Today Wed Thu
It is forcast to be Thunderstorm at 11:00 PM EDT on May 21, 2013
Thunderstorm
25°/14°		 It is forcast to be Thunderstorm at 11:00 PM EDT on May 22, 2013
Thunderstorm
19°/13°		 It is forcast to be Chance of Rain at 11:00 PM EDT on May 23, 2013
Chance of Rain
15°/4°

21 Comments

news

Tile Over Substance

By

2008_1_16Spadin.jpg
Selected quotes from “Toronto’s Type and Tile Heritage” by Edward Keenan, from the November 14th issue of Eye Weekly:
Joe Clark: “The trick is trying to prevent the destruction of the subway system as we know it. What are these [TTC] commissioners doing, exactly? Through malign neglect, they are beginning a 35-year process of destruction. Because if they make over Pape station so that it doesn’t match any of the other stations, if they make it over in artificial stone — which has ‘fake’ right there in the title — then the design uniformity of the Bloor-Danforth line is busted…”
TTC Chair Adam Giambrone: “We could get special tiles [to preserve the look of stations undergoing renovation], presumably someone could make them, because they do reproductions, but it’s going to be very expensive.”
Councillor Adam Vaughan: “You can build a city off a budget sheet, but you end up with Tucson…. The reality is if you build Paris, you’ll have an economy. If you build an economy, you’ll have Houston. Or Calgary.”
Or Spadin.
Photo of the meeting of old and new (due to an elevator installed in 1997) at the eastern end of Spadina station’s westbound platform taken by Jonathan Goldsbie. Thanks to Cy Goldsbie for the tip.

Comments

  • rek

    tag: remove and destroy

  • Jonathan Goldsbie

    Good idea, Rek.

  • antiboy

    What is Vaughan talking about? :\

  • spacejack

    Sure, they pay for it, just don’t complain when sidewalks don’t get shoveled again next winter…

  • x_the_x

    Off topic: What happened to the reader tag option?
    On topic: Everytime this topic is written about, I am amazed anew that there is a constituency who can actually work themselves into a frothy panic about it.
    To extend Vaughan’s train of thought, people go to Paris for its great fonts and integrated and preserved tiles in the metro.
    I know its generally unfair to say the Left have never found a “problem” unworthy of wasting public money on, but then there is this …

  • Ben

    What are the arguments that say design uniformity is more desirable than having variety (e.g., stations could fit into their neighbourhood somewhat)?
    I am not saying to go whole hog with mish-mash, but I think there is room for more variance than there is now.

  • neilson133

    Until now, everyone complained that the Bloor-Danforth stations looked like public toilets. Now we’re fretting that the unity of the public-toilet look is going to be compromised?

  • Jonathan Goldsbie

    “I know its generally unfair to say the Left have never found a ‘problem’ unworthy of wasting public money on, but then there is this …”
    For me, it’s not really about the lack of money but rather the carelessness and indifference engendered by that lack of money. That’s what I was trying to illustrate with this image. I think that’s what Joe Clark and Adam Vaughan were getting at, too.
    “What are the arguments that say design uniformity is more desirable than having variety (e.g., stations could fit into their neighbourhood somewhat)?”
    This. This, too.

  • panko

    Torontoist has developed a somewhat unhealthy obesession with all things unimportant at TTC while largely ignoring the sad state of the infrastructure or lack of handicap access, for example. Fonts and tiles discussion is interesting but I’d rather have the maintenance/repair crews fix the leaks and cracks, build a ramp or two or put in an elevator for those who can’t even access the system.

  • joeclark

    Well, Panko, since I work in accessibility (albeit not the architectural kind), I resent your implication that we get one or the other. If you really believe what you stated, why are you not up in arms that the $2.1 million Museum reno will leave the station wheelchair-inaccessible?
    You might also wish to look at the TTC’s existing plans, given the somewhat euphemistic name Easier Access. And incidentally, “ramps” are seldom the answer in a subway system.

  • panko

    Joe, you’re absolutely right – one should be up in arms about a makover that does not make a station accessible. I am not up in arms about it because I don’t track TTC issues professionally or with a zeal others demonstrate – we all pick our battles.
    My post was simply a reaction to what I observed here at Torontoist. I believe that there’s a hierarchy of needs and some things should come first (i.e. general upkeep then beautifying).

  • joeclark

    We aren’t talking about “beautifying,” and by any standard the TTC is not carrying out “general upkeep” of its type and tile.

  • AR

    It’s unfortunate to read all those comments that this is a point waste of money that could go towards something else. There is already money which is going towards maintenance and new trains. The Toronto Community Foundation and the TTC have partnered with private donors to makeover stations. And yet despite the degradation of the stations by TTC and of their image by some patrons, there are people are standing up for modernist type and tile which might not be currently fashionable in this city which seems to have a perpetual architectural insecurity. Our stations have beauty beneath the grime and tacked on signs of various fonts.
    It will be cheaper to restore stations and ultimately better in the long run, than to get starchitects to come up with poorly conceived redesigns like Museum. Once you reproduce one station’s tiles on the BD you have the basic tile profile, and it’s a matter of recreating the colour.
    Right on Joe Clark and Torontoist. Big problems are no reason to neglect the little things. Design is crucial to our city’s heritage. Modernist tiles signify an era of mass change in the city, the 1960s. A city that neglects these little things will never live up to its potential.

  • xtremesniper

    Frankly I’m quite tired of the same posts over and over again about the font of the system, or how some station might be getting a redesign (but the most vocal person here always sides against it).
    I understand that accessibility is very important. I don’t think anyone would ever deny that. But there is only a certain extent you can go to before your case starts to get far too picky to be realistic. Do you honestly think the TTC, with all the issues that they are currently facing, has the resources to sit down and think about what font to use? You already exemplify the fact that they just don’t care by showing photos of printed out temporary signs with various sizes, colours, and fonts. We get it.
    But let’s be realistic here. The TTC has a lot of problems. I think there are issues that should be fixed first before we start freaking out about fonts. How about working on the over-crowding? How about setting our heads straight and putting a real priority on expanding parts of the subway that actually need expanding (Finch station extension to Hwy 7). Things like this are fundamental issues with the TTC that affects almost everyone that uses the system.
    I mean absolutely no offense to anyone who may be visually impaired, but a font change is a slight change (a change that the TTC should and could easily just do and get over with). With the track record they have, be thankful that they even put signs to begin with.
    As for the station redesigns? Yes, all of them should absolutely be wheelchair accessible, but I really don’t understand why anyone would be against getting rid of the washroom tiles and stains that could honestly be a result of someone’s excrement from 20 years ago that was never cleaned up. It’s disgusting, and it’s again something that affects everyone who rides the system.
    It’s all about priority. There are certain issues that are for good causes, but there are certain issues that are seriously pounding away at the foundations of the entire transit system. Again, I mean no offense but I just needed to get that off my chest.

  • Marc Lostracco

    I work with a lot of corporate logos, fonts, etc. for a living, and all of these companies have very specific branding stylesheets with strict rules over how fonts an logos can be laid-out, coloured, kerned, whatever. All the TTC needs is a proper style bible that covers all the basis—which probably exists somewhere already—and to stick with it. Employees who know little about or who don’t understand the TTC’s branding shouldn’t be signing off on it.
    And that goes for Legacy Sportswear and their Times New Roman font. If that was the crap I got when sublicensing my brand, I’d kick them to the curb faster than you could say “fugly plagiarists.”
    Why does everybody seem to know exactly what the TTC needs to do when it comes to branding except for the damn TTC?! I mean, everyone’s practically given the solutions to them for free on a silver platter.

  • AR

    Those, believe it or not, are quality tiles on the Bloor Danforth line. When they replaced the Yonge Vitrolite tiles and ruined the uniformity of the look, did things really improve? We ditched the originals when they aged and came up with something like Dundas station mustard yellow. Who’s to say the same thing won’t happen on the BD line. But the BD line’s tiles are more durable than Vitrolite, and can be replaced by the same thing (though hopefully with the dark grout).
    That there’s overcrowding and large problems doesn’t make it impossible to fix little things. We have to expect thoughtful design so that when we can build the new lines or get the money, we can do a good job of things. Look at Sheppard’s problematic signage. They HAD the money, and they couldn’t get things right.
    Don’t think of it as a trade off (choosing between signage/design and maintenance). It’s not. In some cases it’s as easy as sticking to a style “bible”.

  • joeclark

    I always interpret “We have more important things to spend money on” as “You have a point, but I want to complain anyway.” Please pick your own pet TTC issue and go to work on that. We’ll handle this one.
    I would point out to Marc and AR that TTC does have its own signage bible, which is, to say the same thing a thousandth time, a half-assed clone of Vignelli’s from circa 1972. And they aren’t even sticking with it. And even if they did, it would mean the removal and destruction of the entire typographic heritage of the TTC. That heritage is something only Toronto has. It’s a selling point. For now.
    If you are in a rush to convert our unique subway to an all-fake-Helvetica future (actually an all-fake-Helvetica simulacrum of the past), you can kvetch less in blog comment sections secure in the knowledge that pretty much everybody at the TTC is going full steam ahead.

  • xtremesniper

    “Please pick your own pet TTC issue and go to work on that.”
    I’m way ahead of ya. ;) Sending letters to newspapers and transit officials for a while now. =)

  • Robert Lubinski

    First: There exists a plan to make stations accessible with elevators. It may take years, but does anyone really expect that they can start work on 50 stations all at once? It could be accelerated, but the plan is already there.
    Second: State of good repair and cleanliness is absolutely very important. It’s not just the TTC that is looking dirty and shabby – look at many of the old schools in Toronto, they are going to be hitting 100 years of age in the next decade or so. Some city street surfaces are in appalling condition. The tree canopy is aging and suffering. Municipal infrastructure needs money. That’s another battle and it’s on now.
    Third: So many people say “why waste money on frills. We don’t have money for the basics”. This obviously depends on your definition of “frill”. The Soviet Bloc didn’t spend money on frills in their architecture and infrastructure, and look what they got for it: pretty uniformly bleak cities. It’s little things that make every city’s public spaces unique – everything from street signs to fire hydrants to street lights and traffic signals, and yes, original TTC type and tiles fall into this category. Looking after these things even in the face of budget constraints means that we set a higher standard for our public space than the cheapest penny-pinching low-cost Wal-Mart-ized minimum.

  • xtremesniper

    I agree, but I still don’t believe that it is efficient to get all picky about tiles if the system itself is not working as it should. That would just discourage people from riding transit, going back to their cars and causing even more problems up on surface level. It would be great to fix the small things that count, but only in a place where the foundation is doing well on its own enough to get the budget shaft for a while.
    As long as the system works effectively and efficiently, I don’t think I’d care too much if there wasn’t much visual candy to look at for the 30 seconds we spend at a station.
    Going back to visual impared people though, I can see why certain things are currently a pain but … Correct me if I’m wrong but if you aren’t already able to read a station sign with the reasonable large font, how much of a difference is a font change really going to make? After all, in all reality the text that you are looking at is already there. I’m not going to lie, I am uneducated when it comes to accessibility in the system, which is why I’m asking.

  • joeclark

    Correct me if I’m wrong but if you aren’t already able to read a station sign with the reasonable large font, how much of a difference is a font change really going to make?

    According to other researchers, enough to be measurable.