I was sitting at a picnic table on Algonquin Island this summer and a couple of women were walking behind me, tourists I believe. One of the women commented on the "lovely view" of the Toronto skyline; look at all the buildings, she said. Her companion just blurted out, "They all look the same!" I agree. So many of these tall and supertall buildings are boring and really add nothing to the city's character or skyline. Boring antiseptic towers devoid of colour, design, and individuality. Oh well, I suppose some billionaire in Dubai or oligarch in Ukraine or Russia will buy the condos and flip them for a profit; what that does for this city I really don't know. "They all look the same!" LOL I actually did chuckle to myself when she said that!
 
Sorry, but anyone looking at the Toronto skyline from the islands and declaring that "They all look the same" doesn't have powerful enough critical faculties to be concerned about. Not everything that everyone says is worth remembering.

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books said:
Oh well, I suppose some billionaire in Dubai or oligarch in Ukraine or Russia will buy the condos and flip them for a profit; what that does for this city I really don't know.
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If only we had data that would actually allow us to prove or disprove this kind of assertion.
 
interchange42 said:
Sorry, but anyone looking at the Toronto skyline from the islands and declaring that "They all look the same" doesn't have powerful enough critical faculties to be concerned about. Not everything that everyone says is worth remembering.

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I hate to say it, but compared to most of the cities Toronto cares to compare itself to, our buildings are generally more uniform in colour, shape, material, and size and are less adventurous. With a few exceptions, they are boxes with slight embellishments (particularly when seen from the island). We generally lack the showstopper buildings that a tourist would take note of or know about in advance. We purposefully look at these things every day so of course WE note the differences, but to the average person, Toronto has no Marina Bay Sands, Shanghai World Financial Centre, Eureka Tower, Gherkin, Opera House / Harbour Bridge, John Hancock Tower / Sears Tower, Empire State Building, Bank of China Tower, etc. Yes, yes, CN Tower (thank you 1960's), but the rest.... This is not to knock Toronto, which is doubtlessly improving, but I think there's a kernel of truth in a fresh-eyed perspective.
 
mcornett said:
I hate to say it, but compared to most of the cities Toronto cares to compare itself to, our buildings are generally more uniform in colour, shape, material, and size and are less adventurous. With a few exceptions, they are boxes with slight embellishments (particularly when seen from the island). We generally lack the showstopper buildings that a tourist would take note of or know about in advance. We purposefully look at these things every day so of course WE note the differences, but to the average person, Toronto has no Marina Bay Sands, Shanghai World Financial Centre, Eureka Tower, Gherkin, Opera House / Harbour Bridge, John Hancock Tower / Sears Tower, Empire State Building, Bank of China Tower, etc. Yes, yes, CN Tower (thank you 1960's), but the rest.... This is not to knock Toronto, which is doubtlessly improving, but I think there's a kernel of truth in a fresh-eyed perspective.
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There is most certainly nothing "fresh-eyed" about regurgitating the same lazy trope that makes one wonder if the person uttering it has actually ever set foot in front of any of the buildings in Toronto that tourists routinely take photos of.

If you've never seen tourists taking photos of these buildings, I don't think you know what tourists look like:

ROM Crystal, Gehry AGO addition, Alsop OCAD, QRC West, Daniels Faculty addition, Royal Bank Plaza, Bergeron Centre, Calatrava Brookfield Place galleria, Aga Khan Museum, Ryerson SLC, and I suppose the CN Tower, City Hall, Skydome, Casa Loma, Robarts, Village Green, and Gooderham building, while we're at it...

(Also, the Eureka Tower is hideous.)
 
ADRM said:
There is most certainly nothing "fresh-eyed" about regurgitating the same lazy trope that makes one wonder if the person uttering it has actually ever set foot in front of any of the buildings in Toronto that tourists routinely take photos of.

If you've never seen tourists taking photos of these buildings, I don't think you know what tourists look like:

ROM Crystal, Gehry AGO addition, Alsop OCAD, QRC West, Daniels Faculty addition, Royal Bank Plaza, Bergeron Centre, Calatrava Brookfield Place galleria, Aga Khan Museum, Ryerson SLC, and I suppose the CN Tower, City Hall, Skydome, Casa Loma, Robarts, Village Green, and Gooderham building, while we're at it...
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None of those are visible from the Toronto Islands except parts of the Royal Bank Plaza, Skydome, and CN Tower.
 
ADRM said:
How is that remotely relevant to any aspect of your previous post?
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The entire original post that led to this comment was about a tourist remarking on the Toronto skyline from the islands, so I guess because of context?
 
If I were in a gorgeous mixed forest and was marvelling at the oaks, the maples, the chestnuts, the willows, etc., and my companion stated "they all look the same to me", I would offer to help them tell the trees apart, to get more out of the experience. If they didn't want to take the time to appreciate the differences though, then I wouldn't worry about what they thought about the place. You have to cut your losses sometimes.

I just don't care that we don't have Dubai style dreck to please some people.

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mcornett said:
The entire original post that led to this comment was about a tourist remarking on the Toronto skyline from the islands, so I guess because of context?
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I had previously given you the benefit of the doubt, assuming that you weren't basing your entire post on A) a parenthesis including the emphasis-invoking qualifier "particularly", and B) an entirely arbitrary construct of architectural criticism based on the interpretation of structures from one vantage point, but I guess I was wrong to extend that courtesy.
 
I care most about the street-level public realm and how these projects look the first few levels than the silhouette from the Island, but it seems like many people on this forum care most about the latter. I'd like to see more discussion (and renders) of how this project will look and feel (and realistically be used) for those on the ground. It would also be nice to know more about how well these buildings are designed with an eye toward maintenance costs and energy efficiency rather than skyline aesthetic from a distance. To each his/her own.
 
Once again, I'm convinced that this comes down to the conflation of "good" with "flashy". Dubai's architecture is flashy. Dubai is not good. Toronto is rarely flashy (with a few notable exceptions: OCAD, ROM, CN Tower; and more coming: Mirvish + Gehry, The One, Bjarke Ingels' King West building), but it is often very, very good. It's just subtle, and honestly I'd rather have the subtlety most of the time.
 
ADRM said:
I had previously given you the benefit of the doubt, assuming that you weren't basing your entire post on A) a parenthesis including the emphasis-invoking qualifier "particularly", and B) an entirely arbitrary construct of architectural criticism based on the interpretation of structures from one vantage point, but I guess I was wrong to extend that courtesy.
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I was just giving my perspective on what I saw as a narrow topic, not gonna have a ridiculous fight about it. I certainly wasn't saying Toronto's architecture has no merit or that flashy buildings are all that matter.

I do quite like the revised designs for One Yonge (with the exception of the first phase). Hariri Pontarini has put up some great buildings, so I am hopeful it will be spectacular.
 
I don't think this problem is unique to Toronto - it's a symptom of the times. Also our crop of bank offices just happens to be the ones getting hidden by the current building boom.

As to the Phase 2 95s tower - it didn't feel like it met the street "right" (beyond an urbanistically well within expectations sort of way). The podium typology can use a rethink - something that draws out the uniqueness of the tower.

AoD
 
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