GESAMTKUNSTWERK
A TOTAL WORK OF ART
Every real estate project is a collaboration, but the best projects come off like a finely choreographed dance, with every contributor showing up at just the right moment and adding just the right touch. We depend so heavily on the imagination of the architects, the reliability of the engineers, the efficiency of the construction managers and the expertise and commitment of every individual worker. KING Toronto offered a strong reminder that, with a partner like Allied, we all benefit, as well, from the vision and ambition of an excellent city builder.
These learning experiences are endless, and in more than 30 years, Westbank has been tutored by some of the best architects and artists in the world, as well as by brilliant partners and subject area experts of every kind. In the process, we have added capacity and complexity to what we can achieve, always raising our level of ambition. We also have gathered an expanding vocabulary that explains and inspires what we do, and the way we do it.
GESAMTKUNSTWERK
One of the words in that new vocabulary was the German Gesamtkunstwerk: it was coined by a German philosopher in the 1820s and it translates as “total work of art.” We came across Gesamtkunstwerk while working with architect Bjarke Ingels on our first project together, his remarkable design of Vancouver House, and the word fit perfectly. It illuminated his intention to create an unexpected and completely elegant high-rise form, married to a groundplane that melds so well with its surroundings that it is destined to transform the entire neighbourhood. In an extremely challenging property, this was a seamless and coherent solution, a total work of art.
LAYERING
We were introduced to a second concept while we were working with the great Japanese architect Kengo Kuma on a Vancouver project on Alberni Street. Kuma is deeply thoughtful in his application of layering, which in Japanese translates as tsumikasane, meaning “to heap on top of.” Let there be no misunderstanding, though, that Kuma-san throws anything down in “heaps.” Rather, he takes delight in considering every element, every increment of space or additional piece of material to assure that they all fold together into an optimally realized whole.
Taking these concepts together – and applying them to the development not just of buildings but of whole new neighbourhoods, it becomes clear that a total work of art cannot be a stark monolith; rather, it must be a triumph of complementary components – of layers. That was the motivation for our design and our approach to KING Toronto. Instead of an indifferent collection of buildings, Ingels and his team at BIG have delivered an urban mountain range in glass and greenery. Neither does this new form seek to upstage or overwhelm the heritage buildings on site. On the contrary, BIG’s pixelated landscape embraces and complements the existing buildings, and the neighbouring streetscape, as well.
As you turn the pages of this book – ultimately, as you move through the fully realized courtyard, lobbies, fine-grained retail, homes and terraces of KING Toronto – you will surely see an intricately, infinitely layered collaboration. When we add the culminating, carefully considered additional layers, the floating public art in the courtyard and the Ingels-designed Fazioli piano, we anticipate nothing less than a total work of art.