Great Canadian Skyline Thread II

[HomeInMyShoes]

Originally Posted by Acajack

I actually like The One, though I have to admit it does give off some John Hancock (Chicago) knock-off vibes to me.

Well the external structure look has often been used, but I still like it. It's not like Toronto has too much of that. CIBC now if I recall. So it's not overaly derivative within Toronto. It is solidly okay for me. It's not drop dead gorgeous and maybe we all wanted something unrealistically spectacular for the first +300m structure in Canada. We can't fault people for high expectations. I suffer from that lots.

[Chadillaccc]

Dingdingding! Jackpot.



Here's a little surprise from Doha!


https://www.reddit.com/r/Calgary/comment...6ebd9&utm_source=embedly&utm_term=hmvghs

[MolsonExport]

[Maldive]

Originally Posted by O-tacular

I’m probably going to catch a lot of flack for this, but I’m not a huge fan of The One. It’s quite underwhelming imo. I prefer the other Toronto Foster tower whose name I can’t recall that has the 3 sections rising and the rendering magic wavy tree landscaping. Besides the height I just find it kinda boring. It at least gets bonus points though for not doing gimmicky balcony patterns.

Nice photoshop though.

Well at least the pic provided these opportunities:

1. Demonstrates how one street has (and will have) a far superior skyline to the Kevin Bacon skyline, by every metric.

2. lio had another chance to climb onto his soapbox, in skyline thread.

[Harrison]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

Ottawa.

Dow's Lake area on the bottom. August 1, 2020.

C-GDSA DF02221 by Chuck Clark, on Flickr

Crazy how much of an impact Claridge Icon makes. Will Dows Lake become the new 'Uptown' area of Ottawa now if this density continues?

[MonkeyRonin]

The cladding on the One could turn out pretty dramatically, I think.




What really irks me about it though, is that somewhere along the lines the height was reduced - and rather than redesign & reproportion the tower, the architects lazily just lopped off the top bit of it. Gives it weird proportions now.

Made a lot more sense when it looked like this:




Than when it was reduced to this:

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by Harrison

Crazy how much of an impact Claridge Icon makes. Will Dows Lake become the new 'Uptown' area of Ottawa now if this density continues?

Could be.

There's a 30 storey tower u/c diagonally, to the left (crane was put up this month).

https://skyscraperpage.com/forum/showthread.php?t=140090

Three towers (9, 15 and 26 floors) proposed 4 blocks north of Icon, expected to break ground next spring.

https://skyscraperpage.com/forum/showthread.php?t=241082&page=3

The redevelopment of the Booth NRCan Complex, which will include preservation of some former NRCan labs and the smoke stack (the block is in between mid and high rise buildings in the lower, right quadrant of the image).

https://skyscraperpage.com/forum/showthread.php?t=223532&page=4

And a final project, just adjacent to Carling Station (one block to the left of Icon) is proposed as towers of 55, 45 and 18 floors, but that's been shelved and likely won't happen for another decade+.

https://skyscraperpage.com/forum/showthread.php?t=204605

There's also the new 900 bed Civic Hospital planned for the greenspace and semi-circle parking lot on the lower, left of the image:

https://skyscraperpage.com/forum/showthread.php?t=214051

The problem is that Carling Station will remain a single track, single platform station even after Stage 2, with 12 minute frequency. No plans for further expansion anytime in the foreseeable future.

[MonkeyRonin]

Originally Posted by Coldrsx

https://twitter.com/uptown_one/status/1306605166548799489

This is a really cool shot. At the risk of reopening the "landlocked" debate for the thousandth time, Edmonton kinda looks like a coastal city here.

[Chadillaccc]

I was thinking the same thing when I saw it.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Hali87

The left midground actually reminds me a lot of the view of the Halifax Peninsula looking across the Arm from the Mainland neighbourhoods. The "back" of the skyline, essentially.

The buildings in the foreground remind me of what actually exists in Downtown Dartmouth, and Alderney Drive (the main vehicular arterial through DT Dartmouth) has always reminded me a lot of DT Edmonton.

DT Dartmouth does have some similar styles of building.

In find that there's relatively little overlap in architectural styles between Halifax and Edmonton highrises but one exception is that there are "twin" red brick buildings built by the same developer in the 2 cities. One is the building with Smitty's by Victoria Park in Halifax. Its twin is called The Hargate and it's on 114 St NW.

One thing about Halifax is its periods of development do not follow the North American norm. For example it has a lot of 1930's and 40's buildings but few 1910's and 20's buildings. And an unusual amount of 1850's and 60's and lack of 1880's and 1890's. It's probably pretty rare as far as having so many public landmarks from the 1810's or earlier. There are many North American cities of similar age but not as many that also largely missed out on the 1880-1930 boom period. And in the US the 90's was a successful period while it was the total opposite in Halifax.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by O-tacular

No, that would require me to subtly slag all of Toronto with a blanket statement that was clearly intended to troll even as I have never visited it in person. Then I would have to triple down and hijack the thread just for kicks.

It wasn't "intended to troll" at all. I could not have imagined how incredibly thin the skin of a couple Calgary forumers could be, and if you'd given me the mandate of creating such drama on purpose, I'd have said "impossible", assuming adult forumers.

This is a thread for pictures AND comments. If you don't want to risk people commenting on how quickly Calgary's massive CBD drops to modest single detached wooden houses, then don't go and post a picture that greatly highlights that aspect. Any picture posted here invites comments - it's the nature of a discussion forum. Sorry.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin

This is a really cool shot. At the risk of reopening the "landlocked" debate for the thousandth time, Edmonton kinda looks like a coastal city here.

I thought the exact same thing, the super-foggy river valley looks like a sea arm in that pic, and at first sight, anyone would think it's a port city. Icing on the cake, there's even that tower crane in the pic that's placed in a way that it could be a seaport crane (again, at first sight).

[lio45]

Originally Posted by craner

So we should retain every single building just because they are “old”, regardless of historical and/or architectural value ?

Originally Posted by suburbanite

I think that's the grandest angle there is of Quebec, only missing the Edifice Price to round it out.

Originally Posted by Acajack

The sight of the Chrysler almost gives me the shivers (in a positive way).

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

World's most beautiful skyscraper.

These two examples are perfect to illustrate the point I wanted to bring up, in the "we must always preserve all old buildings" line of discussion.

I don't recall exactly what the Chrysler Building replaced, but whatever it was was definitely older than it. Let's imagine it replaced late 1800s run-of-the-mill (yet still desirable and elegant) Midtown Manhattan housing stock (those archetypal multi-story rowhouses with ground floor retail)... Would you reverse this if you could, eliminating the Chrysler Building with a magic wand right now and conjuring back up whatever was there before?

Now the second example is even stronger because there actually WAS a movement by local citizens in the 1920s to save the two existing "old" buildings on St. Ann Street that were there at the time, and to prevent at all costs this fully modern, completely-out-of-scale horror, the proposed Price Building, from ever coming into existence.

Again, same question - we're sorry that they did not prevail, right?

[lio45]

I was just reading on the Chrysler Building... and since this is a skyline thread... OMG, look at what's going on in NYC these days:

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by lio45

I was just reading on the Chrysler Building... and since this is a skyline thread... OMG, look at what's going on in NYC these days:

Toothpick City.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by lio45

These two examples are perfect to illustrate the point I wanted to bring up, in the "we must always preserve all old buildings" line of discussion.

I don't recall exactly what the Chrysler Building replaced, but whatever it was was definitely older than it. Let's imagine it replaced late 1800s run-of-the-mill (yet still desirable and elegant) Midtown Manhattan housing stock (those archetypal multi-story rowhouses with ground floor retail)... Would you reverse this if you could, eliminating the Chrysler Building with a magic wand right now and conjuring back up whatever was there before?

Now the second example is even stronger because there actually WAS a movement by local citizens in the 1920s to save the two existing "old" buildings on St. Ann Street that were there at the time, and to prevent at all costs this fully modern, completely-out-of-scale horror, the proposed Price Building, from ever coming into existence.

Again, same question - we're sorry that they did not prevail, right?

The difference is though, that lots of our historic buildings today are being replaced by cheap/banal/mediocre condo/apartment buildings. Chrysler was built as an icon.

Price in QC is nice and great addition to the skyline, but I'm glad it's the only one in Vieux Quebec.

For the NY Billionaire's Row, not a fan of those super narrow towers. They look odd in the skyline. I should do some Google Streetview to see what they replaced.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by someone123

One thing about Halifax is its periods of development do not follow the North American norm. For example it has a lot of 1930's and 40's buildings but few 1910's and 20's buildings. And an unusual amount of 1850's and 60's and lack of 1880's and 1890's.

Interesting

To me, a 1880s or newer building isn't anything that special, while anything 1850s or older would be something that I would never ever accept to see demolished, for any reason. (Well, "never say never", but you get the idea.)

There's a great difference in rarity (and thus in interest as a "historical" structure) between 1850s and 1880s. That's true at least in all of Quebec, and probably in many other areas (AFAIK, it's true everywhere in the eastern USA).

[esquire]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Toothpick City.

Billionaire filing cabinets. I like the height but I'm not sure how I feel about this icicle style design.

[O-tacular]

Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin

The cladding on the One could turn out pretty dramatically, I think.




What really irks me about it though, is that somewhere along the lines the height was reduced - and rather than redesign & reproportion the tower, the architects lazily just lopped off the top bit of it. Gives it weird proportions now.

Made a lot more sense when it looked like this:




Than when it was reduced to this:

That’s what Foster did with the Bow as well. Looks way fatter and stubbier than originally designed. The loss of the skygardens and the south cultural block also arguably turned it into nothing more than a corporate monolith that is now only 40% occupied. Street level is atrocious. At least The One has an attractive street level.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

The difference is though, that lots of our historic buildings today are being replaced by cheap/banal/mediocre condo/apartment buildings. Chrysler was built as an icon.

Price in QC is nice and great addition to the skyline, but I'm glad it's the only one in Vieux Quebec.

For the NY Billionaire's Row, not a fan of those super narrow towers. They look odd in the skyline. I should do some Google Streetview to see what they replaced.

But my point is, many people in the 1920s found the proposed Price Building to be modern undesirable shit, and wanted to block it and keep what was there instead. Just like you right now.

Parisians hated the Eiffel Tower at first - it was meant to be temporary and dismantled afterwards.



Also: super narrow towers mean NYC can keep more of its older building stock undemolished...... best of both worlds