VoCA was pleased to hear that French architect Jean Nouvel has won the Pritzker prize for architecture. His Fondation Cartier in Paris is one of VoCA’s favorite exhibition spaces, and his Insitut du Monde Arabe is simply as magical as a university institution can get.

Jean Nouvel’s Fondation Cartier in Paris, 1994. Image: fondation.cartier.com

Click HERE for the Guardian’s article.

Jean Nouvel’s Institut du Monde Arabe, 1987. Image: france-for-visitors.com

While we’re here, we would like to take a minute to comment on Toronto’s so-called architectural Renaissance. We – along with many in the cultural community - find ourselves deriding Libeskind’s ROM addition, and recently we’ve been called to task.

It’s not about the building per se – though there are many minor details that haven’t been dealt with properly, thus disrupting what might have been a wonderful structure. It’s about the lack of quality in Toronto architecture.

Tell us of a single recently-built condominium that will last more than 100 years, or 50, even. Most condos have walls so thin one can hear one’s neighbours coughing.

Another prime example is Sir Norman Foster’s Leslie Dan pharmacy building for U of T. It’s interesting enough until you pass along College streets and see the cheap door frames and glaring exit signs on display.

Foster + Partners, Leslie L. Dan Pharmacy Building, University of Toronto, 2002-2006.
Image: fosterandpartners.com

Oh, there are good - even great - projects in the city: The Gardiner Museum, Soulpepper Theatre, the Ballet School, the MaRS building and U of T’s Terrence Donnelly Center for Cellular and Biomolecular Research to name only a few.

But we take issue with being ok with mediocrity. Toronto is notorious for wanting to be a great city. So no, mediocrity in our city’s cultural architecture is not ok. It’s not ok in Berlin, it’s not ok in Chicago or Montreal and it shouldn’t be ok in Toronto.