Why Old Buildings Matter

Toronto impresario (I have no idea what that word means) Ed Mirvish has hired Star Architect Frank Gehry to design three enormous (and enormously profitable) towers for him on a site protected by Heritage designation. Mirvish owns the site but, because of the Heritage classification, can't tear down his own buildings. Gehry was brought in to convince the appropriate municipal bodies that Heritage protection should be waved: here is the National Post article. Instead of arguing against Heritage in this particular case, Gehry argued against it generally. He thinks there are only two buildings worth protecting in all of Toronto (there were three but one was already demolished). Why these three buildings? They all play some role in Gehry's own life. And here is the fundamental stupidity in Gehry's argument - two buildings are worth protecting because they are important to me. What might be important to other people is unimportant because I am Frank Fucking Gehry. 

I'd love to leave criticism of the proposed scheme out of this and just deal with the heritage argument but I can't because it is so shit. It is the worst kind of architecture, eschewing thought in favour of "iconic" visuals. These are buildings that are meant to be viewed from far, far away and no other consideration has been allowed to impinge on how they will look in a photo. It goes without saying that to photograph an 80-something story building you have to be far away from it. Architecture, as a plastic art, is about form and proportion. These buildings, like all of Gehry's famous works, lack all consideration for proportion. They are formal gestures. With the Guggenheim, Gehry had the freedom to create a form; museums allow for various forms. Designing a condo tower, Gehry is trapped by the nature of the beast. Condos are tall and thin. You can try to do something interesting with that shape, you can try to cover up the fact you can't do anything interesting with that shape that hasn't already been done a thousand times. Gehry has chosen the latter. I don't know a single architect who thinks these buildings don't suck. A lot of real estate developers think they're great. And Christopher Hume, the nominally credentialed ass-kisser who writes about architecture for the Toronto Star, apparently thinks they are the only ambitious architecture in the city. Hume is correct the city needs more ambitious architecture but completely (absolutely, totally, synonym synonym) wrong to tie that argument to this project. Christopher, if you happen to read this, you are completely wrong. The project has opponents for many more (and much more complex) reasons than because it is "ambitious". The only aspect of this project that is ambitious is Mirvish, Gehry, and your attempts to convince us this isn't complete shit. That's an ambitious project. 

Anyway. Even if this was the best proposal ever and everyone loved it, Gehry's arguments about Heritage protection (and Hume's) are absurd. Ever since Conrad Hilton started building versions of the same hotel in cities around the world, architects and critics have been watching with dread fascination as the world's cities started to resemble each other more and more. Different names for this phenomenon have been coined at different times but my favourite is generic city. I don't know if Koolhaas invented the term or adapted it. Essentially the generic city is composed of all the elements a city requires plus all the shit global corporations put up everywhere. Neil Stephenson performs a partial topology in his novel Snow Crash but refers to the system of strip-malls, fast food outlets, car lots and muffler repair shops by the term loglo - the distinctive light (predominantly red) cast by the signs spinning on their pylons. The city reduced to mass transit, double loaded commercial streets and punctuated at predictable intervals with conglomerations of tall buildings that we call downtowns. 

There are reasons Toronto does not look like Atlanta, Shanghai, Tokyo, Miami, Vancouver, or Mumbai. Most of those reasons can be figured out by looking at the oldest buildings. Of course, having a chronology of buildings to work from, representatives of each epoch in a city's history, makes the job much simpler. Gehry's argument (that the only things worth preserving are buildings he, personally, considers important) is beneath destroying. Hume's argument (that the city's form is stunted by a fear of ambitious architecture) is partially correct but, in this context, irrelevant. We don't save old buildings because they are beautiful - although it's a nice side benefit. We don't just save them because they are old. We preserve them because they tell the story of the city in a form that is more accessible, and more honest, than written histories. We save them because we don't want to become Atlanta - that most generic and hollow of cities. 

Gehry ought to know better but he's been huffing his own fame for so long his brain might be fried. Hume should know better, or his employers should. If anyone from the Toronto Star reads this, you might want to have someone who appreciates architecture writing about architecture for you. As it happens, I have some time on my hands. Just saying. 

Toronto has two prominent architecture critics at its major papers and both of them are, how can I put this charitably? 

Still thinking....

They're shit. 

Recently the Globe and Mail published this piece about the Ripley's Aquarium. Let me explain why this is a great piece. It's dead on about the design. The author actually bothered to talk to the architects. And he is taking a dump on a building designed by a prominent Toronto firm. That's 3 big thumbs-up. Not that shitting on T.O. firms is necessarily good but it takes nerve. I doubt the designers at B+H are surprised by the piece. They are a good firm and smart enough to know when they are taking a crap on the streets of Toronto.