Great Canadian Skyline Thread II - Page 426

SkahHigh · #**8501** Posted **Aug 13, 2018, 11:20 PM**

Montreal from distance by Dominic Labbe, sur Flickr

Hali87 · #**8502** Posted **Aug 14, 2018, 12:31 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by mistercorporate

by Bernard Y Yip on flickr

Whoa! Sam's still exists!?

koops65 · #**8503** Posted **Aug 14, 2018, 12:54 AM**

Just the sign... the store is gone.

CountryMike · #**8504** Posted **Aug 14, 2018, 1:28 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by koops65

Just the sign... the store is gone.

There is still one in Belleville.

dleung · #**8505** Posted **Aug 14, 2018, 6:06 AM**

Vancouver's only gotten a couple iconic towers in this boom (Vancouver House and Trump Tower), but will be quickly tripling its roster with Kengo Kuma, the Butterfly, the jenga tower, and 400 W Georgia. Also has it pretty good in terms of getting architecturally significant tower additions (West Pender Place, Jameson House, Woodwards, Carina/Callisto, the Flatiron, Shangri-la, and MNP which was a treat since it snuck up out of nowhere, for a plaza no one thought anything could fit on, and was finished 3 years after the first render came out.

No new iconic towers in Toronto besides Absolute world, but I like EY tower, Rivercity 3, the Selby, and, am a huge fan of E-condos. I want to like Harbour Plaza, but the balcony-patterns market is beyond saturated now.

theman23 · #**8506** Posted **Aug 14, 2018, 6:55 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hali87

Would it be wrong to suggest that the Dog Fountain is more iconic than any single building built in Toronto during the current boom? Or maybe the TORONTO "letters"? The Regent Park redevelopment is one example of a development there that captures part of the current zeitgeist (for better or worse), although I'd hesitate to call it "iconic" in the sense of "recognizable structures".

In Halifax the current boom has resulted in the Central Library and the Nova Centre, both of which are actually pretty iconic in both the "recognizable building" and "captures part of the zeitgeist" ways. Before these buildings we had Purdy's Wharf and the Citadel/Town Clock, but that was about it as far as icons go. I'm not sure the Nova Centre would be considered iconic if we were starting with the kind of cityscape Toronto has, although I think the library still would be.

Across Canada, we've also got the CMHR and True North Square in Winnipeg, Remai Modern and River Landing in Saskatoon, new arena in Edmonton, The Bow, Peace Bridge, and Telus Sky in Calgary (not sure whether their new library and that big new music centre are considered iconic, but I'd lean towards yes), the BC Place overhaul, Vancouver House, and Woodward Building in Van, as well as a few others I'm probably forgetting. I'm sure some of these would be considered iconic if plunked down in Toronto but others would not. There are probably Toronto equivalents of some of these projects that get lost in the noise. The "highrise with a small Edwardian house as part of its podium" is what I think of as being iconic of today's Toronto as far as architecture goes, but more the general concept than any specific building.

Montreal has a disproportionate number of iconic buildings from the mid-century, like Habitat, the Olympic Stadium, and all the weird relics left over from Expo.

With the exception of CMHR and the Vancouver buildings you listed, I've never heard of any of these "iconic" buildings you sounded off on. In the meantime, you're completely forgot about the ROM, AGO, OCAD, Dundas Square and probably a few others in Toronto.

You are right about things getting lost in the noise - I go back to Toronto only once a year now, and it seems like every year there's a dozen new high rises of note that have gone up. A good chunk of them are just as noteworthy as anything else that goes up in Canada.

Hali87 · #**8507** Posted **Aug 14, 2018, 9:38 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by theman23

With the exception of CMHR and the Vancouver buildings you listed, I've never heard of any of these "iconic" buildings you sounded off on. In the meantime, you're completely forgot about the ROM, AGO, OCAD, Dundas Square and probably a few others in Toronto.

You are right about things getting lost in the noise - I go back to Toronto only once a year now, and it seems like every year there's a dozen new high rises of note that have gone up. A good chunk of them are just as noteworthy as anything else that goes up in Canada.

Again:

- I was thinking mostly about things that have been built within the last few years (how long is a "boom" before it's just "the new normal"?). Depending on the timeframe yes Toronto has built tons of iconic stuff. For example everything you just mentioned there. Yup I'd consider those all iconic.

- I'm not super familiar with the construction dates of most buildings in Toronto (I'd honestly thought that OCAD building was from the 90s - not in a bad way).

I'm surprised that you've never heard of any of these other buildings. I learned about all of them through SSP, they all come up pretty often in the forums. They're probably worth checking out if you haven't heard of them. Maybe L Tower or whatever is "better" than some of them but I was thinking more about how they relate to their own cities, how they stand out, the amount of attention they get in architectural circles, etc. For example the Halifax Central Library is widely considered one of the best buildings built that year in the world. It won national and international awards and was included in various architectural top-10 lists over the past few years. Maybe these things don't get much attention outside Halifax though. The Peace Bridge is also quite famous (I'd be very surprised if it hasn't been nominated for any major awards). Remai Modern maybe a bit less so, but as far as recent buildings from Saskatoon go it seems like a fairly big deal (edit: just noticed you're from there lol)

I also tend to read the Canada threads but not the Toronto/Ontario subforums so there's that too.