Pinnacle Centre (Toronto, Ontario)

Canada / Ontario / Toronto / Toronto, Ontario / Yonge Street, 12-16
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Pinnacle Centre - Pug Awards

Nominated for Pug Awards 2007
Handed out annually for the past three years, the Pugs – formerly the Puglies – give everyone with access to a computer the chance to vote for the best and worst projects opened in the previous year.

"Other possible candidates for worst are the condos at 16 and 18 Yonge. These two complexes straddling the Gardiner Expressway are not so much offensive as horribly ordinary and utterly unoriginal. They waste an important site near the lake and represent more of the kind of Queen's Quay stuff that makes people so skeptical about waterfront revitalization."
Christopher Hume, Toronto Star Columnist

www.thestar.com/News/article/209503

2007 Pug Award Update - Pinnacle Centre 1 finished next to last and 18 Yonge 4th last (last = the worst) in voting.

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Another Pug nomination in 2008
- Pinnacle Centre 2 has been nominated for the 2008 Pug Awards.

2008 Update: The Pinnacle Centre 2 finished 4th worst (15 out of 18). This complex now has the distinction of having the 2nd (Pinnacle Centre 1, 2007) and 4th "Pugliest" buildings (Pinnacle Centre 2, 2008) in Toronto for the past 2 years.
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2010 - Success Tower nominated for Pug Award

Pinnacle Condos nominated for the 3rd time - this time finished 26th out of 31 condos ranked. Another poor finish.

savelblogs.com/pug-awards-2010-winners
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CONDO CRITIC

"THE PINNACLE: Though only three of the four towers are complete, it's already clear that the Pinnacle isn't going to save this part of the city. It's more of the same; ordinary architecture mixed with inferior planning to make a project that should have been so much better. Instead of creating a neighbourhood, this is just the application of development formulas, devoid of any understanding of city building. The best aspect of Pinnacle is what happens at street level; clearly the planners had a lot to say about ensuring the architects used the tower-on-a-podium model, and insisted that the podium be curved to follow the bend in the street, which is actually an exit from the Gardiner. But the materials are proudly ordinary and the green-tinted glass cladding quite unpleasant to look at. This is knee-jerk architecture, the kind of design that certain firms can knock off in their sleep. For developers, it's the kind of stuff they can build with their brains on hold. The best one can say is that it's competent. This is what we've grown to expect in a city asleep at the switch."

GRADE: C

WHAT DO YOU THINK? Email us at condocritic@thestar.ca
www.thestar.com/living/article/244125
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Coordinates:   43°38'34"N   79°22'35"W
This article was last modified 8 years ago