Frank Gehry reminisces on Toronto's past while detailing his Forma design for the New York Times
A lot of work has gone into it. It’s like a painting. So the glass is offset in places to take the light a certain way and separate that surface from the rest of the building. A lot of care has gone into organizing that visually. It’ll become apparent over the years. You’ll see it and you’ll say: Oh, that’s what he was doing.Gehry, whose family left Toronto for Los Angeles in 1947, also detailed his misgivings at the city’s contemporary development. The landscape has taken an even more markedly vertical turn since the beginning of 2021 thanks to a “race to the top” among developers (including the backers of the Gehry-designed Forma scheme, the Great Gulf Group) led by the forthcoming 105-story SkyTower design from Hariri Pontarini Architects for Pinnacle International. Gehry’s only completed permanent work in his birth country, the 2008 renovation of the Art Gallery of Ontario, is also the subject of a major expansion designed by Diamond Schmitt, Two Row, and Selldorf Architects. Groundbreaking on Forma’s first tower began last month, with an expected completion slated for 2028. Gehry also expressed an interest in refurbishing Arthur Erickson's Roy Thomson Hall, which still hasn't fine-tuned its acoustics since the last KPMB-led upgrade in 2002.
A lot of work has gone into it. It’s like a painting. So the glass is offset in places to take the light a certain way and separate that surface from the rest of the building. A lot of care has gone into organizing that visually. It’ll become apparent over the years. You’ll see it and you’ll say: Oh, that’s what he was doing.
Gehry, whose family left Toronto for Los Angeles in 1947, also detailed his misgivings at the city’s contemporary development. The landscape has taken an even more markedly vertical turn since the beginning of 2021 thanks to a “race to the top” among developers (including the backers of the Gehry-designed Forma scheme, the Great Gulf Group) led by the forthcoming 105-story SkyTower design from Hariri Pontarini Architects for Pinnacle International.
Gehry’s only completed permanent work in his birth country, the 2008 renovation of the Art Gallery of Ontario, is also the subject of a major expansion designed by Diamond Schmitt, Two Row, and Selldorf Architects.
Groundbreaking on Forma’s first tower began last month, with an expected completion slated for 2028. Gehry also expressed an interest in refurbishing Arthur Erickson's Roy Thomson Hall, which still hasn't fine-tuned its acoustics since the last KPMB-led upgrade in 2002.
