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Posted Mar 8, 2016, 2:15 AM
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Registered User
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Join Date: Feb 2010
Location: Edmonton
Posts: 6,785
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Edmonton, we can't lose the RAM to the wrecking ball
http://edmontonjournal.com/entertain...-wrecking-ball
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It is an idea so wasteful, so stupid, you have to hope it’s a daft publicity stunt.
Last week, the Alberta government issued a request for proposals, to demolish or “de-construct” the elegant Royal Alberta Museum building, and turn its site into “green space.”
That’s right. One of Edmonton’s most beloved public buildings, with its clean lines, its Tyndall stone cladding, its sumptuous marble interior, might soon be nothing more than heap of very expensive rubble.
Alberta Infrastructure isn’t putting out any sort of tender looking for ideas for reusing the building. It hasn’t consulted the Glenora community league or the city. It hasn’t explored a potential land-swap with another order of government or public institution. The province says demolition is only one potential option. But right now, it seems to be the only option under active consideration.
The irony of taking an exquisite work of architecture, specially built to preserve our heritage, and just destroying it, it is so grotesque, it’s hard not to laugh. Or cry.
The RAM was built in 1965, at a cost of $10.5 million — that’s roughly $80 million in today’s currency. Designed by Australian-born architect Raymond O. Harrison, it was a centennial gift from the federal government to the people of Alberta. Warm, welcoming, filled with light, it was built with the kind of materials and craftsmanship you just don’t find in public buildings these days: terrazzo and granite flooring; solid oak doors and banisters, trimmed with brass; marble walls; even marble bathroom partitions. Inside and out, it’s also home to a remarkable collection of modernist sculpture and artwork, some of it literally carved into the walls.
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Yes, deferred maintenance has taken a toll. The leaky building needs a new roof. It needs new boilers and chillers. It needs new elevators. It needs someone to deal with its asbestos, its lead, its mould. Staff are still using the facility as they prepare for their new building. They won’t actually move out completely until late 2019 or early 2020. But then, the building will need a new raison d’être.
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Imagine, instead, the possibilities for reusing it. It comes with a 417-seat theatre, a commercial catering kitchen updated in 2012, classrooms, board rooms, large reception spaces, offices for 100 people. Could it be a new home for Athabasca University, perhaps? A city museum? A community arts facility, with studio and display space for visual artists, rehearsal space for live performers, and a theatre/recital hall? Given its connection to burgeoning 124 Street, its place on a future major bike-way, and the LRT stop planned four blocks away, surely we can find a higher, better use than “green space,” in an area with no shortage of parkland.
Brad Ferguson, president and CEO of the Edmonton Economic Development Corp., envisions a perfect conference centre, what he calls Canada’s Camp David. And he says the EEDC would love the opportunity to manage such a facility.
“Let’s pause. Let’s take the time to do something great,” says Ferguson. “Good solutions come through collaborating, and we would love the opportunity to understand the goals of Alberta Infrastructure and share some of our needs at the same time. Sometimes good solutions are just a phone call away.”
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