Canadian Skyline Thread III

[kool maudit]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

In my opinion, Scotia Plaza in Toronto is the only Canadian PoMo tower to get us into not the top tier, but the next tier below among great PoMo skycrapers.

I actually think Scotia Plaza is tier one, it has that wonderful red Swedish marble and such an intense verticality. Looking back, it has aged better than some of the more flamboyant Atlanta examples... I never loved the Sony Chippendale building in NYC despite it being in all the textbooks... that Houston building that riffs on Amsterdam gable houses is up there, too.

Montreal's best towers are from the Modern era, PVM and CIL House, CIBC. The Stock Exchange is interesting, too. I think it was an Italian firm that did that one, it does look almost like something from over here, but at that '60s North American scale.

I do really like 1250 R-L, though. Best of that idea, which was iterated on a few times.

Aldred is beautiful as well. The other prewar towers in Montreal are much too conservative. They're odd, actually. Royal Bank almost looks like some sort of Chinese lantern or vase, and Sun Life isn't even really a skyscraper, but a sort of iterative neoclassical ziggurat, like something from the Embankment in London. They're cool but they're almost oblique to the history of skyscrapers, like the Seven Sisters in Moscow.

Bell Telephone is nice but it looks like a New York building that someone stepped on.

[kool maudit]

In fact, I would say that PVM and the Prudential in Boston are the buildings that transport me to that Mad Man, managerial era most effectively.

[MonkeyRonin]

https://propertyvision.ca/tour/12423/?unbranded#gallery


https://propertyvision.ca/tour/12423/?unbranded#gallery


https://propertyvision.ca/tour/12423/?unbranded#gallery

[Wigs]

Originally Posted by Zeej

I'm not sure I agree in full, but I really appreciate this analysis. I agree that more height generally lends itself well to the POMO style (BOA Charlotte, Key Bank Tower Cleveland and US Bank Tower Los Angeles are my personal favourites) but I think there are exceptions.

I'd put up the Bankers' Hall towers (197m) in Calgary for consideration.

When I lived out West, I came to like Bankers Hall (and Calgary's many twins and even triplets), but it's not at the same level as BOA and KeyBank tower or US Bank tower imho. I've seen them all in person.

US Bank tower is a great building. Rambling story below

I visited downtown LA with my Dad in September 2019. We took the light rail from Monrovia to downtown/Union Station and even transferred to the LA subway to Pershing Square. It was wild to be in LA seeing many folks not only use public transit but actually walking around, in contrast to the 1980s/1990s "nobody walks in LA" stereotype

Many don't know this but the concentration of LA's skyscrapers on Bunker Hill was once filled with grand Victorian mansions, apartment buildings and many retail stores. It was terraformed during urban renewal for building sites of LA's tallest buildings.
• Video Link

Great 10 min mini doc
• Video Link

As for US Bank tower, even the exterior landscaping felt posh/Class A with palm trees, nice planters, water features (Sept 2019 photos)


I may be one of the only forumers to have been right near the top. Before it got sold for $430M USD in 2020, the previous owners had OUE Skyspace near the top with a rooftop patio and glass exterior skyslide. There was also a cool walk through exhibit with the history of LA and Hollywood lore.

It was an amazing experience just chilling ~270 metres up, around 900 ft or thereabouts. You could really tell how much shorter other tall LA skyscrapers are. It was sadly overcast and foggy the morning we went, but as things cleared up a bit one could see the Hollywood sign, Griffith Park observatory, and Dodger stadium from that height. Unfortunately my phone camera for distance was rubbish.

The crown


Chilling with my Dad near the top. The c.1972, 262 m/858 ft Aon Center looked smol.
The gorgeous LA city hall 138m/453ft (which we later went to view the observation deck) looked puny.






The now removed skyslide

[davidivivid]

Skyline pic taken from the vantage point of Victoria Park. We can see the construction site of a new ice rink in the foreground.

[WhipperSnapper]

Originally Posted by Zeej

Yes, the address is on La Gauchetière, but the point of this is that the CTBUH criteria allows for the height to be taken from any pedestrian entrance, not just the main entrance with the lobby etc.

In the case of Le 1000, there are 2 pedestrian entrances on Sainte-Antoine, in addition to a small gym and the Megabus terminal.

I can't comment on CTBUH in regards to the main floor. That's how it was in the beginning and that's what still makes the most sense to me. I've never been in 1000 Gauchetiere. I will be going in from Gauchetiere when I do pop that cherry. I'd also have to go through 9625 built Canadian 10 plus storey buildings to change it and once was enough.

Moving on, I know CTBUH criteria for the definition of main entrance as it comes up all the time with Concord SKY in Toronto. A main entrance is an entrance that has direct access to the rest of the floor space through elevator banks. They typically put the definition of a "main entrance" in the foot notes. It is not any entrance at the lowest elevation. Ground floor commercial or the bus terminal doesn't count as a main entrance

[WhipperSnapper]

Bankers Hall shares the the same qualities with the best of them. The design itself is unadventurous except for the eyes of Sauron. I like the postmodern era's Deco revisionism better than the PoMo. PoMo isn't PoMo without some Tim Burton Batman whimsy. Mississauga City Hall is the closest thing to that in the Toronto area. Scotia Plaza is gorgeous. However, it's more late/post modernist commercial architecture than PoMo.

[Harley613]

The new central library in Ottawa, 'Adisoke', is becoming a really nice addition to the urban fabric.

[905er]

Great view of Hamilton taken from realtor.ca

[Gresto]

Originally Posted by Wigs

When I lived out West, I came to like Bankers Hall (and Calgary's many twins and even triplets), but it's not at the same level as BOA and KeyBank tower or US Bank tower imho. I've seen them all in person.

US Bank tower is a great building.

As a slight excursus to this Pomo discussion, Minneapolis's Wells Fargo Center is probably the nicest skyscraper built in the 1980s.

[zoomer]

That is a fantastic shot of the Hamilton skyline! Add 2 or 3 signature towers and it will be competing with Edmonton for number 5 in my books.

[biguc]

Originally Posted by Gresto

As a slight excursus to this Pomo discussion, Minneapolis's Wells Fargo Center is probably the nicest skyscraper built in the 1980s.

And the Capella tower is probably the nicest glassy, roundish PoMo tower with a pergola cornice.


https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Minneapolis_Skyline_looking_south.jpg

Great looking towers

[Wigs]

Originally Posted by Gresto

As a slight excursus to this Pomo discussion, Minneapolis's Wells Fargo Center is probably the nicest skyscraper built in the 1980s.

It's definitely very nice and WFC, like many César Pelli designs, looks amazing at night. He/his firm designed many icons throughout the decades.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_works_by_C%C3%A9sar_Pelli

Originally Posted by zoomer

That is a fantastic shot of the Hamilton skyline! Add 2 or 3 signature towers and it will be competing with Edmonton for number 5 in my books.

Unfortunately everything Hamilton is building is in between the 30-34 storey range (thanks to Niagara escarpment "the mountain" height restrictions). Tabletop skyline enthusiasts rejoice
The only tall proposal is on the waterfront.

[Nouvellecosse]

Interestingly enough, my favourite of the big three is the IDS Tower, the other blue glass building. It's the most similar to Scotia in that they're both POMO/Modernist fusions with restrained designs with flat roof lines and are both much wider in one dimension than the other. And both successfully empathize the sense of soaring height without setbacks.

I also quite enjoy the WFC, but the Capella tower... I like the role it plays in the skyline but I'm very lukewarm on it in terms of its own individual merits. That's what's so funny about POMO. I don't even consider it a single style, but rather a style category which explains why examples can be so vastly different from one another. You can have re-imagined versions of other styles like Art Deco, Gothic or Classical but with contemporary materials and construction techniques (like WFC is with deco). Or you can have various fusion styles that can combine anywhere from a couple to numerous design cues from other styles and eras.

[Maldive]

Casa Loma


TwinHuey

[Coldrsx]

Kelowna

[ScreamingViking]

Very recent too.
(and yes to Wigs' comment... there's a height limit and the tallest proposals are either on the waterfront [and within the "plane" of the limit] or out on a suburban lakefront block with unlimited height zoning that nobody noticed until something very tall for the area was proposed) but I think once things are 'built out' more there will be some taller towers downtown. In the meantime, it's what we live with locally.

Originally Posted by 905er

Great view of Hamilton taken from realtor.ca

One from the harbour, courtesy the local news "paper"

[kool maudit]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

Interestingly enough, my favourite of the big three is the IDS Tower, the other blue glass building. It's the most similar to Scotia in that they're both POMO/Modernist fusions with restrained designs with flat roof lines and are both much wider in one dimension than the other. And both successfully empathize the sense of soaring height without setbacks.

I always liked IDS as well. When it was built, it gave Minneapolis a skyline not unlike Toronto's right after the first two TD towers went up, with Foshay playing the role of Commerce Court North.

Those big '70s prismatic, large-floorplate buildings are great, and unlikely to be seen again anytime soon. They strike me in the same way that seeing an old L-1011 on the tarmac does. Another time. Hancock Tower in Boston is great, too, although Sears and the Hancock in Chicago take the '70s for me.

They're just on another level of '70s American grandiosity, like the old WTC.

They are almost of a piece with things like this. Almost gratuitous. Cigarettes and cheap gas. Altamont. Pre-malaise giants like the last leviathans of the Cretaceous.

[Zeej]

Originally Posted by WhipperSnapper

PoMo isn't PoMo without some Tim Burton Batman whimsy.

This really nails it.

[hipster duck]

Originally Posted by kool maudit

In fact, I would say that PVM and the Prudential in Boston are the buildings that transport me to that Mad Man, managerial era most effectively.

For me, that would be the Pan Am building, although I can't underscore how much of an impression PVM would have made to Canadians in 1962.

I don't think people think about it much today, but Gordon Bunshaft's One Chase Manhattan Plaza, which topped out in 1959, and was the first tower in Lower Manhattan to rub shoulders with pre-Depression era giants like 70 Pine and 40 Wall. The Dow Jones Industrial Average finally caught up to what it had been before Black Tuesday in 1954 and, not long after, planning for towers like this began.

My high school's library had a copy of Arnold Toynbee's Cities of Destiny, which was a coffee table book published in 1967 that had an abridged history for middle class consumers of the world's great civilizations with a focus on important cities since antiquity. New York, of course, made up the final chapter for the 20th century, and the chapter began with a huge, full-page, bird's eye photograph of the Chase Manhattan tower.