Quote:
Originally Posted by bartlebooth
I'm not a fan of this project at all. Though Charlesfort generally has better standards (materials, finishes) than most Ottawa developers, architecturally, there projects are awful. It makes no sense to me that they are developing an 'art deco' style building in 2012. What relevance does this expression have to our time? It is like they opened an art deco coffee table book, picked a bunch of details and told the architects to give them that.
Also, it seems most of there projects (Hudson, towers on Albert, Bronson) have no interaction with the street. No retail or townhouses, mostly dead street level spaces. There building facing Bronson Avenue is horrible. It could have really added life to that part of Bronson.
|
Their are a couple of issues raised in your post. I completely agree with respect to the lack of street interaction. The building on Bronson should never have been allowed to put a blank wall to the street. But street interaction is just one aspect of the architecture of the building, and I don't think it's fair to call the projects "awful".
Their is nothing wrong with choosing a modern update of a historical style for buildings rather than adopting the style that happens to be popular at the moment, and art deco is particularly timeless. It's not like art deco has no history in Ottawa. The brick and stone that they are using offer a nice contrast to the typical glass-wall box that is going up almost everywhere else, and it certainly has a better chance of holding its own 20 years from now.
Now if you were to say - okay, we've seen that move, now what else have you got, then I'd agree.