Retaining Wall
What Do You Think You're Looking At? #167
This Google Maps image was taken in September 2023, in Toronto:
An old industrial building in the middle of demolition.
It’s the square, flat structure just to the left of the middle here: an old warehouse for the liquor control board—apparently an iconic structure in the city—by the waterfront. In this image, the building hasn’t been demolished yet:
The website Urban Toronto featured a photo of the demolition under the headline “Wholesale Destruction.” But that’s not quite right.
It actually hasn’t been demolished—even now. Are they just taking their sweet time?
Nope. This image, from a later tweet by Urban Toronto’s Twitter account, shows the demolition in its final state:
The tweet explains: “What’s left standing of #Toronto’s iconic old LCBO headquarters will soon serve as heritage walls for the future second phase of Sugar Wharf Condominiums.”
This is the rendering for that project. Look way, way at the bottom of the two towers just to the left of center:
Now I’ve got nothing against tall buildings, and I’m a big fan of adaptive reuse: where an old building is reused for some different use than it was originally conceived. Factories and warehouses to apartments, big-box stores to medical facilities, industrial facilities to markets. Some of these are very practical, others are a form of historic preservation that allows us to keep something old in use in a new way.
I’ve also seen this method of keeping a sign or a piece of a facade as a homage to the previous structure. I tend to like that compromise. I’m not sure, however, if this is just a little bit absurd. At best, it preserves a little bit of old-fashioned street-level ornamentation. But at worst, it almost makes a mockery of the old thing, wearing it like a skimpy skinsuit. Like a hunter wearing a coonskin cap.
What I mean is, trying too hard to “acknowledge” something that’s basically over and done with might not always be worthwhile or productive.
What do YIMBYs and generally pro-growth urbanist folks think of this—“heritage walls,” reusing bits and pieces of old structures in ways that are completely symbolic and of questionable utility or historic value?
Curious if my initial sense here is consistent with general opinion or not!
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If this kind of silliness is what it takes to get neighborhood acceptance of a project -- especially a project that looks as transformative as this -- then obviously one has to say "ok that's fine." But on the merits it seems unnecessary at best.
I like it.
Then again, I don’t overthink things .