Greetings Calgarians from Vancouver!!!
I have to hand it your local planners, they should be commended with their efforts to bring world class architecture to your city. The same cannot be said about Vancouver, which sports the same cookie cutter, prosaic, designs with its blue/green glass over and over and over and over.
Calgary has been taking the right initiatives in seeking out world renowned designers to bring only the most inspirational designs to your city. This can be seen in Norman Foster's "The Bow", Calatrava's "Peace Bridge", the competition for the new National Music Centre (attracing the likes of Jean Nouvel among others), and now the St. Patrick's Bridge development.
Perhaps the greatest thing about this competition, is that it's a competition. Unlike in Vancouver where the city allows developers to simply hand over a project to one of our paltry local firms who constantly produce designs of the most grotesque and mundane nature. Calgary has not only managed to secure a competition, but a competition with 35 PROPOSALS. That is truly incredible and unheard of. Even city's famous for attracting starchitects from around the globe for design competitions such as Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Chongqing, Shanghai, etc, have never had so many proposals for a single project.
This new wave of architecture monuments will surely (and has already started) to put Calgary on the world map as a center of contemporary architectural excellence.
After skimming through the 35 proposals for the St. Pat's bridge, here are my top picks for proposals in a randomized order. May the best of them win!
http://www.calgarymlc.ca/_uploads/56...r%29,%2031.pdf
http://www.calgarymlc.ca/_uploads/56...ects,%2030.pdf
http://www.calgarymlc.ca/_uploads/56...sian,%2025.pdf
http://www.calgarymlc.ca/_uploads/56...Flow,%2018.pdf
http://www.calgarymlc.ca/_uploads/56...each,%2017.pdf
http://www.calgarymlc.ca/_uploads/56...20Al,%2012.pdf
http://www.calgarymlc.ca/_uploads/56...%20Al,%204.pdf