Wings worth traveling for

Rosalynn is shooting a TV commercial in Buffalo next week and I’m trying (desperately) to convince her to same day courier me some Buffalo wings from the Anchor Bar.

If you live in Toronto and haven’t made the trip south yet for these wings… What are you waiting for!

While you’re in Buffalo make sure you visit the three Frank Lloyd Wright houses there, including the spectacular, recently renovated Darwin Martin House Complex.

Toronto gets a new building by Will Alsop

I’m late to this, but if you haven’t heard already Toronto is getting a new design by the British architect Will Alsop. The building will be the flagship for the mammoth new film studio development being installed in the portlands – Filmport.

Most people in Toronto will know Alsop by his incredible (and incredibly controversial) Sharp Centre for Design at the Ontario College of Art and Design.

Although I’m by no means a raving Will Alsop fan I do really appreciate the amount of high profile commissioning going on in Toronto right now. Buildings like this pave the way for more innovative design in this city – something that benefits Toronto in many ways. There are the obvious pluses like increased tourism of course, but beyond that I think beautiful, challenging architecture creates a much more inspiring urban climate for citizens. When we are surrounded by buildings that challenge us I believe it becomes easier for us all to have thoughts and ideas beyond the ordinary and mediocre.

First impression of the Lee-Chin Crystal

I was lucky enough to visit the architectural opening of the Lee-Chin Crystal at the ROM today. Here are some first impressions:

Daniel Libeskind has created an incredibly bold piece of architecture for Toronto. I think the Crystal will give architects permission to push the boundaries a little more in a city that has a generally conservative approach to public space. Now architects can tell their critics, “sure, it’s a little crazy, but it’s not as crazy as Libeskind’s Crystal!”

There are a few areas in the Crystal that open up – the atrium and the top floor for example. These have a fantastic uplifting feel and are some of my favourite parts of the building.

Unfortunately, one of the main things people were discussing in the Crystal was the fact that it wasn’t finished. There were floor grills missing, loose wire hanging from the ceiling and muddy footprints on some of the low walls. For a lot of people it was hard to look past this.

At many points in the Crystal Daniel Libeskind shows us the mechanics of the building. He used floor grills, uncovered stairs and glass to give us an idea of how the building functions and what holds it together.

The light is, not surprisingly, pretty spectacular in some of the spaces. As I wandered through the building it was interesting to watch people drawn to it – congregating around the windows.

A building as spectacular as this certainly didn’t need balloons at the entrance :(.

One of my favourite things about visiting the opening of the Crystal this weekend was seeing how excited Toronto got about it. This was the line for tickets on Saturday. It stretched down University and a block into Harbord. It’s not often that architecture takes centre stage in Toronto and I’m very glad that this weekend it did.

FOR MORE ABOUT THE OPENING OF THE LEE-CHIN CRYSTAL:

• Marc at Torontoist has a great post with lots of photos.
• Kagan McLeod and John Richardson from The National Post created a cool animated fly through.
• And for the real fan, there is always the live webcam.

Line up for the opening of the crystal at the ROM

If you are thinking of coming to the architectural opening of the crystal at the ROM – hurry! The line up is already down University and a block into Harbord.

Doors Open Toronto

I am a little bit obsessed with modern architecture. So I’m looking forward to Doors Open Toronto this weekend where I’ll finally get a look at the perfectly preserved 54th floor of the Mies van der Rohe designed Toronto-Dominion Centre.

There are literally hundreds of interesting buildings around town throwing their doors open this weekend. Others that we’ll try and visit include:

Thomas L. Wells Public School
St. Gabriel’s Passionist Parish
SAS Building
Ontario College of Art & Design
Levitt Goodman House
Gardiner Museum
City Hall
Canada’s National Ballet School
Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts

I look forward to seeing everyone’s photos on flickr on Sunday night.

Das Park Hotel

I think by now you are probably starting to get a feel for my taste in architecture ;).

I came across Das Park Hotel today via this blog. If you find yourself in Ottensheim – in the summer! – this place looks like a fun experiment.

I’d like to live here, for a little while

I’ve always respected people who take things to extremes. For example a friend of mine in London decorated his flat in a modernist hunting lodge theme – white floors, ceilings and walls + taxidermy + ultra modernist clear plastic furniture. It’s not the most traditionally inviting house but it is absolutely spectacular.

The Reversible Destiny Lofts by Arakawa and Madeline Gins (via Caterina) look like another living concept taken to the extreme:

Painted in eye-catching blue, pink, red, yellow and other bright colors, the building resembles the indoor playgrounds that attract toddlers at fast-food restaurants. Inside, each apartment features a dining room with a grainy, surfaced floor that slopes erratically, a sunken kitchen and a study with a concave floor. Electric switches are located in unexpected places on the walls so you have to feel around for the right one. A glass door to the veranda is so small you have to bend to crawl out. You constantly lose balance and gather yourself up, grab onto a column and occasionally trip and fall.

Even worse, there’s no closet space; residents will have to find a way to live there, since the apartment offers only a few solutions. “You’ll learn to figure it out,” says Arakawa. Ten minutes of stumbling around is enough to send even the healthiest young person over the edge. Arakawa says that’s precisely the point. “[The apartment] makes you alert and awakens instincts, so you’ll live better, longer and even forever,” says the artist.

- quoted from a Newsweek article.