If you haven’t already picked up your issue at Pages Books, you can now grab the Summer 2007 issue of Spacing at any of the stores in Toronto or across Canada. Make sure to tell the store how much you like Spacing so they keep putting us at the front of the newsstand.
There are many compelling articles included in the issue, but there is one particular item we want to draw your attention towards: the Waterfront Toronto advertising insert. Its a 10-panel fold-out that depicts Toronto’s waterfront development over the next 25 years. The 3-D rendering is jaw-dropping in detail (thanks to Urban Strategies) and highlights the distinct areas and eventual feel of the built urban form that will reside near the water’s edge. The insert will be one of those things you hang on a wall and pour over when you need to procrastinate or be distracted. The ad also helps us as citizens: too often we here people say “nothing is going on down at the waterfront.” This promotional piece let’s you see what will be there when the work is done and gives you a better sense of the waterfront’s future in an a part of town that is currently lacking in any sense of “place.”
17 comments
Is there a place online one could have a look at said graphic?
I’m in London, England – it’s hard to come by a copy of spacing on this side of the globe – though I still love my city.
I work at Urban Strategies – thanks for the nod!
I’ll see about posting a copy of the graphic on our website – I’ll put the information here to let you know.
Mary
They were also giving the TWRC inserts out at Luminato. I was thinking it’s almost worthy of framing at the time.
And here are the four words that signalled the end of _Spacing_ as you knew it:
“the Waterfront Toronto advertising insert.”
Yeah, it really spells the end of it for Spacing. Gimme a break.
The insert is fantastic! I got the issue at Pages this weekend and stared at the rendering for an hour.
This is the kind of ad that other ads should follow: it is informative and provides depth. What a concept. And somehow Spacing should be ridiculed for this? Ignore ’em, I sez.
I don’t think it’s fair to call it an ad. And, it’s freakin’ amazing!
One of the first things I did when I moved here was look for a boardwalk. Some east end girls told me to go to Main Street station and take the bus south.
Well, I took their advice and I didn’t exactly find what I was looking for.
This rendering assures me that someday, I will.
Yeah, give it a rest Joe Clark. This world would be boring if nothing ever changed.
If Spacing ever becomes like every other magazine with more ads than actual content, then you’d probably have a right to complain.
Hey Kevin: Forget the east-end. The west-end waterfront is heaven. There’s a jewel of a place near Parklawn and Lakeshore, close to where all the massive condo towers are. If you can block those out, you’ll find boardwalks, bike paths, boats on the water, cool breezes, serenity. HEAVEN.
Joe: a little over the top! 🙂
kevin: if WaterfronToronto paid for the inclusion of the insert, it’s more than fair to call it an ad. And fair too to wonder a little about whether this post, say, is an ad too. Also, I always thought the boardwalk at the beach(es) was lovely!
Anyway, I can’t wait to pick up the new spacing and have a look myself.
Sean: Where/when were they giving out the ad at Luminato??
Andrew – I picked up my copy of the insert at the foot of Parliament Street where the art in the containers were, waiting for the free boat shuttle.
As for the debate over the TWRC ad inserts (yes, it is an ad, it’s referred to as an ad above), has anyone noticed the ads that are already in Spacing at the back? They are not all that intrusive, the ones I can recall are the City of Toronto advertising the current exhibition at the archives, for example, or for new books out on Toronto. Stuff that readers would be interested in. If you don’t like the insert, throw it out, visual clutter gone. I thought it was neat myself and actually quite relevant to the theme of this issue.
Hi there,
Here’s a link to where I’ve posted a copy of the image. Enjoy!
Mary
http://www.urbanstrategies.com/index.php/news/archive/spacing_features_toronto_waterfront/
Mary:
Thanks! Let me know when it’s up!
Urban Strategies has drawn a beautiful rendering, but I don’t much like what it shows for the central waterfront. It should indicate a continuous promenade/boardwalk running from the Music Garden right over to Parliament Street. That would allow people to truly enjoy the inner harbour, at the same time inviting them to visit the wonderful new facilities that are planned along the way. Instead this rendering shows breaks in the promenade’s continuity at York Quay, at the Redpath sugar refinery and at Jarvis Street. This has the effect of breaking the central waterfront into three parts, leaving the middle part to rot in isolation, just as it does today. This middle part should be the liveliest part of the whole Waterfront, lined with restaurants and fun stuff, not to mention a new ferry terminal with direct access to transit.
I’m sorry, but beautiful renderings don’t impress me if they illustrate unimaginative deficient plans such as this…
It is always tempting to be wowed by beautiful pictures but they can be deceiving and the devil is always in the details. Waterfront Toronto’s plans for the outer harbour and northshore pose serious threat to the continued existence of the unique small boating clubs that are currently there. These clubs provide affordable (I am a kayaker belonging to the waterrats sailing club for $150/year) and accessible sailing, rowing, canoing, kayaking and windsurfing for Torontonians. For many of the clubs you don’t even need a boat, but use one of the cooperatively owned club boats.
While the WT plans look pretty, their proposal to move these clubs off the shore line and bring in sand from elsewhere to produce a new beach will make it much more difficult for people to get boats in the water and will create safety and security problems as boaters come in and out of the water over the new beech populated by pedestrians and swimmers.
Waterfront Toronto’s work on the nearby soccerfields on Unwin makes me even more wary: Where once there was lush wildness, now there is a mound of contaminated dirt blowing in the wind which is to be covered with astroturf for soccer. (Originally this was to be in place for the IFLA championships now underway). More than 1000 trees were felled for this, and while new trees are promised, they of course will be small and take a generation to take root… Take a look for yourselves…..If this is waterfront revitalization, then I’m a luddite.
That “lush wilderness” you write about is a contaminated field where all those trees would be dead relatively soon becuz of toxic poisoning. The land will be eventually cleaned. I sympathize with your POV, but talk to any arborist and they will tell you that its sad to lose those trees but understandable.
re: soccer fields,
If you had been there before the clear cutting and go there now you will realize what a mess they have made. It was a nice place before.
Also, its interesting that the city is creating a public park while accommodating the rich yacht clubs with their own private access to the water and new city paid for club houses. For the poor man’s boating clubs they are being told they are just in the way. It seems that only the rich should be allowed on the water. The rest of us have to sit on the shore and watch.
Also, their plans for a sand dune park is silly. Natural dunes are replenished by wave action from a large lake/ocean in front of them. This dune park is in protected waters behind the tommy thomson park. The dunes will simply blow away and sand blast the city.
Just read Christopher Humes piece in the latest Spacing issue and was very disappointed. He laments that Waterfront Toronto doesn’t have the financial and legal resources to just do what it wants and simply implement its waterfront vision without political interference. In other words, though it is a public body and uses taxpayers money and is planning public space, it should have no political accountability!
I agree that cities need Robert Moses-style mega projects — for instance Toronto needs a massive investment in transit (I would argue that it should be in subways not LRT but that’s another discussion….) — but citizen involvement and political accountability provide healthy counterbalance to the megaproject vision. The messy democratic process often produces better results for cities. Think of the Toronto Islands, or the Spadina expressway. Mr. Hume is so eager to a have the Gardiner taken down (I tend to agree with Miller that the costs outweigh the benefits….) but remember the Gardiner was itself the result of an unfortunate megaproject vision.