Quote:
Originally Posted by Urbanguy
The first photo of the skyline is awesome, great angle.
Calgary, at least in these pics seem so shiny, new & well-manicured that IMO it feels like it's missing something...I can't quite put my finger on it.  Don't get me wrong though, the city looks great.  |
I visited Calgary for the first time a few years back and left with the same feelings. The skyline is very impressive for such a small metro but left wondering what was missing. I think a couple of things are at play.
Calgary went from frontier oil town to corporate headquarter city very quickly. A ton of towers went up but not much attention was paid to architecture, the public realm, or building a place that functions after 5pm. There's not much of a residential population downtown; it's one office after the next with a small retail strip and a big underground mall. I don't think Calgarians actually go downtown other than for work. They go to the neighbourhood south of the rail line. The Beltline???
Calgary has started to put more emphasis on quality architecture and so far has 3 great looking new towers to show for it. The Bow, Brookfield, and Telus Sky are fabulous. Love love love Telus Sky. Next they need to build a sizable resident population right in the downtown. 100,000 people living downtown will do wonders for the vibrancy of the area. With more residents comes more retail, more restaurants, and more pressure to improve the public realm (sidewalks, trees, benches, etc.) I found most of the downtown streets surprisingly shabby/unattractive.
I hope my criticism doesn't come off as harsh. I liked Calgary and think it has a very bright future. I just think the downtown needs more time to come together. Start building condos and I don't mean in the Beltline!