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Date
Title
Source
Description
Tags
W3668
15.05.2011
The Lift (Reprise) - Kevin Rodgers
WWW
The Lift (Reprise), or I will not confuse libertarian hallucinations with practical investment advice. I will not confuse libertarian hallucinations with practical investment advice. I wi ...

The Lift (Reprise), or

I will not confuse libertarian hallucinations with practical investment advice.
I will not confuse libertarian hallucinations with practical investment advice.
I will not confuse libertarian hallucinations with practical investment advice.

The Lift (Reprise) is a provisional stump and monument to economic recession. It is based on the first incarnation of the Bay Adelaide Center, and the empty shell of a building that sat in the heart of Toronto’s financial district from 1993-2007.

Originally planned in the 1980’s to accompany some of Toronto’s newest and biggest office towers (BCE Place, Scotia Plaza), the Bay Adelaide Centre was slated to become the city’s next big skyscraper. Construction was halted, however, in 1993 when an economic recession took hold. A 6 story concrete stump-- the foundation of an elevator shaft-- was all that was left of the original incarnation. In 2001, after previous failed attempts at redevelopment and suspect financing, Brookfield Properties bought the land. A new mixed-use high-rise tower was announced, and according to Shirley Won, who wrote about the new proposal for the Globe Investor, “Under the new plans, the six-storey, ugly reminder of the past devastation of the real estate industry will be demolished.” True to their word, the stump disappeared when construction on the new development begin in 2007. The new Bay Adelaide Center was completed in late 2009.

It is this unintended landmark to the real estate crash that provides the impetus to The Lift (Reprise). At the intersection of autonomy and interdependence, The Lift (Reprise) is an allegorical gesture. It refers to the complex and fundamentalist free-market/deregulatory policies that brought about the early 1990s recession, and its current and forceful reprisal. By meeting formal stringency with socio-political and economic content, the piece adopts the unexpected transformations that can take hold of design (financial, architectural, graphic), including their prevalent misuse, and sabotage by design.

The Lift (Reprise), or I will not confuse libertarian hallucinations with practical investment advice. I will not confuse libertarian hallucinations with practical investment advice. I wi ...

The Lift (Reprise), or

I will not confuse libertarian hallucinations with practical investment advice.
I will not confuse libertarian hallucinations with practical investment advice.
I will not confuse libertarian hallucinations with practical investment advice.

The Lift (Reprise) is a provisional stump and monument to economic recession. It is based on the first incarnation of the Bay Adelaide Center, and the empty shell of a building that sat in the heart of Toronto’s financial district from 1993-2007.

Originally planned in the 1980’s to accompany some of Toronto’s newest and biggest office towers (BCE Place, Scotia Plaza), the Bay Adelaide Centre was slated to become the city’s next big skyscraper. Construction was halted, however, in 1993 when an economic recession took hold. A 6 story concrete stump-- the foundation of an elevator shaft-- was all that was left of the original incarnation. In 2001, after previous failed attempts at redevelopment and suspect financing, Brookfield Properties bought the land. A new mixed-use high-rise tower was announced, and according to Shirley Won, who wrote about the new proposal for the Globe Investor, “Under the new plans, the six-storey, ugly reminder of the past devastation of the real estate industry will be demolished.” True to their word, the stump disappeared when construction on the new development begin in 2007. The new Bay Adelaide Center was completed in late 2009.

It is this unintended landmark to the real estate crash that provides the impetus to The Lift (Reprise). At the intersection of autonomy and interdependence, The Lift (Reprise) is an allegorical gesture. It refers to the complex and fundamentalist free-market/deregulatory policies that brought about the early 1990s recession, and its current and forceful reprisal. By meeting formal stringency with socio-political and economic content, the piece adopts the unexpected transformations that can take hold of design (financial, architectural, graphic), including their prevalent misuse, and sabotage by design.