Many large buildings have several architectural firms credited with its design, but rarely are their separate contributions as obvious as in the first building to be completed on the new eastern waterfront.
Headquarters for
Corus Entertainment, the building at the base of Lower Jarvis Street next to
Sugar Beach was designed by Toronto firms
Diamond and Schmitt and
Quadrangle Architects and is owned by
Build Toronto.
"You do want a harmony between the two," says Quadrangle principal Brian Curtner. "Our goals and objectives were different. They were building an office building for the city and we were trying to create a unique branding location for an innovative broadcast company."
The building's exterior design, which according to Curtner was originally handled by
Eberhard Zeidler's firm, fell to Diamond & Schmitt when the building was being pitched to Global TV, according to Curtner. The designs were originally presented to
TEDCO, now known as the
Toronto Port Lands Company, which handles the leasing and managing of properties for the city.
Curtner says that though there were a couple of changes to the exterior, including an articulation on the facade and an 8th-floor "presentation theatre" and lounge, the designs were developed and executed separately. The result is a fairly ordinary black shell wrapped around a surprising interior of bends and curves, salvaged hemlock wood, transparencies and flow.
As the Waterfront grows -- a
new George Brown campus is under construction next door to Corus -- Curtner expects their project to play a definitive role in the new neighbourhood.
"Will Corus be an integral part of the revised east Waterfront? Of course," he says. "They're young and hip and they're going to start demanding the type of life that they don't have there."
Now that the CityTV building is mostly silent, Speakers Corner shuttered and little activity behind its once famous Queen Street windows, the new Corus building may eventually take up its street-involved cultural mantel.
Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Brian Curtner
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