to the issue of "ugliness." God knows some of us have gone on here at length about what is ugly in this city, all the while recognizing that it is a great place to live in.