The Canadian Destroyed Buildings Thread II - Page 8

osirisboy · #**141** Posted **Sep 21, 2015, 3:12 AM**

Yeah the birks bulding could've been saved and still have built the Scotia tower. I guess they wanted to build under the site so that's why they tore it down. Which makes no sense to me. Could the owners not have made money leasing out the birks building to office/retail? It's friggin weird

red-paladin · #**142** Posted **Sep 21, 2015, 7:10 AM**

Back then the mood was "Let's remove this dreary, old fashioned, pretentious building, and replace it with a modern polygonal form-follows-function replacement"

drawarc · #**143** Posted **Sep 24, 2015, 9:31 PM**

In Ottawa:

Corry Block, next to Union Station ca. 1960 by Ross Dunn - 4 million+ views!, on Flickr

Mrs Sauga · #**144** Posted **Sep 24, 2015, 10:51 PM**

First Canadian Place did the same thing in Toronto. The gorgeous Toronto Star buildining was destroyed for the podium of First Canadian Place.

MonkeyRonin · #**145** Posted **Sep 24, 2015, 11:54 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mrs Sauga

First Canadian Place did the same thing in Toronto. The gorgeous Toronto Star buildining was destroyed for the podium of First Canadian Place.

Not quite - the tower sits where the Star building once did. It was the former Bank of Montreal tower at the corner of King & Bay that was destroyed for the 2-storey banking pavilion. It's on the middle-right side of the picture here, nicely mirroring the Bank of Nova Scotia building across the street:

The low-rise Toronto Dominion building on the corner also met the same fate, but that at least was for Mies' beautiful new complex:

Another (unfortunate) example of that is the Hudson's Bay Centre at Yonge & Bloor, where this grand old Royal Bank edifice:

Was demolished for this little concrete bunker of a podium on the new tower:

But just to add insult to injury, it wasn't even demolished until after the tower was completed (as was the case with the old BMO tower) - they could have coexisted perfectly fine.

red-paladin · #**146** Posted **Sep 25, 2015, 12:58 AM**

esquire · #**147** Posted **Sep 25, 2015, 2:31 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin

But just to add insult to injury, it wasn't even demolished until after the tower was completed (as was the case with the old BMO tower) - they could have coexisted perfectly fine.

The exact same thing happened with Winnipeg's old Toronto-Dominion Bank main branch. It was one of the few elegant 1950s buildings in downtown Winnipeg. It came down in 1989 to make way for a plaza in front of the Toronto-Dominion Centre (which remains Winnipeg's tallest). It actually coexisted with the TD Centre for a few months before it was demolished.

Then:

Now: