Quote:
Originally Posted by Marshal
I'm new here ( a bit late to the party), and I don't want to start on a negative, but this one bugs me . . .
This project is beyond all control. As big as it is, it cannot carry the 200+ separate ideas that have been crammed into it. Indeed any architectural strategy is strongly frustrated by the inability to edit these ideas into some kind of cohesion or even a complex of cohesions and contrasts. I know of no other project that has tried so hard to do it all, and all at the same time. This thing makes the Nordstrom redo seem downright minimalistic. I can only guess what kind of process went on within the Henriquez office. Its as if the kids were let loose and all parental control was abbrogated. (Please note, this is a real issue in large practices which rely on relatively young design talent.)
But there is a positive to this. Has everyone noticed that buildings that were upsetting during their design presentation, construction, and a certain period of newness almost always fade from our relative experience of the city. Maybe after a few years you find yourself on a bench facing one of these structures and you receive a little shock: wow, I forgot about this one. Is it ever ugly. But mostly they become part of the larger fabric and exist in a realm in which design is a highly reduced aspect. Most buildings become background, and so they should. Significant architecture then stands out against their context. The difference in architectural scope, quality and urban contribution varies across a spectrum. It is this that allows us to experience the city in a meaningful manner. Vancouver has a pretty solid background, and its urban quality will benifet from the addition of quite a number of architecturally significant projects in the future. It's getting there.
Now, Telus: the scale of this thing, along with its location, means that it was an opportunity to be a major architectural contribution. It fails for the reasons cited above. Regardless, it will contribute significantly at the level of a few obvious smaller scale aspects . . . things that photograph well and attract the public eye. But it will also succeed (as will the Nordstom cacophony) because it offers our experience a relatively rich "at hand" public interface. The crazy lack of restraint will fade into our collective backgrounds, and we will forget it. To me, this means the wound will heal. And we will be left with a relatively rich block which will serve the city well.
|
You can never get the right kind of architecture built in this town, especially for a building with a larger footprint. The City wants to break up the mass, and height restrictions (eg, the hated viewcone) come into play to create the messes that you and I are seeing in this town.
With that said, I do love the "urban contribution" (as you aptly put) of the Telus Garden. It makes walking eastwards of the Scotiabank tower all the more enjoyable.
I do, however, hate those tents put up by Glowbal and I think they should be removed. Just close the patio for the winter. Heating it just makes no sense in the winter, and CoV wants to be the greenest City by 2020?
Prev
Linear Mode
