50 Bloor Street West | Proposed | 83 st | 277 m | Bloor-Yorkville

[skyscraper03]

Originally Posted by waldenbg

image hosted on flickr

The architect designed this is who? ... Why do they always do this to us ? Tower Verre & the Beekman Place in NYC, Jameson House in Vancouver... these real great architects do really great job on skyscrapers, too!

But when it comes to doing the job for Toronto, all of these great architects in the world seemed to ally each other not to put too much time or effort on designing their stuff.
That must be just an impossible (almost funny) story(?). Is it then the degree of artistic/ architectural appreciation of owners (Torontonians themselves) to blame? forcing all these architects to give up on great elements they want to bring out? L Tower for that matter.
This must stop, or Toronto will still be a big city but with full of crappy buildings !


Btw, I think that shadow casting concern is a joke. Yonge & Bloor area is one of the hearts of downtown, and they worry about building a mere 250m+ tower there because of the shadow concern for a tiny park nearby? Hah! They should have built a grand public park like the Central Park in New York if they wanted to have their nice green area in the core without shadow casted forever!?

[skyscraper03]

double posted

[Taller, Better]

I will fall flat backwards in shock the day you approve of anything in Toronto, skyscraper! You have a permanent case of The Grass is Permanently Greener Absolutely Everywhere Else syndrome.

[Nouvellecosse]

You should probably start wearing plenty of padding anytime you're out just in case it somehow happens. I'd hate to see you hurt yourself!

[softee]

Yeah, really. I thought I was on City-Data there for a minute. According to the people there Toronto has no good restaurants to be found south of the 401, has a small and dead downtown and is devoid of character or really anything of interest to a potential visitor.

[Elkhanan1]

This proposal's going to evolve greatly as it makes its way through the approvals process. There's going to be lots of give-and-take before all stakeholders are reasonably satisfied.

[Marcanadian]

The top looks similar to One Bloor. I like the design, but I'm not blown away.

[ChrisJudd83]

Not a bad design but a building of this height in Toronto deserves something special. Great though that it's located along the Bloor-Yonge intersection giving 600 odd residents direct access to the subway

[large]

I think the scotia tower is up there. It's a classic.

[valantino]

I'm so sick of seeing Tower Verre spamming every proposal thread. The fund dominated commercial office market and the massive condo boom are not in positions to develop international recognizable landmarks. Deal with it. There is great stuff out there and even better in the pipeline. E condos and the Clarion Hotel project are up there.

I hate to say this but, Jameson House in Vancouver is by a overrated architect in a top ranking firm. Nigel Dancey is huge on sustainbillity, cares about the details, yet all his projects leaves one thinking, "WTF was the architect thinking when he put this here?!?" Jameson House is cold and unwelcoming from a number of vantages

[Taller, Better]

+1


It is like constantly whining that every car on the street doesn't look like a Lamborghini.
skyscraper03, please stop doing that; it is irritating.

[oceanmdx]

Perhaps if skyscraper03 were to donate a few million to the project, they would be willing to change the design more to his liking?

[KrispyInToronto]

its pretty nice considering its also over 270ms

[Taller, Better]

Originally Posted by oceanmdx

Perhaps if skyscraper03 were to donate a few million to the project, they would be willing to change the design more to his liking?

But he wouldn't want to stop there until we looked exactly like Seoul, or a variety of other cities that we are infinitely inferior to. Toronto is not good enough being itself; it should be a different city.

[Toronto2008]

1 Bloor + Trump Toronto + Manulife building at Queen/Yonge = this monstrosity. Cannot wait for the revised render!

[skyscraper03]

Originally Posted by Taller, Better

But he wouldn't want to stop there until we looked exactly like Seoul, or a variety of other cities that we are infinitely inferior to.

I'm neither from Seoul, nor lived there longer than a few years. If you have to pick one city for that sentence though Tokyo would be more of my style.
I think I said this before but, Seoul is no where close to perfection.
Although it's denser with the 2nd largest metropolitan population in the world(about 25million in the area about the size of GTA) and much more high-tech than Toronto.

Originally Posted by Taller, Better

Toronto is not good enough being itself; it should be a different city.

I agree with that one.

[Taller, Better]

In any case, back to the project at hand.

[Mollywood]

This building is OK but if a developer is going to build a huge building in a prominent area, shouldn't we expect more? I'm tired of glass boxes and that's what this is. I don't see much design or anything that distinguishes this building. I wish we could have a few original buildings that stand out and give this area a distinctive look. YES, I'm talking something "iconic". (think Absolute) I'm waiting for the day when Toronto holds its own international design competition to build some great buildings. I think that should be done for all buildings over 50 storeys.

When a building is very tall (over 50 storeys) it can't help but be a huge influence on a neighbourhood and define its location. It has an effect on everyone who goes near it. When a building is that dominant, it has to have a great design, so I say, make it the best it can be with a world-wide competition.

Our local architects play it too safe and need to be challenged a bit. If Toronto wants to compete with the big boys, we need to raise the bar and start demanding more from our developers and architects.

Anyway, that's just my humble opinion. I'm not so happy with this box but hopefully the design will evolve and become a bit more distinctive. Hey folks, originality is a GOOD thing!

[Taller, Better]

This looks like a glass box to you?

[Mollywood]

Originally Posted by Taller, Better

This looks like a glass box to you?

Yeah Taller, it is a glass box with a setback and a slightly curved roof. It seems like they have done the minimal amount of work, to make it different but it's still mainly a box. (rectangle) I'm glad it's not grey spandrel but I just wish it was a lot more original.

I've heard Toronto referred to as "The Creative City" so let's put some of that creativity to work and live up to the name.