The Ugly Canada Thread

[WhipperSnapper]

Originally Posted by O-tacular

Yeah I can see it. Montreal seems to have at least dodged those ugly 90's condos unlike much of the rest of the country.

Montreal has collectively built the worst residential towers from 2000 up until now.

Thank god the boom was mostly in the suburbs

https://www.google.ca/maps/place/7280+bo...4m2!3m1!1s0x0:0x5112203cc3dcc6aa!6m1!1e1

This beats even Waterloo

[O-tacular]

It's been a long time since I've done anything Clockzilla related. In honour of Edmonton's rising prominence in both the NHL and among Canadian skylines here's a special YEG edition:

[O-tacular]

Originally Posted by WhipperSnapper

It's somewhat ironic how so much great modernism from the 1960s and 1970s is getting razed for Deco inspired crap.

I'll agree with that. The Calgary board of education building being one of them. The thing is though that for every one decent modern design there were 100 soul crushing monstrosities.

[O-tacular]

Originally Posted by WhipperSnapper

Montreal has collectively built the worst residential towers from 2000 up until now.

Thank god the boom was mostly in the suburbs

https://www.google.ca/maps/place/7280+bo...4m2!3m1!1s0x0:0x5112203cc3dcc6aa!6m1!1e1

This beats even Waterloo

Agreed. Les Residences Soleil alone qualifies the greater Montreal area as King of the uglies in new construction. However, because of its amazing bones thankfully that shit is mostly kept to the edges of freeways and far flung suburbs like Laval.

[eemy]

Originally Posted by Acajack

To me that's pretty cool and not egregious at all.

Of course, I am very used to it.

When I say it's my favourite example, I mean it in a very, very good way; I love that courtyard. I'm not actually bothered by facadism at all, though.

[GreaterMontréal]

Les Residence Soleil in Laval is just a copy of the one in St.Leonard.

[WhipperSnapper]

360 time!

https://www.google.ca/maps/@45.4471265,-...MGS8qn3tnosXiMMw9wNOg!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

[niwell]

^Oh wow yes that is pretty bad.

These are maybe my least favourite suburban Toronto highrises and surrounding area. In Vaughan, obviously. https://goo.gl/maps/SmcttAvRRf92

The 360 is necessary.

[O-tacular]

It's like the 9th circle of hell...

[O-tacular]

Behold this million dollar McMansion from Bear's Paw that appeared on my Facebook feed for no reason. The front has a bit of a clockzilla vibe going on with the one arched window eye and the entrance mouth.

http://www.prospectsweb.com/prospects/m.do?tk=54764ef891f3626a0b908bddf17f26c6

[OutOfTowner]

Originally Posted by O-tacular

I disagree with all those who so vehemently hate power poles on city streets. I find they add texture and grit to the urban environment and also provide a place for posters to hang stuff which is always interesting and useful. I love Vancouver's wooden power poles.

What? You support 3rd world infrastructure because you think it's "gritty"? I hate it because it's so 3rd world and because to me, "grit" is simply a synonym for "shit" and I can't understand why we stand for it here. I guess because we're so cheap and we just don't care.

BTW; Berlin has no 3rd world hydro poles yet manages to have an astounding amount of posters and 'stuff'.

Such is life in a First World nation.. as compared to "gritty " Canada ..

[OutOfTowner]

Originally Posted by WhipperSnapper

Montreal has collectively built the worst residential towers from 2000 up until now.

Thank god the boom was mostly in the suburbs

https://www.google.ca/maps/place/7280+bo...4m2!3m1!1s0x0:0x5112203cc3dcc6aa!6m1!1e1
For
This beats even Waterloo

I don't think that they will ever match the architectural achievements and urbanist wonders of CityPlace, Queen West Triangle, Humber Bay, Liberty Village, etc., etc. Those are the epitome of urban development.
Will definitely go down in history.

"Down" being the operative word.

[SignalHillHiker]

Originally Posted by esquire

How appropriate that Google served up this ad at the bottom of the Ugly Canada thread

Kevin O'Leary is the most favoured candidate for the Conservative Party leadership. His support numbers are:

Alberta: 41%
Ontario: 36%
Prairies: 32%
British Columbia: 24%
Atlantic: 18%
Quebec: 8%

FFS. We just got rid of Harper, who was close enough to Trump, don't force us to live through and recover from another.

http://poll.forumresearch.com/post/2653/...lead-in-conservative-leadership-contest/

[Laceoflight]

Originally Posted by esquire

How appropriate that Google served up this ad at the bottom of the Ugly Canada thread

Oh, please, Kellie, tell us what's Canadian. The whole Nation(s) is dying to know since 1604.

[niwell]

Originally Posted by OutOfTowner

I don't think that they will ever match the architectural achievements and urbanist wonders of CityPlace, Queen West Triangle, Humber Bay, Liberty Village, etc., etc. Those are the epitome of urban development.
Will definitely go down in history.

"Down" being the operative word.

While nothing to write home about, and of those places are FAR better than the link that WS posted. Grffintown is pretty grim and really no better than Liberty Village either, at least when I went through last year.

*patiently awaits screeching reply about how Toronto sucks*

[OutOfTowner]

Originally Posted by niwell

While nothing to write home about, and of those places are FAR better than the link that WS posted. Grffintown is pretty grim and really no better than Liberty Village either, at least when I went through last year.

*patiently awaits screeching reply about how Toronto sucks*

Griffintown sucks. My friend has a storage unit there and the storage building is arguably the nicest building in the area. That's what happens when developers are given carte blanche to do as they please. There is also a clusterfuck of apartments south of the old Dow planetarium that suck as well.

And it's not particularly clever to post a 360 of suburban shopping malls and say "Look how much this sucks". You can do that for every mall in Canada, North America.. they all suck! This is not news. Fairview sucks, Anjou sucks, 10-30 sucks, Marché Central sucks, and I can pretty much guarantee that all the ones I've never been to suck as well. Outside of the old riverside communities the entire West Island, Laval, South Shore.. they all suck!

And City Place, Queen West Triangle, Humber Bay and Liberty Village suck. It's just that, for some unknown reason, people in Toronto seem to lack the ability to acknowledge the remote possibility that anything in Toronto may possibly suck. At the first sign of any criticism whatsoever they get all butt hurt and accuse everyone of being "anti Toronto".

Get over yourselves! Play along with the rest of us! It's fun! There's so much suck to go around!

[niwell]

Originally Posted by OutOfTowner

And it's not particularly clever to post a 360 of suburban shopping malls and say "Look how much this sucks". You can do that for every mall in Canada, North America.. they all suck! This is not news. Fairview sucks, Anjou sucks, 10-30 sucks, Marché Central sucks, and I can pretty much guarantee that all the ones I've never been to suck as well. Outside of the old riverside communities the entire West Island, Laval, South Shore.. they all suck!

And City Place, Queen West Triangle, Humber Bay and Liberty Village suck. It's just that, for some unknown reason, people in Toronto seem to lack the ability to acknowledge the remote possibility that anything in Toronto may possibly suck. At the first sign of any criticism whatsoever they get all butt hurt and accuse everyone of being "anti Toronto".

Get over yourselves! Play along with the rest of us! It's fun! There's so much suck to go around!

People talk about how those communities suck all the time... Both on and off this board. We were just posting pictures of ugly facadism in central Toronto above so not sure why you'd get the idea we think nothing sucks.

You were the one that brought up those Toronto communities for no particular reason after Whippersnapper pointed out that Montreal has probably had the ugliest highrise development since 2000. Not sure what's particularly contentious about that really. FWIW WS is extremely critical (and justifiably so) of most new Toronto developments. He's probably the furthest thing from a OMG HIGHRISES booster.

This follows the general pattern of your posts which are not exactly thinly veiled, to say the least.


As it stands I don't particularly mind Cityplace as it's simply a residential neighbourhood, not a destination community. Liberty Village and Humber Shores are a clusterfuck (although the former at least has decent retail and craft beer). Queen West Triangle is functional but ugly as sin. If I had to I would still live in any of them (or Griffintown) in a heartbeat compared to one of those suburban highrises posed above.

[WhipperSnapper]

Originally Posted by OutOfTowner

What? You support 3rd world infrastructure because you think it's "gritty"? I hate it because it's so 3rd world and because to me, "grit" is simply a synonym for "shit" and I can't understand why we stand for it here. I guess because we're so cheap and we just don't care.

BTW; Berlin has no 3rd world hydro poles yet manages to have an astounding amount of posters and 'stuff'.

Such is life in a First World nation.. as compared to "gritty " Canada ..

I agree in part. The true old timey poles have a lot character and have their place in Toronto. I wouldn't mind to see a stretch on Queen Street preserved minus the transformers. We have streetcars too. No matter what lines will be in the air.

I disagree that overhead wire looks developing world. Many places in the developed world have it and many places in the developing world do not. It boils down to decisions made when the systems were first introduced. Even if Germany wasn't bombed to oblivion they made the conscious decision to spend the extra money and bury at the onset. In Toronto, the decision to bury wasn't made until the 1960s.(?) To do it now after the fact is incredibly costly that few if any cities have made the effort outside of tourist traps. Eventually all the continuing upgrades to the underground grid introduced in the 1960s will make the remaining overhead system redundant and it will be gone.

[WhipperSnapper]

Originally Posted by OutOfTowner

I don't think that they will ever match the architectural achievements and urbanist wonders of CityPlace, Queen West Triangle, Humber Bay, Liberty Village, etc., etc. Those are the epitome of urban development.
Will definitely go down in history.

"Down" being the operative word.

I feel we are so far apart on things it is a waste of time. First, How can you lump all those developments together? Cityplace is the polar opposite in methodolgy from Liberty Village. Tall slim towers vs short fat blocks. Second, how can you possibly compare the architectural quality, in particular Cityplace, to that 360 of Montreal ? Even Liberty Village's designs aren't that collectively bad.

We're screwed as a nation if that selection of large scale developments go down in history as they are representative of every master plan conceived in the last 20 years.

[Mister F]

Originally Posted by WhipperSnapper

Many places in the developed world have it and many places in the developing world do not.

Where in the developed world do urban main streets like Queen exist with overhead power lines strung on wooden poles?