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Tower Up

Photo by hyfen.
Reprinted by the good graces of our friends at Torontoist.

Ladies and gentlemen, your humble critic is a little verklempt. Quite touched, were we, by the outpouring of support for our endeavour, and the flood of new Facebook friends we’ve open-armedly received since our maiden voyage on Torontoist last week. We have, it seems, touched a nerve; we're grateful to Torontoist for helping us, er, touch it.

But on with the show. All the wishes Bad Buildings received were not sunshine and roses. Oh, no. And that, frankly, is as it should be. Building is not just a physical act, but a political one as well, freighted with layers a'plenty—class, usually, pre-eminent among them.

Bad Buildings does not shy away from this talk, as motivation and use are as much a part of architecture as design. One of our commentors suggested the city—and every city—should do away with the official plan. The official plan, apparently, is why we have housing projects and slums. Okay. That's wrong. But that’s a discussion for another time.

Today, we're going to look more at one of our most common built forms which, sadly and paradoxically, is probably the one in all urbanity that is rarely done right. We're talking about the tower, that high-density albatross that seems to sprout up behind out backs every time we turn around.

This is good: For this city—or any other—anticipating explosive population growth, building up, not out, is key to sustainability, in the most pragmatic sense; it's also crucial to an iteration of urbanity that most of us embrace in our best hearts: A city brimming with pedestrians and street life, a city on intimate terms with itself.

So, towers: We need em. And baby, we’re gettin' 'em, from the dulcet shores of Lake Ontario up to the yuppie-in-waiting playground of Yonge and Eg, and beyond. To repeat: Towers are a good thing. But these towers? Not so much. There are a few simple reasons why. Here’s a primer.

Towers are hard. They are, in essence, stacking shelves—identical floorplates, typically with identical function, piled high on top one another. Architecturally, that’s a toughie. Doesn't leave a whole lot of space, really, for actual design.

Or so most architects think. They try goofy balconies, tacked on to the exterior, or they mix it up a little partway up, so a single building looks like two, piled on top of each other. (Montage, Cityplace, at left, we’re looking at you). They add irrelevant forms, dangling off their towers like Christmas trees (hi there, Pinnacle Centre). They take a crack at different shapes, like the cartoonish ellipse down at Panorama, or pointy spires on top, like at the forthcoming Trump Tower, Toronto edition. In the end, though, it's still a stack—just a stack junked up with all sorts of silliness meant to distract from the fact of that very matter.

It all puts Bad Buildings in the mind of Robert Venturi's still wonderfully relevant book, Learning from Las Vegas (speaking of junked up towers—hoo boy). Among Venturi's arguments—the context of which being that "vernacular" architecture (ie. tacky cheesy) was to be celebrated—was the difference between Modernism and Post-modernism, rendered thusly: A building is either a duck, or a decorated shed. Modernism was the duck—a shop selling duck decoys, shaped like a duck: simple, clear, to the point. The decorated shed pretty much sums up Post-modern architecture: Build it however you want, and gussy it up with whatever this month’s flavour might be.

That's Toronto. Which is sad and strange, really, given our most famous duck, and the lesson it teaches. We’re talking about the TD Centre, Mies's last crack. It's probably not a coincidence that the age of the Moderns coincided with the (first) age of the skyscraper. Back to Venturi: when you're stuck with a stack, you need to go duck. More specifically, necessarily utilitarian, generic forms shouldn’t be tarted up so we can pretend they're something they're not.

Basics, people: Proportion. Material. Form. You know, the stuff of good architecture. Look at the TD Centre. Cool. Elegant. Austere. It takes the inside, and turns it out. You can see the building, in its entirety, and not by coincidence, feel it, too. As a cluster, the four buildings of the TD Centre are a symphony of perfect proportion and spatial relations: Not too tall, not too squat, standing with casual elegance together in a gang of spare refinement.

lumiere.gifThere was a lovely, albeit brief period in this city when the TD Centre needed some cool buddies to hang out with, and the other banks complied. Commerce Court, by I.M. Pei? Hi, pal! First Canadian Place? Hey, buddy—nice cladding, but you gotta tighten it up a tad. Scotia Centre? Well, okay, dude, you can hang too, but what’s up with that crazy cut out and weirdo colour?

Bad Buildings can only wonder what the senior towers in town think as they glance across the skyline at the forest of green glass swoops hanging loose by the water like a bunch of delinquent teenagers, tarted up in cheap clothes, trying to out pimp one another with flash.

It’s no coincidence, maybe, that these affronts are developer projects. Remember the basics? Proportion: Developers don't care much for this. They care for max height and max profit. Material: Most of their towers are glass. Glass is, relatively speaking, cheap. Max profit. Form: See "decorated shed." Whatever baubles sell, baby.

Truth to tell, they don't all stink. Bad Buildings digs Lumiere (but not the name—good God—or the irritating website), at right. With its recessed balconies and extruded concrete structural spine, it's a tight little exercise in perfect proportion and respect for form. Alas, it's an anomaly. And that, friends, does stink.

Bad Buildings hopes we've helped you see right from wrong. More of us need to. Towers are the future, and more power to 'em. But if we don’t demand more than what we've been getting, we're in trouble. When the decorations tumble from the sheds and shatter on our streets, we all lose, don't we?

Tower Up

Photo by hyfen.
Reprinted by the good graces of our friends at Torontoist.

Ladies and gentlemen, your humble critic is a little verklempt. Quite touched, were we, by the outpouring of support for our endeavour, and the flood of new Facebook friends we’ve open-armedly received since our maiden voyage on Torontoist last week. We have, it seems, touched a nerve; we're grateful to Torontoist for helping us, er, touch it.

But on with the show. All the wishes Bad Buildings received were not sunshine and roses. Oh, no. And that, frankly, is as it should be. Building is not just a physical act, but a political one as well, freighted with layers a'plenty—class, usually, pre-eminent among them.

Bad Buildings does not shy away from this talk, as motivation and use are as much a part of architecture as design. One of our commentors suggested the city—and every city—should do away with the official plan. The official plan, apparently, is why we have housing projects and slums. Okay. That's wrong. But that’s a discussion for another time.

Today, we're going to look more at one of our most common built forms which, sadly and paradoxically, is probably the one in all urbanity that is rarely done right. We're talking about the tower, that high-density albatross that seems to sprout up behind out backs every time we turn around.

This is good: For this city—or any other—anticipating explosive population growth, building up, not out, is key to sustainability, in the most pragmatic sense; it's also crucial to an iteration of urbanity that most of us embrace in our best hearts: A city brimming with pedestrians and street life, a city on intimate terms with itself.

So, towers: We need em. And baby, we’re gettin' 'em, from the dulcet shores of Lake Ontario up to the yuppie-in-waiting playground of Yonge and Eg, and beyond. To repeat: Towers are a good thing. But these towers? Not so much. There are a few simple reasons why. Here’s a primer.

Towers are hard. They are, in essence, stacking shelves—identical floorplates, typically with identical function, piled high on top one another. Architecturally, that’s a toughie. Doesn't leave a whole lot of space, really, for actual design.

Or so most architects think. They try goofy balconies, tacked on to the exterior, or they mix it up a little partway up, so a single building looks like two, piled on top of each other. (Montage, Cityplace, at left, we’re looking at you). They add irrelevant forms, dangling off their towers like Christmas trees (hi there, Pinnacle Centre). They take a crack at different shapes, like the cartoonish ellipse down at Panorama, or pointy spires on top, like at the forthcoming Trump Tower, Toronto edition. In the end, though, it's still a stack—just a stack junked up with all sorts of silliness meant to distract from the fact of that very matter.

It all puts Bad Buildings in the mind of Robert Venturi's still wonderfully relevant book, Learning from Las Vegas (speaking of junked up towers—hoo boy). Among Venturi's arguments—the context of which being that "vernacular" architecture (ie. tacky cheesy) was to be celebrated—was the difference between Modernism and Post-modernism, rendered thusly: A building is either a duck, or a decorated shed. Modernism was the duck—a shop selling duck decoys, shaped like a duck: simple, clear, to the point. The decorated shed pretty much sums up Post-modern architecture: Build it however you want, and gussy it up with whatever this month’s flavour might be.

That's Toronto. Which is sad and strange, really, given our most famous duck, and the lesson it teaches. We’re talking about the TD Centre, Mies's last crack. It's probably not a coincidence that the age of the Moderns coincided with the (first) age of the skyscraper. Back to Venturi: when you're stuck with a stack, you need to go duck. More specifically, necessarily utilitarian, generic forms shouldn’t be tarted up so we can pretend they're something they're not.

Basics, people: Proportion. Material. Form. You know, the stuff of good architecture. Look at the TD Centre. Cool. Elegant. Austere. It takes the inside, and turns it out. You can see the building, in its entirety, and not by coincidence, feel it, too. As a cluster, the four buildings of the TD Centre are a symphony of perfect proportion and spatial relations: Not too tall, not too squat, standing with casual elegance together in a gang of spare refinement.

lumiere.gifThere was a lovely, albeit brief period in this city when the TD Centre needed some cool buddies to hang out with, and the other banks complied. Commerce Court, by I.M. Pei? Hi, pal! First Canadian Place? Hey, buddy—nice cladding, but you gotta tighten it up a tad. Scotia Centre? Well, okay, dude, you can hang too, but what’s up with that crazy cut out and weirdo colour?

Bad Buildings can only wonder what the senior towers in town think as they glance across the skyline at the forest of green glass swoops hanging loose by the water like a bunch of delinquent teenagers, tarted up in cheap clothes, trying to out pimp one another with flash.

It’s no coincidence, maybe, that these affronts are developer projects. Remember the basics? Proportion: Developers don't care much for this. They care for max height and max profit. Material: Most of their towers are glass. Glass is, relatively speaking, cheap. Max profit. Form: See "decorated shed." Whatever baubles sell, baby.

Truth to tell, they don't all stink. Bad Buildings digs Lumiere (but not the name—good God—or the irritating website), at right. With its recessed balconies and extruded concrete structural spine, it's a tight little exercise in perfect proportion and respect for form. Alas, it's an anomaly. And that, friends, does stink.

Bad Buildings hopes we've helped you see right from wrong. More of us need to. Towers are the future, and more power to 'em. But if we don’t demand more than what we've been getting, we're in trouble. When the decorations tumble from the sheds and shatter on our streets, we all lose, don't we?

In Living Colour

The aforementioned comic, courtesy Laz and the Toronto Star ... click for full size ...

Aw, shucks

Bad Buildings indulged in our morning coffee (okay, early-afternoon coffee) today, as usual, with the Star splayed in front of us. Spreading stewed strawberry compote (never jam) on a thin slice of organic whole-grain rye (thank you, Dimpflmeier Schinkinbrot!), we happened upon a lovely little comic strip on page 3 of the paper's Ideas section, depicting yours truly, and our efforts in this space, and at our spiritual partners, Torontoist.

It was done by Sarah Lazarovic, our Facebook friend and, quite clearly, a clever firecracker of a writer/drawer of the first order. We are neither Stinson nor student, Laz, and you're quite right, mystery is our M.O. We like to think that anonymity is what gives us objectivity, not in any way hampers it; we owe no-one no-thing, except you, to whom we owe thanks. Go Illini!

Frankly, A-OK

Bad Buildings is drifting rather lazily in the long weekend, as our week of inactivity might indicate (Bad Buildings has actually had a hella week in our real life, which is why Bad Buildings seems a little behind, but we all need a breath now and again, hm?)

In any old case, we're going to wander gently into the pending 3-day idleness that awaits with a reconsideration. Yes, we are human(s), and being so frail, occasionally make mistakes. To wit: For solidly the first year of its life, Bad Buildings had a hate on for the Four Seasons Centre, by Diamond Schmitt, our much-touted shiny-new opera house at the corner of Queen and University. All right, if not an actual hate-on, then a definite ambivalence-on for what, by any logical standard, should have been a glorious, inspiring structure, snagging the last, best site on the city's only real grand boulevard, University.

When they finally finished the old 4SC, with its charcoal brick cladding and glass facade, we felt the city let out a collective sigh of deflation. It was ... totally okay, in that bland, institutional, "you mean we weren't designing a hospital?" sort of way. But it sure as hell wasn't an architectural thrill, like, say, the Disney Centre in L.A., by Frank Gehry -- who, incidentally, ended up on the shit end of a stick that some civic big dogs like Alan Gottleib tried to use to stir the initial design competition for the 4SC in the FG's favour. Frankie backed out when other competitors cried foul; in short, his integrity seemed to have saddled us with another mediocre building in an expansive field of mediocrity.

But Bad Buildings went to the ballet the other night (not a usual occurrence, we can assure you; we prefer the Horseshoe, or on any given night), and experienced, if not a conversion, exactly, then a slight thawing of our cold, cold heart as to the 4SC. Not spectracular, no. Not jaw-dropping, heart-pounding, awe-provoking. None of that. But Bad Buildings warmed to its subtle charms, like the upper floor gathering spaces, contained only by glass, with a quietly commanding view of University Avenue. Or the actual amphitheatre itslef, which manages to be both oddly intimate and acoustically perfect, while offering clear, close views of the performance from almost any seat.

The 4SC is far from perfect; we still don't care for the aquarium style facade (from the outside, anyway), the cold, echo-y main floor lobby still puts one in the mind of a bus station more than a creative enterprise, and we don't care what anyone says -- if Diamond Schmitt thought they were doping something self-consciously capital-M Modern, like the masters, Mies and Corb, they skipped the form/function/material chapters in the guide book. But all in? Not a bad building at all.

Freed falling

Now this is just plain creepy.



Bad Buildings hopes Mr. Brush Cut with the suit and tie is an actor, and a well-paid one at that. But to be honest, Bad Buildings has no time to be creeped out. We're too busy being angry. This building, by the careless clowns at Freed Developments, boasts the usual litany of developer money-grubbing: Out-of-proportion, out of context and, frankly, out of their freakin' minds. 16 stories. At King and Bathurst. Nevermind that the official plan cuts the height restriction off at 8 -- less than half.

As Bad Buidings stresses, these are just the usual offences in a hyper-development climate plagued with an OMB that is all too happy to rubber-stamp most any proposed violation of our city's official plan. What makes 650 King -- or, in its own marketing-ese, six50king -- more revolting is what it so callously displaces.

Sadly, this teeny-tiny picture is the best we can do -- especially now that Freed has encased the lovely brick of the original 650 King's modern, elegant facade in horizontal wood hoarding (Good Lord, people, that is so Wallpaper magazine, circa 1996).

Bad Buildings had the good fortune of actually going in 650 King, a few years back, when it was still a semi-active uniform factory, built in the early 20th century. The clean, concrete slab floors, the band windows, the light pouring into against the warm brick walls set Bad Buildings in the mind of pure, urbane beauty -- a palette against which lives could be rendered so perfectly.

Instead, we're going to tear it down. Tear it down, and replace it with 16 stories of glass that will lord over this stretch of King Street West that, as it stands, is among the most perfectly-scaled streetscapes in the city.

The original 650 was part of that streetscape, a seamless blend of form, proportion and material that enhanced the experience of simply being there. In its place, yet another monstrosity that bears no relation to its surroundings.

Sad, but typical. Pete Freed, you've let us down this time. Which is surprising, really, because some of your other developments have been sensitive compliments to the cityscape they inhabit. We like 550 Wellington; it inhabits its space with restraint, and promises to enliven the neighbourhood with sleek, subtle density. We like 66 Portland; OK, we liked the old light industrial stuff you knocked down to build it better, but your development there defers nicely to the proportional streetscape it squats behind.

And now this. So what happened, Pete? It makes us think you were playing possum, paying some dues and building some political capital so you could turn around and stab us in the back. If you let us down like this, Petey, how can we ever love you again?