Your city hall

[SignalHillHiker]

Don't feel bad. I'd trade for Saint John's City Hall tomorrow and actually love it here, no caveats.

[MolsonExport]

To bolster Kool's thesis, Toronto's Union Station (current edition opened 1927) is far grander than Montreal's central Station (1943, during austerity times of WW2).

[kool maudit]

the stations thing was strange. montreal never had a union station, as the two railway firms maintained windsor and central separately. so that divided the scale right there.

central is also a weird 1940s neither-here-nor-there design.

windsor is beautiful, but it got cut off from its true purpose and from downtown. in photos from the '60s you can see cabs and newspaper stands and hawkers around there, bellboys at the queen's hotel. now it is one of those kind of drab, institutional canadian corners, marginal and ottawa-like.

[MolsonExport]

There was Bonaventure Station also (Montreal, destroyed by fire in 1916; with its temporary replacement dismantled in 1952):

Wikimedia

Also, in the Eastern edge of downtown (but formerly, near the old heart), Viger Station (still there, but closed to trains in 1951, well after Montreal's core shifted northwesterly).

wikimeda


memorablemontreal

[speedog]

Originally Posted by SkahHigh

What I meant by "got rid of" was that it isn't Calgary's official city hall any more, not that it was demolished.

It needs to be noted that it is part of Calgary's city hall complex and I believe that some if not all of the council offices are located in the old city hall building. The glass triangular structure is known as the Calgary Municipal Building while the old sandstone structure is known as the Calgary City Hall - most administrative stuff and council meetings are done/held in the Calgary Municipal Building which would probably make it the official city hall.

[SignalHillHiker]

A few more from Newfoundland. We don't have many at all because municipalities did not exist here until 1888. Until that point, our only level of government was the national one. And even when municipalities were allowed, they were mainly advisory councils to Parliament. They didn't even have Mayors.

Consequently, we have no purpose-built city halls that pre-date 1888.

Most across the province are some version of this (all photos from FB/town websites):


Channel-Port-aux-Basques


Paradise

The nice ones are in buildings erected for another purpose (we have gorgeous halls for just about every imaginable religious brotherhood in every other town).


Bay Roberts

And some are unique for our province. This one, for example, was built by the Anglo-Newfoundland Development Company in 1929. The company basically owned the town.


Grand Falls-Windsor

[north 42]

Windsor's ugly ass city hall is being torn down once the new one is built next year! Here's a rendering. http://windsorite.ca/2014/09/windsor...y-hall-design/

[franktko]

Talking about city logos, I dare anyone to find an uglier logo than Laval's!!
It looks like it was done by a high school student after he discovered he could do 3D effects...
Adopted in 1975, this logo has stood the test of time!

[esquire]

Originally Posted by franktko

Oh dear.

I guess it's so delightfully terribad that they're just going to hang on to it now?

That snippet of the city hall building doesn't look that great either...

[SignalHillHiker]

Our logo is pretty bad.



Crest and flag (which is just the crest on white background) is cool, though:



John Cabot on the left, Sir Humphrey Gilbert on the right.

The Downtown one is nice:



As is Pride:



My fave, though, is Saint John, NB.

[1overcosc]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

^Yeah, I've got to get up to Carleton Place. I only know it as a godawful strip of Tim Hortons and Rona Home Improvement stores along Highway 7, which looks like something straight out of suburban Michigan.

That's pretty much what CP is, I'm sorry to say. Like almost every other small town in Ontario, it's historic core is rotting to death while endless rows of WalMarts get built along the highway at the edge of town.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by esquire

Oh dear.

I guess it's so delightfully terribad that they're just going to hang on to it now?

.

The colour scheme has even been incorporated into sound barriers on the A-15, so looks like the logo is there to stay!

http://goo.gl/maps/vvJDy

[Airboy]

St Albert Alberta.

Douglas Cardinal design.

[Daveography]

^ Grew up in St. Albert and always loved St. Albert Place. These days it's bizarrely out of place architecture in a city bent on requiring terrible faux-historical facades in its downtown.

[Airboy]

Originally Posted by Daveography

^ Grew up in St. Albert and always loved St. Albert Place. These days it's bizarrely out of place architecture in a city bent on requiring terrible faux-historical facades in its downtown.

I say we bring back the Bruin Inn.

[Rico Rommheim]

Originally Posted by kool maudit

montreal's is old. gigantism was a 1920s trend, and by that point montreal was established, was built.

look at new york's city hall.

New York made up for it though with this bombastic municipal palace-in-the-sky.

[MolsonExport]

Originally Posted by franktko

Talking about city logos, I dare anyone to find an uglier logo than Laval's!!
It looks like it was done by a high school student after he discovered he could do 3D effects...
Adopted in 1975, this logo has stood the test of time!

Insidious. Even then I can see that it was a harbinger of the clock tower.


c/o francely SSP

One logo to rule them all.

[MonkeyRonin]

At least Laval seems to have a consistent theme of doing everything wrong going on.




Mississauga's PoMo prison is pretty wretched too:


http://www.househunting.ca/Mississau...746/story.html


http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/...article592408/

[MolsonExport]

Originally Posted by 1overcosc

Like almost every other small town in Ontario, it's historic core is rotting to death while endless rows of WalMarts get built along the highway at the edge of town.

here is wisdom. foul as it may be, but quoted for truth.

e.g., St. Thomas, Ontario

The downtown, formerly grand, now decrepit.


elgintourist.com; dennisforbes

St. Thomas Dumbcentre. Beautiful, ain't it? I just love that urban fabric.

callowayreit


smashboards

St. Thomas does have a lovely city hall.

stthomas.ca

[kool maudit]

Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin

Mississauga's PoMo prison is pretty wretched too:

it is like a cartoonist's sketch of a great 1920s city. the basic outline is there, but there is no detail.