Hespeler Library of Cambridge, Ontario

http://www.kunstler.com/eyesore_200903.html

“In 2007 the City of Cambridge decided to expand the building yet again. The city specified that the winning design would have to preserve the historic nature of the building.”

… so they put the old building inside a glass box that includes the extension.

– X

Even a city like Paris is forging ahead and re-inventing neighborhoods with incredible, visionary architecture. There is nothing wrong with glass and steel. Should be tear anything down? Hell no! But should we be mixing architectural styles and materials? Absolutely. Otherwise we have a boring urban fabric. What does that say about out time? Our generation? If all we can produce are knock-offs of the past or worse, nothing at all.

marksab – that’s a good point. Whatever goes there could (and should) have an uplifting effect on the whole neighborhood (tupper / lincoln etc.). There are concrete tower apts, yes, but there are also really nice spaces close by like Haddon Hall and other, more modest brick apartment blocks on Sherbrooke. Could be an echo of what happened to revitalize De Maisonneuve near Stanley?

And true – why does it have to be Western architectural styles – something with an Asian infliuence would be really interesting there. As long as it’s not a street-life-killing box with blank walls…

that would be a good outcome.

its a marginal space, with cracktown (tupper st.) a block to the south, tower appartments to the north, and no natural pathways between institutions and facilities nearby (hospital, colleges, cegep, malls, forum redevelopment of fail).

Decades ago, cabot square was an important bus terminal for the west and south west of the city. today the place has lost its lustre, and the complete anihilation of this built space is regrettable.

Montreal already tried the modern is better thing, and now we wish we hadn’t destryed all those beautiful buildings and blocks.

And it certainly grows on you the more time you spend in it. The materials inside are beatiful and simple, and little touches all over the place — like in-floor ducts, the furniture, child-height handrails down to the kids floor, or the little theatre-box things with a view over the Latin Quarter — make it a pleasure to be in.

Because it’s likely that it would turn out to look like a cheap copy of an old Beaux-Arts building. The success of Chicago’s Harold Washington library is certainly controversial.

I don’t believe that this project is somehow the best design for the block, but I don’t want to see this city full of concrete mock Greek pillars and suburban-style faux architectural details tacked on.

That said, there’s a heck of a lot you can do with relatively inexpensive granite blocks and brick. I often point to Chicago’s Harold Washington public library building, completed in 1991, as a successful execution of a “new” Beaux-Arts building in nontraditional materials.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Washington_Library

It is the largest public library in the world, covering an entire city block, and cost approximately $144 million to build. Certainly, adding 1500 apartments to the block between Lambert-Closse and Chomedey will cost at least that much — so why not design something more in keeping with the Beaux-Arts tradition of the surrounding neighborhood — like the apartment complexes buildings on Atwater, Lincoln, Sherbrooke, and De Maisonneuve for instance, not to mention Dawson College?

Nobody, not even the Queen of England, pays for construction out of the loose change in their petty cash drawer. And no business builds a brand-new building for itself (and incurs that kind of major capital expense) unless they absolutely have to – you would spend all your profits and go out of business (or lose confidence and incur a stock selloff). Any businessperson who constructed a place of business as an ego-folly would quickly lose the confidence of their partners and clients — particularly in the insurance business.

In fact, the Sun Life building was constructed in stages over 13 years (!) and expanded over time, not built all at once. You can be certain that each stage had separate rounds of financing involved. They planned the move as their former red-brick offices in Old Montreal had become too small to handle their organization. In a way, they were pioneers, being the first of the Old Montreal financial houses to move “uptown” to the Golden Square Mile, when what we now think of as downtown was largely residential manor homes.

I’m not sure if limestone, granite and greystone are more expensive now. Given modern technology for quarrying and shaping it, it arguably ought to be incredibly cheap compared to 1913; it’s just not in demand anymore. It’s not “too” expensive, merely “more” expensive compared to dirt cheap snap-on panels, vinyl siding, brick and glass, I suppose. The one missing factor is, I will agree, widespread skilled knowledge of classic stonemasonry, but this knowledge is not lost and can be re-taught.

That said, I am not a fan of bland boxes in pre-cast concrete either. But there is some incredible architecture being realized out there and on the drawing boards today… by star-achitects as well… not all their architecture is gimmicky. Of course we should demand more. That is my one big complaints about Montreal. Usually in Montreal, we demand less by chasing development out of town. In most cases because it might be taller than 4 floors. Never do we hear about quality of materials or aesthetics. That is refreshing.

I do agree we shouldn’t look backwards and live in the past, but does that mean the present and future have to be dominated by bland boxes merely because they’re “new?” Or worse, “starchitecture” stunt pieces? As another commenter noted, it seems like new buildings are designed as models to be viewed in SimCity from a God’s-eye view, and not as structures that animate life at the street level, have human-scaled details throughout that iterate upwards.

That’s why I mentioned the real International Modern buildings as notable exceptions. Westmount Square is minimalist black-painted steel, glass and travertine marble, but its scaling, rhythm, ensemble spacing, and proportion could not have been created by someone who was ignorant of the classical orders (or who chose to break with them thoughtfully, where they did.)

If someone wants to build in a modern idiom with modern materials, more power to them, but it seems like we live in an age where doing the absolute bare minimum is acceptable. A box is not a home and a warehouse of boxes is not a city. We must demand more.

The irony is, those who want luxurious materials and workmanship are the ones who decry the kind of market conditions that could sustain it. (ie: gentrification, development, business growth, rises in the cost of living). That said, architecture is in the eye of the beholder isn’t it? The is plenty of mid-century modernism that is just as incredible today as for example, any building on the stretch of St James street between McGill and Place d’Armes. We can’t only look backwards and want to live in the past. How boring.

I applaud AJ’s comments: We need beauty. And yes, “building that is not art but craft, a high level of craft, which is honourable work…building that reflects human scale, proportions, rhythms, patterns.” We need this: The Here and Now!!

One correction: The Royal George Apartments facade is NOT connected to Concordia’s Hall building; it is integrated into the library building (across the street and around the corner from the Hall building).

Here is a challenge for architects: Regardless of your opinion of facadism, make a building so beautiful that in 100 years, when it is set to be replaced by another project, future hipsters will fight for its facade to be preserved.

So far I haven’t seen any “new” building worthy of this challenge. If someone knows of one, I’d be really happy to know about it :)

The Rogers and King mess is a great example of facadism that is a failure. It is not harmonious at all with the Palais and the St Antoine facade in its entirety is awkward altogether.

I do agree that if we have to lose a building such as the Seville case, I would much rather go in another direction. Let’s build buildings and architecture that will be a testament and a legacy to our time. Cities the world over are building exciting architecture. Why can’t we?

Le nouveau hall d’entrée du Musée est somptueux. On se demande comment plus grandiose il aurait été si le «New Sherbrooke» aurait été démoli.