I stumbled upon these character paintings on my way to the movies a few weeks ago. Is this street art or graffiti? Or are those the same thing?
Cloudscape seen from my roof this evening.
Toronto (an illustration by Raymond Biesinger)
One of Toronto’s best attributes is its farmers’ markets, with the St. Lawrence Market being the crown jewel in many ways. It’s big. It’s busy. It’s not always cheap. But, still, you’d be hard-pressed to think of an item that you couldn’t find there, and usually it’s fresh off the farm. Plus, it somehow manages to capture the charm of much smaller markets I’ve frequented in other cities such as Halifax.
Hopefully that won’t change too much with the addition of the North Building, a new section the city is planning sometime in the near future. The city has chosen five finalists in its architectural design competition, and as Peter Kuitenbrouwer of the Post points out, they are all “somewhat jarringly contemporary”. Indeed, I think they look more mall-like than market-y. I haven’t spent too much time looking over them, but on quick inspection I prefer the Red Team’s entry (pictured in part above). It’s got a more open-air quality about it than the others. Also, the design seems to be more about functionality than simply grabbing peoples’ attention.
You can find a list of the finalists here with links to their designs.
