From the Toronto Star

What was initially proposed as the Fugly Awards, providing Torontonians with an opportunity to vote on the most contemptible new works of architecture greater than 50,000 square feet, then launched in 2005 as the Pugly Awards, became, last year, the Pug Awards. Can online snark really be a starting point for sincerity?

Anna Simone seems to think so. The principal of interior design firm Cecconi Simone, who co-founded the annual online competition, points to an outreach program spun-off from the ceremony — "Pug Ed" is a mini-curriculum meant to bring architecture and design discussion into the classroom. The program certainly doesn’t appear to be about breeding schoolkids to be more cynical.  

“In Europe there are 5-year-olds, without any exaggeration, who have formed opinions on the design of everything from architecture to products,” says Simone. “The wealth of knowledge those kids have is mind-boggling. If we can get young people to embrace that discussion early, it will give this city a greater future.”

The awards website isn’t entirely defanged, however: the home page slogan reads “Love It or Hate It,” represented by cartoons of a pugnacious bulldog on one side, and a skull and cross bones on the other. (On the other hand, there are 18 corporate sponsors tied to the competition.) Voting open to the public through the month of May, culminating in an awards reception on June 4 at the Gardiner Musuem.

While the concept benefited by some default goodwill in the online sphere — in the David Miller era that’s spawned Spacing and other forums to discuss local urban improvements, it was presumed that any conversation about buildings was a good one — the Pugly Awards fielded some dissent of their own. The quality of the website, and its images, were oddly inferior for a contest rooted in aesthetics.

Least impressed was John Barber of The Globe and Mail: “The buildings are increasingly impressive,” he wrote in 2006. “It’s the dialogue that’s atrocious.

“This is no real populist enterprise, but the project of a self-appointed elite — the heiresses and their decorators, swilling Chablis at the abominable Spoke Club — who believe they are leading us culturally. They even have an advisory board.”

But now the Pugs have a competitor of sorts that Simone admits has motivated them to emphasize they’re connection to the vox populi. While the Ontario Association of Architects initiated a “People’s Choice Award” — given out tonight at a conference banquet hosted by Pugs advisory board member Jeanne Beker — there’s no accountability in the balloting, or who even constitutes said people.

“We don’t edit the choices,” says Simone. “And there’s no conflict of interest. The whole idea is to let anyone have their say and help expand a public vocabulary.”

For examples of what unfriendly disasters might’ve been averted by the concept of online democracy, Simone points to the Hudson’s Bay Centre at Yonge and Bloor, or the Holiday Inn on King, or the original wave of lakefront condominiums.

Therefore, a growing desire amongst the Pug organizers to keep tabs on the by-products of the 21st-century condo boom, addressing not only how each structure looks from the ground’s-eye-view, but how it interacts with its surroundings. That also involves providing newbies with a recommended rudimentary reading list of urban thought, and a bit of stumbling their way around assorted Web 2.0 tools.

Residential buildings continue to dominate the qualified contenders, though, as a commercial and institutional category involves just three structures completed last year: the Marriott Residence Inn, the Hazelton Hotel and the ROM Crystal.

Too bad, because the heartiest dialogue about a building tends to come from those that can be publicly accessed from both inside and out. Case in point: Toronto Life Square at Yonge and Dundas which, based on recent rants at the Urban Toronto Forum, has revealed itself to be a dysfunctional disaster area. (Since the square wasn’t finished until this year it will qualify for the next Pugs.)

But the Siskel & Ebert thumbs-up-thumbs-down school of criticism seems to suit the populist Pugs just fine, as Simone regards the publicity as a starting point — which would ultimately produce more interesting developments in the future.

Rather than giving the city another glass box, the theoretical result would be more buzzed-about projects like the project at 318 Richmond St. — former site of the Joker nightclub — apparently due to draw influence from Montreal’s Habitat.

Richard Florida, the new patron saint of local dynamism, would certainly be enthused by an initiative like the Pug Cup, a brushed aluminum trophy — with a pug statuette on top — which the mayor has approved for permanent showcase display at City Hall “as a reminder to developers, architects and building officials that the people of Toronto care about the architectural landscape of the city.”

Like it or not, the sense is that what was initially presented to the public as a snobby bitchfest was a well-played bit of earnest corporate citizenship. But at least they’ve still got Geddy Lee of Rush as a member of the Pug advisory board.

“He cares so much about the buildings that are being erected around here, even as he’s touring around the world,” says Simone. “That itself speaks volumes about the impact of Toronto architecture. His level of knowledge blows my mind.”

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