HomeDiagramsDatabaseMapsForum About
     

Go Back   SkyscraperPage Forum > Regional Sections > Canada


Reply

 
Thread Tools Display Modes
     
     
  #1  
Old Posted Feb 26, 2020, 8:40 PM
MonkeyRonin's Avatar
MonkeyRonin MonkeyRonin is online now
¥ ¥ ¥
 
Join Date: Sep 2006
Location: Vancouver
Posts: 9,874
The Great Canadian Brutalism Appreciation Thread

How about some love for this under appreciated style? We have some fantastic examples of it across Canada too!

I'll start with what I think is ones of the coolest buildings in the country - the Andrews Building at UofT's Scarborough campus. Designed by John Andrews and Page & Steele Architects, it was completed in 1964:



https://oaa.on.ca/bloaag-detail/Andr...ding,-UTSC/524


https://www.pinterest.es/pin/501729214723094801/


https://discoverarchives.library.uto...orough-library


https://twitter.com/utsc/status/772124519502721024


https://www.reddit.com/r/brutalism/c...toronto_photo/


https://tnq.ca/why-i-value-the-humanities-wing/




https://andresalvador.smugmug.com/AR...ARIO/i-p5ftFZT
__________________
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #2  
Old Posted Feb 26, 2020, 8:49 PM
OldDartmouthMark OldDartmouthMark is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: May 2010
Posts: 8,423
Your post reminds me of a blog I like to read from time to time. The writer seems to be a fan of brutalist/modernist architecture.

Here's a link:

https://halifaxbloggers.ca/noticedinnovascotia/

The blog as a search function where you could enter "brutalist", "concrete", etc. if you want to find those posts specifically.
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #4  
Old Posted Feb 26, 2020, 9:12 PM
Pavlov's Avatar
Pavlov Pavlov is offline
Khan
 
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Kingston, Ontario
Posts: 4,915
Great idea for a thread.
__________________
Confucius says:
With coarse rice to eat, with water to drink, and my bended arm for a pillow - I have still joy in the midst of these things. Riches and honors acquired by unrighteousness are to me as a floating cloud.
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #5  
Old Posted Feb 26, 2020, 9:16 PM
MonkeyRonin's Avatar
MonkeyRonin MonkeyRonin is online now
¥ ¥ ¥
 
Join Date: Sep 2006
Location: Vancouver
Posts: 9,874
__________________
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #6  
Old Posted Feb 26, 2020, 9:21 PM
misher's Avatar
misher misher is offline
BANNED
 
Join Date: Jul 2018
Posts: 4,537
Simon Fraser University (1965) another Arthur Erikson design.





Reply With Quote
     
     
  #7  
Old Posted Feb 26, 2020, 9:26 PM
jigglysquishy's Avatar
jigglysquishy jigglysquishy is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Jul 2010
Location: Saskatchewan
Posts: 3,326
I've yet to see a brutalist building anywhere in the world that is not depressing and ugly.
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #8  
Old Posted Feb 26, 2020, 9:33 PM
misher's Avatar
misher misher is offline
BANNED
 
Join Date: Jul 2018
Posts: 4,537
Quote:
Originally Posted by jigglysquishy View Post
I've yet to see a brutalist building anywhere in the world that is not depressing and ugly.
Quote:
49. In a recent Forbes interview, Hollywood director Steward Hendler, whose upcoming film Halo was partly shot at SFU, described the campus as having “incredible, brutal concrete architecture. It actually has the highest suicide rate of any campus in Canada because it is so bleak, but that worked in our favour because it really feels like something from outer space.” In fact, the alleged high suicide rate is an urban legend that has been around — and been proven false — since the early 1980s.
https://theprovince.com/news/local-n...ser-university
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #10  
Old Posted Feb 26, 2020, 9:49 PM
FrankieFlowerpot's Avatar
FrankieFlowerpot FrankieFlowerpot is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Aug 2012
Posts: 3,391
Robarts Library (aka the Turkey) - UofT

Reply With Quote
     
     
  #11  
Old Posted Feb 26, 2020, 9:56 PM
milomilo milomilo is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Dec 2013
Location: Calgary
Posts: 10,499
Quote:
Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin View Post
Arthur Erickson's University of Lethbridge, opened in 1967:
Exactly what I was going to post. A lot of Brutalism is ugly, but one is awesome, looks like it is out a sci fi movie. It seems more rare today to build something that is so starkly contradsts with the natural landscape, now we view every inch of earth as sacrosanct.
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #12  
Old Posted Feb 26, 2020, 9:56 PM
Chadillaccc's Avatar
Chadillaccc Chadillaccc is offline
ARTchitecture
 
Join Date: Feb 2011
Location: Cala Ghearraidh
Posts: 22,842
Love this thread. Does anyone know the building they use for the stand in of the Mars Congressional Republic Embassy on Earth in The Expanse? The scenes in the UN capital (New York) are mostly filmed in Toronto, so I figured it's there somewhere.






Edit: Omg It's the first post on this page! U of T Scarborough! Wild.
__________________
Strong & Free

Mohkínstsis — 1.6 million people at the Foothills of the Rocky Mountains, 400 high-rises, a 300-metre SE to NW climb, over 1000 kilometres of pathways, with 20% of the urban area as parkland.
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #13  
Old Posted Feb 26, 2020, 9:59 PM
FrankieFlowerpot's Avatar
FrankieFlowerpot FrankieFlowerpot is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Aug 2012
Posts: 3,391
It's the first building in the OP
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #14  
Old Posted Feb 26, 2020, 10:18 PM
Chadillaccc's Avatar
Chadillaccc Chadillaccc is offline
ARTchitecture
 
Join Date: Feb 2011
Location: Cala Ghearraidh
Posts: 22,842
Quote:
Originally Posted by FrankieFlowerpot View Post
It's the first building in the OP
Yeah haha I had already edited the bottom of my post before you mentioned that I felt dumb. To be fair though, it doesn't show an entrance shot like the one I posted.



The former Calgary Board of Education building. It has so much potential to be an awesome institutional building downtown, but it's been sitting idle for around a decade now.


https://calgary.skyrisecities.com/ne...-citys-history


It reminds me a little of the south side of Vancouver's Robson Square, the part attached to the BC Courthouse. It has soooo much potential, but it's just rotting. Thankfully they restored the 'Family of Man' sculptures a couple years ago though.


https://www.westonlangford.com/images/photo/401313/



https://www.flickr.com/photos/volvob12b/8068145941
__________________
Strong & Free

Mohkínstsis — 1.6 million people at the Foothills of the Rocky Mountains, 400 high-rises, a 300-metre SE to NW climb, over 1000 kilometres of pathways, with 20% of the urban area as parkland.
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #15  
Old Posted Feb 26, 2020, 10:35 PM
Gresto's Avatar
Gresto Gresto is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Jul 2009
Location: Toronto
Posts: 3,738
Quote:
Originally Posted by Pavlov View Post
Great idea for a thread.
I have a lot of affection for brutalism, though I can understand why many find it an aesthetic of frigidity, impersonalness, and despair.
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #16  
Old Posted Feb 26, 2020, 10:41 PM
rousseau's Avatar
rousseau rousseau is offline
Registered Drug User
 
Join Date: Feb 2006
Location: Southern Ontario
Posts: 8,116
Quote:
Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin View Post
How about some love for this under appreciated style?
None from me. It's an interesting curiosity, but it is always deleterious in an urban context.

I challenge anyone to post a photo of a brutalist building in a city that isn't ugly in and of itself and/or makes its surroundings worse.
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #17  
Old Posted Feb 26, 2020, 10:45 PM
FrankieFlowerpot's Avatar
FrankieFlowerpot FrankieFlowerpot is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Aug 2012
Posts: 3,391
222 Jarvis Street

Reply With Quote
     
     
  #18  
Old Posted Feb 26, 2020, 11:12 PM
Djeffery Djeffery is online now
Registered User
 
Join Date: Oct 2017
Location: London
Posts: 4,450
Courthouse, London Ontario.

Reply With Quote
     
     
  #19  
Old Posted Feb 26, 2020, 11:15 PM
Djeffery Djeffery is online now
Registered User
 
Join Date: Oct 2017
Location: London
Posts: 4,450
Weldon Library, Western University, London.
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #20  
Old Posted Feb 26, 2020, 11:21 PM
WarrenC12 WarrenC12 is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: May 2007
Location: East OV!
Posts: 21,617
Quote:
Originally Posted by jigglysquishy View Post
I've yet to see a brutalist building anywhere in the world that is not depressing and ugly.
SFU is extra depressing due to the weather in Vancouver. It's cloudy for 6 months, rainy for most of that. SFU is high enough that it gets more fog from low hanging clouds.

It used to be very isolating up there for people who lived on campus, since there were no "stores" for groceries, etc. You had to drive down the mountain, or take the bus. Pretty isolating for people moving from somewhere else.

The environment is better now with more private development and a bit of a community forming.
Reply With Quote
     
     
This discussion thread continues

Use the page links to the lower-right to go to the next page for additional posts
 
 
Reply

Go Back   SkyscraperPage Forum > Regional Sections > Canada
Forum Jump


Thread Tools
Display Modes

Forum Jump


All times are GMT. The time now is 2:30 AM.

     
SkyscraperPage.com - Archive - Privacy Statement - Top

Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.7
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.