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UtakataNoAnnex
Senior Member
...but of course they did! /bleh
generalcanada
Senior Member
adma
Superstar
Y'know, given the tone of the post you're responding to, you might as well be the cartoon cliche (NB: *only* a cartoon cliche; but one so many social-media sarcastics lazily refer to) of a condo developer hearing about the St Anne's Gladstone fire...
Then again, you might as well never have heard of (or never given two hoots about) St Anne's Gladstone before I made this post.
picard102
Senior Member
Seems like there was plenty of warning. Fencing went up months ago.
generalcanada
Senior Member
so thats a bit personal dont you think? yea i have heard of the church fire. Im not sure how you compare tiny concrete buildings to a 100-year-old church.
Like we know that "historical designations" are used way too widely right?
The fencing went up months ago, im suprised it took them this long to start demolition and land clearing.
Why would they need to give warning?
adma
Superstar
I think that in a loaded case like Ontario Place, your comment about "tiny concrete buildings" and historical designations being used way too widely helps explain the "personal" undertone.
And you speak of "a 100-year-old church" as if it were a generic case--heck, if one *were* to use the argument against historical-designations-run-amok, there's plenty of century-old churches out there of arguably *less* merit than said "tiny concrete buildings".
Though I'll grant you this: "before I made this post" might have been pushing things. But you're almost certainly the sort who *only* knew of the church because the fire "forced the issue"...
adma
Superstar
"Plenty of warning" is one thing; "timing of action" is another (which was the point of Bozikovic.'s tweet--distracting the hysterical preservationists with one action so that they can get away with another action on the sly)
generalcanada
Senior Member
I honestly didn't mean it as a "just another 100 year old church". definitely not. It's definitely a beautiful building, but Toronto is a big city.
It's not like I've been inside every building, hell, I haven't even been to Casa Loma, but that doesn't make my opinion of the overuse of the historical designations incorrect.
Here's why a bland suburban Best Buy is listed among Toronto's heritage buildings
Nearly 4,000 buildings in Toronto are at risk of losing heritage status by the end of 2024, and while many of these structures are integral stitches …
www.blogto.com
adma
Superstar
If you read the link carefully, it isn't about the Best Buy, but about a particular building upon the 50 Ashtonbee site--***the one on the left in the tweet***.I honestly didn't mean it as a "just another 100 year old church". definitely not. It's definitely a beautiful building, but Toronto is a big city.
It's not like I've been inside every building, hell, I haven't even been to Casa Loma, but that doesnt make my opinion of the overuse of the historical designations incorrect.
Here's why a bland suburban Best Buy is listed among Toronto's heritage buildings
Nearly 4,000 buildings in Toronto are at risk of losing heritage status by the end of 2024, and while many of these structures are integral stitches …
It's a consequence of listings being "address-based" rather than "building-based". That the Best Buy is part of the address is pure happenstance; and the building itself would likely be granted an exemption from any "heritage preservation requirements".
But if you notice, the person offering the tweet is dwelling upon the Best Buy, while "conveniently" not paying attention to the ex-Volkswagen HQ. Because he's more eager to "make a point". And moreover, he likely doesn't care. Probably because he's more into "future fantasy" (like fantasy transit maps) than into the so-called boring, dated, tired, and preexisting, much less the "history" thereof (dates, architects, historical contexts, etc).
And that "boring, dated, tired, and preexisting" factor might be why he pays the ex-Volkswagen HQ a blind eye; because that's all it is to him. That is, he'd probably be the sort who'd paradoxically *prefer* the Best Buy, simply because it is, at the moment, "newer and fresher" (and nothing to do with the ludicrous notion of it as "heritage")
generalcanada
Senior Member
And that volkswagen building also doesnt deserve to be on the registry.
It looks so bland like every office park ive ever seen.
That is to say you can't make an office park pretty.
Im not trying to start a new thread, you brought up the Church. but calling the Childrens village at Ontario Place "historical heritage" is laughable.
adma
Superstar
Actually, I agree that the present aspect of Volkswagen is deceptively blander and more generic than it was originally--it was originally clad in red brick, which gave it a richer retro-Moderne cast. (Unfortunately, there's no images on-line of how it might have looked originally--at least, none which I can immediately trace. But I'll *presume*--*hope*--that whatever heritage-registry research takes that element into account. Because that is *absolutely* critical to the building's merits.)
But what really stands out is how profoundly historically *incurious* you are--I don't mean in the sense of "historical heritage", but in having any positive sense of the past in historical space and time.
And I'm saying this because I grew up developing that sense of historical curiosity and awareness--that is, I was fascinated by what made stuff from 1950 distinct from stuff from 1960 from stuff from 1970. Regardless of "merits", it gave a richness to what I was beholding--it was a long-term gateway to knowledge, and sensitivity. I might have been precocious; but as far as I'm concerned, those kinds of skill sets are inherently universal. "Knowledge is key", sort of like.
But the way you write is...crude. Like you don't have any such sense, you never had any such sense. It's like all you see is...generic blandness. No sense of 1978, no sense of 1971, no sense of overall "evolution", whether of how Ontario Place came to be, or how the Golden Mile came to be. You only respond according to the immediacy of your own experience. And that's...bleak. Not the buildings in question--but your perspective. Like to you, the only "knowledge" worth considering is that it, er, sucks.
Essentially, you sound like a bored, underdeveloped juvenile--the sort who'd exclaim "this sucks!!!" on an Ontario Place For All on-site tour. Well...that's your problem.
generalcanada
Senior Member
Thats close to what I think, but I do take exception that the thought is inherently bad.
You could summarize my take in that most buildings designed in the last century have no "historical" merit.
*most* buildings are not inherently worth keeping. Think of Queen or Bloor with the brick low-rise buildings.
You can rebuild brick, it's not like materials are gone forever, they can be rebuilt.
Neighborhoods, cities, they grow and change over time and buildings should be no different. There should be no limitation on which buildings get rebuilt.
As for you, it seems like you use live buildings as a textbook to study. Requiring them to stay alive for more examination. Which I find interesting simply because that's not what buildings are designed for.
They're a place to live, work, and play. Thats why brutalist buildings exist. Not because they're beautiful, On the contrary, they exist because of minimalism, designing buildings for what they're used for.
In that same thought about the "brutalist OSC". I think, ok? it's just a building, there's nothing special other than it was built in a ravine, Like the concrete architecture itself has no relevance to the use of the building.
Honestly id question your profession and age. You ask anyone in the general population about architecture and you get glazed over eyes. Because it doesn't matter as long as it gets used in the right way.
You seem to have been engaged from a young age noting the difference between buildings. That is not common among children across generations. Did you end up going into architecture as a profession?
Your what I think is a "nostalgic" view of history when you were growing up also makes it seem like you're saying. "I grew up with this therefore it should stay".
History is an ever-changing timeline. There is no need to pear clutch places we love.
adma
Superstar
And this, folks, is what happens when the children of McMansion teardowns who grew up quite content, thank you, start posting on the Internet.
adma
Superstar
Well, that basically parallels my past framing of Doug Ford's likely perspective that the general population doesn't give two hoots as to who either Eberhard Zeidler or Raymond Moriyama were. It doesn't make that perspective any less boneheaded.
Except that it's not just about the "difference between buildings". It's about visualizing *all* of the past in "historical" terms--that is, by internalizing The Wizard Of Oz as a product of 1939, or those Looney Tunes I saw on TV as being of whatever dates *they* were, or hand-me-down comic books, or what made 1964 Beatles different from 1967 or 1969 Beatles. Maybe it's pushing it to expect one to fully internalize that data when one's still in single digit years--but by the time one enters and advances through one's teens, it can *really* start to unveil itself as a lode of fascination.
Or never mind historical terms--spatial terms. Sort of like the fascinated car-window perspective on the world--so by saying "that is not common among children across generations", essentially you're excusing the bored kid in the back seat saying "are we there yet?" Let me tell you something--that may be "common", but that's not good. Kids like that are mediocre and depressing. The junior version of those who don't give two hoots about Zeidler or Moriyama.
You know what I regret didn't "stay"? It's not a matter of old buildings, but a more "dimensional" perspective on the world that prevailed before everything got flattened out into memes. Like, whether at first or second hand, I grew up with a diverse spectrum of books, newspapers, and other forms of legacy media. And I grew up appreciative of the real world, rather than finding it so depressing or distressingly prosaic that I sought virtual fantasy worlds instead. And I grew up in an age when there was positive "bleed" btw/the kid and adult realms, before we had kids marinating in a kitschily ergonomic "kidspace".
I grew up in an age before the vapidity of "let people enjoy things". (Particularly when among those "things" is blissful ignorance.)
Don’t Let People Enjoy Things | Kate Wagner
People are just as allowed to dislike things as they are permitted to enjoy them—you can’t trick them into changing their minds with your authoritarian meme posting.
thebaffler.com
(And incidentally, the message of the piece is just as well directed at the "let people not enjoy things" reflex of the anti-West-Island crowd)
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