Château Laurier expansion | Approved

[White Pine]

Personally I don't like the old proposal. I've seen the faux-heritage buildings in Ottawa, and they look very bad. By themselves they look ok, because it's meant to be an imitation. But attached to the Chateau it would look really tacky.

I've disliked almost every proposed addition floating around, and I think only two of the rendered additions would work:

1. The Notre Dame student's proposal (best one)
2. the last official proposal. It's not terrible and it doesn't take away much attention from the real thing. If they take the heritage committee's recommendations and make pointy rooflines and such, I'm afraid that it would make it worse.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by OTownandDown

The tunnel from the east is the tunnel I'm interested in. Does it go under the footing from the parking garage, or just butt into the east side (north-east) corner of the main building? There's a loading dock shown in those new renderings, does that mean the tunnel has to go?

Originally Posted by J.OT13

There's a little about the tunnel, including a few pictures, on Urbsite.

http://urbsite.blogspot.com/2009/09/...1928-wing.html

The tunnel was built well before the parking garage, so I don't think its demolition or the hotel's expansion will have any effect on it.

I'll see if my book has any more info.

Found the short paragraph about the tunnel. From Château Laurier - A Splendid Century, Chapter Four, "Enter Canadian National", p. 84-85

I will paraphrase. Basically, when they built the East Wing, it eliminated the service access to the hotel. The initial plan envisioned was a ramp on the north-east side of the new wing, pretty much where they have a surface parking lot between the Mackenzie entrance and the entrance to the gates to the (now demolished) parking garage. CNR's chief did not like that idea thinking it would be an eyesore, so he itched the idea of a tunnel from Sussex to the Feds. The Feds agreed as long as the City was on board and that it would not be used between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. to preserve the Connaught Building's prestige. Another condition was that they build stairs between Sussex and Mackenzie next to the tunnel portal. With the conditions met, the hotel would be given access to the right-of-way in perpetuity. The tunnel opened March 12, 1930.

Based on the book, I would assume the tunnel plugs in where they ramp was initially planned, that is in the basement foundation, just north of the Mackenzie entrance.

Today, service vehicles have outgrown the tunnel. It remains in limited use for waste management. Deliveries and waste management have been relocated to the north end of the old CNR tunnel along the canal (not in the book, general knowledge).

Now that 700 Sussex is using the right-of-way for its parking garage (no doubt given to them in "perpetuity" also in exchange for the new stairs and elevator), I'm not sure how realistic it would be to re-purpose the tunnel for the new underground parking garage.

[Harley613]

They are putting the finishing touches on a fairly elaborate surface parking lot this week. I guess the expansion isn't happening any time too soon.

[IMG]20181016_152005 by harley613, on Flickr[/IMG]

[OTownandDown]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

Found the short paragraph about the tunnel. From Château Laurier - A Splendid Century, Chapter Four, "Enter Canadian National", p. 84-85

I will paraphrase. Basically, when they built the East Wing, it eliminated the service access to the hotel. The initial plan envisioned was a ramp on the north-east side of the new wing, pretty much where they have a surface parking lot between the Mackenzie entrance and the entrance to the gates to the (now demolished) parking garage. CNR's chief did not like that idea thinking it would be an eyesore, so he itched the idea of a tunnel from Sussex to the Feds. The Feds agreed as long as the City was on board and that it would not be used between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. to preserve the Connaught Building's prestige. Another condition was that they build stairs between Sussex and Mackenzie next to the tunnel portal. With the conditions met, the hotel would be given access to the right-of-way in perpetuity. The tunnel opened March 12, 1930.

Based on the book, I would assume the tunnel plugs in where they ramp was initially planned, that is in the basement foundation, just north of the Mackenzie entrance.

Today, service vehicles have outgrown the tunnel. It remains in limited use for waste management. Deliveries and waste management have been relocated to the north end of the old CNR tunnel along the canal (not in the book, general knowledge).

Now that 700 Sussex is using the right-of-way for its parking garage (no doubt given to them in "perpetuity" also in exchange for the new stairs and elevator), I'm not sure how realistic it would be to re-purpose the tunnel for the new underground parking garage.

Awesome, thanks! I just think that the tunnel would have been a perfect entrance for the garage, after check-in you wouldn't have to circle quite so far. (the valet wouldn't have to circle quite so far).

Also, kitchen grease is still stored in the tunnel, and runs down the ramp at 700 Sussex...

[danishh]

Originally Posted by OTownandDown

Awesome, thanks! I just think that the tunnel would have been a perfect entrance for the garage, after check-in you wouldn't have to circle quite so far. (the valet wouldn't have to circle quite so far).

Also, kitchen grease is still stored in the tunnel, and runs down the ramp at 700 Sussex...

I think the grease visible around 700 sussex has more to do with milestones bad ventilation design than the Chateau. The stuff running down the garage door is definitely coming from a milestones vent.

[OTownandDown]

Originally Posted by danishh

I think the grease visible around 700 sussex has more to do with milestones bad ventilation design than the Chateau. The stuff running down the garage door is definitely coming from a milestones vent.

If you peer through the gates on the south side of the tunnel, there are about a dozen grease drums stored there... nasty.

[J.OT13]

I won't post the entire article, just the pictures. To sum up, Heritage Ottawa held a presentation in Hintonburg this weekend to present the Carleton University architecture class designs. Personally, I don't think these are a whole lot better than Clews' designs, for the most part. A few stand out too much, one of them looks like they added a few floors to the former parking garage, one seems too small to be economically viable.

I would love to see the full projects and read the rationals to make a more informed opinion.

















https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local...rier-expansion

https://carleton.ca/arthistory/2018/...-the-question/

[rocketphish]

The article is interesting as well, I think. Here it is, without the images:

Thinking outside the box: Eight new ideas for Château Laurier expansion

Bruce Deachman, Ottawa Citizen
Updated: December 10, 2018

When the Fairmont Chateau Laurier’s parent company, Larco Investments Inc., unveiled its design plans for an addition in 2016, members of the public were largely unimpressed with the proposal that was essentially a box attached to the rear of the building, facing Major’s Hill Park.

Architect Peter Clewes, head of Toronto’s architectsAlliance firm that came up with the design, went back to the drawing board, but subsequent designs for the 160-plus room addition, also boxy in nature, have been greeted with only slightly less tepid enthusiasm than the first.

The process and public reaction gave Mariana Esponda, professor at Carleton University’s Azrieli School of Architecture, the idea to have third-year students come up with their own designs for the addition. Those designs were unveiled this weekend during an exhibition at the Hintonburg Community Centre.

“Because this whole Château Laurier addition has obviously interested a lot of people and attracted a lot of attention, I thought that more people should see these alternatives,” said Peter Coffman, not only an architecture historian and supervisor of Carleton’s History and Theory of Architecture program, but also a board member of Heritage Ottawa, which sponsored the show.

“The public conversation we’ve had about the whole project has been really constricted by the fact that we’ve been given so few options to consider. We were given a couple of boxes and people said, ‘No, we don’t like that,’ so we’re given a different box and then a different box with fins. But what the public has never been able to do is to look at some different options of what is possible here, what could an addition to the Château Laurier be.

“This building is so important and its setting is so incredibly important in terms of heritage, I think a really vigorous public conversation with an engaged public would be a productive thing,” Coffman added, “but we’re never really given that chance and it’s clear we’re not going to be given that chance, so I thought, ‘Well, let’s just do it without them.’”

Titled Outside the Box, the exhibit offered eight different possibilities created by 14 students. Some incorporated copper, already so familiar on the hotel’s roof. One featured a stepped look spilling from the hotel’s courtyard, invoking a comparison to the Rideau Canal’s locks directly beside the Château. Some offered modern interpretations of the hotel’s existing windows, sort of a present-day mirror, while yet another incorporated a historical semicircular pattern of windows reflecting the century-old architecture of the former Union train station across Wellington Street.

The show, Coffman said, is also a perfect example of what a university should be doing. “We’re engaging with a really complex problem, we’re questioning assumptions, we’re generating ideas and we’re contributing to the public discourse. And that’s our job.”

If the comments left by visitors this weekend were any indication, there’s an appetite for a design that doesn’t completely ignore the original architecture that’s being complemented. “Larco needs to hire these people,” read one. “At least they looked at the site.”

“Every one of these is more imaginative and pleasing than the current plan!” another said.

Coffman is critical of the public consultation over the past couple of years. “There are two types of consultation,” he said. “There’s the consultation you undertake because you want to get ideas that will help you produce a better result, and then there’s the consultation you do because you want to tick off the box that says ‘consultation.’ I think we’ve had a lot of the latter and not so much of the former.”

The significance of the renovation cannot be overstated, according to Coffman. The building, one of Canada’s great railway hotels, is one of the most beloved edifices in Ottawa. Situated across from Parliament Hill and directly beside the Rideau Canal, a UNESCO world heritage site, it has enormous heritage value. “I’m hard-pressed to think of another heritage site across the country that can surpass where the Château Laurier is in the Parliamentary precinct. It’s been on the back of the dollar bill and on postage stamps. So much of our national narrative is encoded there.”

However, Coffman doesn’t expect Larco to greet the students’ new designs with any great interest or enthusiasm, nor does it need to: City Hall has already accepted the company’s most recent design on the condition that it revise the plan to better incorporate the historic nature of the hotel, he said, and that amended design won’t go back to council, but rather straight to the city’s planning committee for site plan approval, where it’s unlikely to be rejected.

“Planning committee cannot reject a design based on heritage considerations,” Coffman said. “It’s simply not their mandate. They don’t have the jurisdiction. So, essentially, city council washed their hands of it and Larco only really has to satisfy city staff that they’ve ticked all the boxes. So I don’t have a lot of optimism.”

bdeachman@postmedia.com

https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local...rier-expansion

[OTownandDown]

Thoughts?

https://www.dezeen.com/2018/12/17/da...museum-island/

[daud]

not a fan...

I know in Europe there is a lot of this going on. But part of the issue there is there is just so much historical architecture in use.

Here in Canada, we have so little of it so there's a bigger need to preserve what we have.

I posted a photo in Ottawa Photos the other day. Its a shot of Wellington from the Westin Top floor. In the photo is almost all historical buildings-the renovated GCC is the only new building in the shot. I really think it is paramount that we preserve what is left. When I see some older photos of this street, I can see some very nice historical buildings have already been lost.

I think for the chateau I have 2 thoughts. 1. build an extension in the exact same style (to hell with what so called experts say about this). 2. Build a taller modern building on the east back corner of the lot-where the current entrance to the parking is. One that will appear separate from the chateau but can be connected by walkway. In that back corner, there will be next to no views disrupted.

In short , they're trying too hard to blend it without actually blending it. Go one way or the other and placement is part of that equation. Just my thoughts.

[kwoldtimer]

I wonder what the hold up is in presenting the "tweaked" final design for the Chateau addition?

[Kitchissippi]

Originally Posted by daud

I think for the chateau I have 2 thoughts. 1. build an extension in the exact same style (to hell with what so called experts say about this). 2. Build a taller modern building on the east back corner of the lot-where the current entrance to the parking is. One that will appear separate from the chateau but can be connected by walkway. In that back corner, there will be next to no views disrupted.

There could also be 3- Not build anything there. I think it actually looks good now that they’ve demolished the parkade. If they could just be happy with building an underground garage and opening up the hotel towards Major’s Hill, it would be awesome. To me, adding long stay apartments doesn’t seem to enhance the appeal of the Chateau, especially if the modern addition just ruins the view from the city’s oldest park.

[osirisboy]

"Thinking outside the box". Okay if that's what they want to do how about proposing something that is a replication of the other 3 builds/expansions?!

[daud]

Received a letter from the city today that the Chateau plans have been submitted.

This file here shows the views of the updated plans:

http://webcast.ottawa.ca/plan/All_Im...93%20Views.PDF

I'll try to post the photos directly on the page.

Dear resident,

Larco Investments is proposing to build a rear addition to the Château Laurier hotel. In June 2018, Ottawa City Council approved a heritage permit, which gave approval of the addition’s massing, location, and the proposed landscaping, but required Larco to make the addition more visually compatible with the existing hotel building by:

• Increasing the use of Indiana limestone,
• Breaking up the north façade and
• Altering its design to relate more to the existing hotel.

Through this decision, Council did not require that the addition be changed to a Château-style building nor that exact architectural elements be copied from the existing hotel.

The City of Ottawa has received a revised design addressing the conditions of the heritage permit approval. You can view the design on the Development Application Search and provide comments by contacting the file lead, Allison Hamlin, at chateaulaurier@ottawa.ca or 613-580-2424, extension 25477. Please provide your comments by Monday, March 18.

Next Steps

The Urban Design Review Panel will provide urban design advice on this new design. Built Heritage Sub-Committee will be advised of the revised design. Planning Committee will make a decision on the site plan control application. This meeting is expected in spring 2019. City staff will notify you of all meeting dates and decisions by email.

For more information, please visit ottawa.ca/chateaulaurier or contact:

Allison Hamlin
Planning, Infrastructure and Economic Development
City of Ottawa
110 Laurier Avenue West
Ottawa, ON K1J 1P1
Email: chateaulaurier@ottawa.ca
Tel.: 613-580-2424, ext. 25477

https://app01.ottawa.ca/postingplans...appId=__0FUWSI

[Uhuniau]

They really seem hell-bent on building a box.

[daud]

[daud]

[daud]

[J.OT13]

No improvement to the roof whatsoever. I don't think the public will like this one any better.

Still not a fan of the huge three storey skywalk to the old Château. I like that's it's more broken up, not just a full mass. The courtyard is beautiful.

I haven't made my opinion on this one yet.

Top two floors though. What not angle it in and add a few dormers. Something similar to 1451 Wellington.

[daud]