CBC Arts: Gehry says Toronto missed its chance with architecture

Ok, so maybe he sounds a little bit bitter.

Bitter at having to gain respect for his architecture outside of the country before Toronto would even look at him....

Bitter at the fact that - had he been given some important breaks in Toronto, he might have been able to really revitalize its design over the last two decades, rather than just swooping in now with an AGO project.

Bitter because a. Toronto's architecture has been historically conservative, stodgy and decidedly anti-avant-garde. and b. it is SO typically Canadian to not take chances with art and architecture until the artists/architects in question are thoroughly entrenched in the industry elsewhere. And that's frustrating.

In other words, by all rights, Toronto should have been "so over" Gehry by now. They should have had their Gehry moment at least a decade ago and today, Herzon and de Meuron should be wearing hard hats around the construction sites of that fair city.

And if I had anything to say about it - Toronto would have had an awesome Anish Kapoor "bean" far before Chicago even dreamed up a millenium park:
but that's just my little preference because I love it.

Essentially Gehry says in this article what Torontonians need to hear AGAIN. This whole city needs to be reoriented to take advantage of its crowning glory (it's the lake, stupid). This topographic feature may come as a surprise to those who thought that the southern parts of the city were reserved for highways, byways, and ugly cookiecutter condos transplanted from Seoul and Hong Kong, designed to permanently cut the rest of the city off from its waterfront. Here it is:

This is not to say that I am not thrilled with the Opera House project, the AGO, the new OCAD bldg, and the amazing ROM. Those are all fantastic initiatives. But they are initiatives that exist within a bubble - they will be finished and city adminstrators may subsequently wash their hands of the whole "city design" affair.

They should instead be looked at as the beginning of a movement away from perceiving the city in terms of pockets, and instead instituting a vision - finally thinking about how it all works and looks together.

Until that happens, I might be inclined to agree with Gehry - the city of missed chances. Toronto take a chance?? Surely I jest.