Comment 2881

By schmadrian (registered) | Posted January 10, 2007 at 15:13:47

Here's what my pal Anthony had to say in an email he sent me after I'd raised once again the spectre of The Tivoli, when the 'proposed designs' for the front of the theatre were referenced here once again. This is what he said:

"I saw all four of these when RTH first published them.

They're all gross.

(If these came from high school students, I'd fail 'em.)

With the auditorium presumably intact, building a replacement front-of-house is a no brainer, programming-wise. When it comes to the exterior elevations and how it interacts with the street, forget about constructing another 'building' in front as existed before (although, obviously, the original was quite lovely). The downtown certainly doesn't need more rental space (hello, Lister Block?)

Keep the open space, the square, in front (the homeless will thank us later) Have the front entrance set back from the street, as in a couple of the schemes. But I think there's a real opportunity in creating that new entrance, something that could be a real gem in the right hands. And I'm not talking about anything even remotely pseudo-classical. Nothing will replace the original, so why even bother.

I've come across soooo many examples of small, infill-type projects in the last few years. There's architectural firms who've built reputations on them - just the right building for just the right space in just the right neighbourhood that needed it. And this is the perfect design challenge.

Makes me want to run around Toronto snapping photos of small, understated entrances that work. Or new construction that acts as a gateway to something existing in a historical context."

I won't add anything else right now...other than to say that I haven't been able to access the Skyscraper page all day...

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