OTTAWA | Golden Triangle

[flar]

[canadave]

Oh, great. flar posts an Ottawa thread the same day I do, even featuring some of the same locations! Now who's going to want to read mine?

Seriously, though, great work as always. This is my 'hood, it's a fantastic part of town. This shot, actually, was taken literally right outside my building:

[osirisboy]

thats awesome thank you. it sure brings back memories looking at those pics. one of my favorite things of ottawa is that whole area, i love it!!!

[jeremy_haak]

Originally Posted by flar

I went to school here in Grade 9 prior to moving to Thunder Bay.

[xzmattzx]

Nice pictures. Is that the Rideau Canal in one of the pictures?

[dugdogmaster]

Nice

[Gitfiddler]

Very nice shots of my old neighbourhood. I lived on MacLaren St close to the canal for a couple years while I was in school. Great neighbourhood. I kind of miss Boushey's.

[vid]

Lots of great buildings.



I remember seeing this building used as an example in a book about architecture I borrowed from the library!

[ue]

Geez that is a great set. It helps your architectural angles are spot on and the pictures are so high quality. This area looks like it has got such a strong urban fabric...and coming from Alberta the architecture is so beautiful there. I like seeing these collections flar so many cool urban neighbourhoods down in Ottawa I would have never guessed, there isn't that many (maybe 4-5?) in Edmonton.

[canadave]

^ It's interesting to hear you praise the architecture so much. Most Ottawans, it seem, regard our architecture as bland—which is true, I suppose, if you just look at the CDB—but I think a lot of people don't realize the incredible 19th and early-20th century buildings we have scattered about the central city. It's actually pretty impressive if you take the time to look, it's just that it doesn't jump out at you if you don't.

[vid]

I think there are two reasons behind it. The first is that people don't spend much time wandering around older residential areas to take pictures like we do (even if you don't take pictures, it's nice to just walk around in them and enjoy their built environment) and another is that they see the buildings so often, they aren't as grand as those from other places (a "the grass is always greener" kind of thing). But he is from Edmonton, which like Calgary has a very small amount of houses from that era because it is so young, so that's probably a part of his reaction as well. It's something different for him to see. (Many of those styles were out of fashion even when northern Ontario was developing in the late 1800s.)

[ue]

^You're right. We only have like ~5 buildings in Metro Edmonton still standing that were built before 1900. Much of our old housing is the American Four Square, which is fine in it's own right, but there isn't much else, which makes seeing something like this interesting. Edmonton has a few Victorians, but they're so scattered it's hard to find a good chunk of them. It also doesn't help that in the 60s and 70s the city went on a demolition spree which destroyed two major areas that today if not demo'd would have a lot of old buildings - the Warehouse District and the Boyle Street area, although some still exist and are some of the city's best early commercial buildings. Calgary is even worse cause it is even younger than Edmonton.

[Stanzmastertron3000]

Noice.

[Thundertubs]

Good stuff. Love the red brick.

[citizen j]

It's good to see home through your eyes, flar.
I lived directly east from there, across the canal, as a U of O student.
Did you spot the statue of Argentine general José de San Martin in Minto Park (the park in that neighbourhood between Elgin, Cartier, Lewis, and Gilmour Streets)? There's gotta be a story behind it, as opposed to just being an incredibly random choice for a monument in a lovely but off-the-radar park. Anyone know?

Thanks again for these intimate tours of the city.

[canadave]

I've wondered about that statue a couple of times, myself. I've yet to find out the reasoning, though...

[citizen j]

This piece in the Citizen makes reference to the statue, but it offers ony speculation rather than investigation.

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/story_p...41100&sponsor=

[flar]

Probably most of the buildings in this neighbourhood were built after 1900. This neighbourhood basically shows the transition from the elaborate ornamentation of Victorian styles to more functional and plainer modern styles. I don't know when these houses were built, but the house on the left is more Victorian in character. Look at the woodworking around the porch and the detailed masonry around the windows. The house on the right maintains conintuity with Victorian styles, but shows a stronger tendency toward Edwardian Classicism. This can be seen in the Classical details of the porch and the Classical palladian window at the top. As you can see, post-Victorian houses are much simpler (look at the window decorations, for example).


_



citizen j: I was in too much of a rush to actually look at the statue, it started raining toward the end of this tour. I'll check it out sometime.

xzmattxz: that is the Rideau Canal showing in a couple shots.

[Evergrey]

I dig the bistro/gelato/juice district

[flar]

Originally Posted by canadave

^ It's interesting to hear you praise the architecture so much. Most Ottawans, it seem, regard our architecture as bland—which is true, I suppose, if you just look at the CDB—but I think a lot of people don't realize the incredible 19th and early-20th century buildings we have scattered about the central city. It's actually pretty impressive if you take the time to look, it's just that it doesn't jump out at you if you don't.

Ottawa deserves some credit, there are some beautiful older neighbourhoods, and some interesting residential architecture. I guess the knock on Ottawa is that there is little to distinguish many neighbourhoods from one another: a lot of them are pleasant upper middle class areas with leafy streets and stately early 20C housing.