Though it is a key orientation point in the urban grid, and the site of an important crossing in the subway system, the intersection of Bloor and Yonge streets has long been outstanding for its vulgarity. This central place, which should be exciting, is currently framed by a couple of ugly high-rise office buildings, the dreary concrete hulk of the Hudson's Bay Company, and, on the south-east corner, a shabby little structure of no architectural merit.
There have been some attempts by developers to make Bloor and Yonge into something better. In early 2005, a sleek 60-storey skyscraper was proposed for 1 Bloor Street East — currently the site of the worthless little building — by the Toronto firm Young and Wright. Then, ownership of the place changed. Its new developer, Bazis International, a company with origins in Kazakhstan, stepped up earlier this year with a new vision of what should happen at 1 Bloor East: a shopping centre, luxury hotel and residential complex, rising to 80 storeys, designed by Toronto artist and architect Roy Varacalli. (Mr. Varacalli recently became design chief at Bazis.)
The old scheme had some attractive features. It was big enough, for one thing. The intersection — potentially one of Canada's great addresses — needs the strong, urbane identity that tall buildings can deliver. The former plan also had some nice swing. As it rose from the base, the mass of the west-facing half of the building slid away from a central blade, leaning toward downtown, while the east-facing volume made a similar slight bow in the direction of suburbia. These very large slides and bends in space promised to make the tower sprightly, dynamic — a beacon in the nearby grid of streets and blockish buildings, strongly expressing the significance of Bloor and Yonge.
Last Week, Bazis opened its sales office on Bloor, and unveiled a new version of the tower at 1 Bloor East, again by Mr. Varacalli. This final design is worse than big and bad. It's big and ordinary.
The condominium tower at 1 Bloor Street East is set to rise 80 storeys and will include retail space and a hotel.
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The podium has been chopped down from four storeys to three in Mr. Varacalli's latest rendition. Four storeys was right. That height gave the tower imposing presence at street level and a solid sense of heft. At three storeys, the base of the building simply matches the low-rise facades of too many main-street commercial structures in Toronto, instead of weighing in with something more assertive and distinctive. (The total proposed height of the tower still stands at 80 storeys — though it remains to be seen whether city officials will eventually whack off a few storeys at the top, as they are inclined to do.)
One interesting aspect of the earlier podium arrangement, however, has survived. It's an installation of a loosely looping fabric embedded with light-emitting diodes, sweeping around the base. This feature is intended to sparkle with advertising messages, but will also serve as a medium for art: Mr. Varacalli would like to invite video artists to make pieces for display here.
But no amount of lively art at the base will compensate for the architect's simplification of the main shaft of the tower. For the chic shifting planes in the earlier version, Mr. Varacalli has substituted straight up-and-down volumes arrayed on the vertical blade of reflective glass. To activate the surface of the tower, he has created a double skin, with inner and outer elements separated by five feet of terrace. Homeowners in the 596 apartments ($300,000 to $2-million) will be able to open and shut apertures in the outer skin, presumably giving it variety and a bit of visual jump. Though I'm willing to be persuaded otherwise — by the actual building, that is, which should be up in about four years' time — I am not convinced this expedient will make the building's shaft any more elegant and refined than your basic, everyday office tower.
Then there are those fins at the top. Like the LED scrim at the base, these upswept, sharp ornaments — Mr. Varacalli likens them to the tailfins on a Cadillac from the 1950s — have been brought from the earlier scheme into this one. They beat dropping a funny hat on the building, I suppose, or making its lid flat. But what will they add to the city's skyline, other than a little quirky novelty?
Bloor and Yonge deserves something better and more architecturally dashing. What's now planned for the southeast corner of the intersection just isn't good enough.
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