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Kelly Egan: Opportunity being missed on Lorne Building site
Kelly Egan thinks new building at 90 Elgin is a waste of gorgeous real estate.
Quote:
Kelly Egan: Opportunity being missed on Lorne Building site
Capital may be missing an opportunity to build something magnificent on Lorne Building site
By Kelly Egan, The Ottawa Citizen OCTOBER 16, 2011 12:05AM
The building will have high visibility. This much we know. But is it, as some suggest, pretty awful-looking?
I wouldn’t go that far. It seems ordinary. But perhaps, as a native, I suffer from Ottawa disease, an inclination to embrace mediocrity.
What do you think of this new edifice?
As we write, the old Lorne Building is being torn down. You will know it. The brown-wrapped box at 90 Elgin St. used to house the National Gallery of Canada.
Called “ultra-modern” in its day, it officially opened to raves in 1960 with a white-tie event that had more than 2,000 guests, including a dapper John Diefenbaker. But how we tire of things. By 1987, the gallery was moving out; the Lorne Building never quite found its legs again. They’ve even pulled the time capsule out to rebury it another day.
But here is the bigger question: Have we, as a capital and a city, missed a grand opportunity to create a magnificent building, dedicated wholly or in part to public use, on a prime piece of downtown property?
The site faces Confederation Park. It is close to Ottawa City Hall, the National Arts Centre, the Lord Elgin Hotel, the National War Memorial, the Sparks Street Mall, the Parliamentary precinct. It is well served by transit. It will have majestic views toward the Rideau Canal.
And the federal government’s plan is to install 2,000 office workers, with the Department of Finance as the major tenant. In other words, after 5 p.m., it’s another dead pile of stone and glass in downtown Ottawa. Like we need just a little more of that.
Inasmuch as it’s important for the nation’s money counters to be kept in suitable style, is this really the best use of this site?
Can’t the financiers finance just about anywhere?
We remind readers that, within the past five years, the Lorne site was being scouted as a possible home for a central library branch. Now we’re talking. Life after 4 p.m., cultural events, readings, receptions, children’s programming, workshops and what-have-you. Live human beings actually doing something downtown, seven days and nights a week, other than eating and drinking or racing to the suburbs.
Well, we know it is not to be. A 17-storey, tiered building is about to be constructed and the feds are planning to move in sometime in 2014.
“A beautiful addition to Ottawa’s Ceremonial Route,” according to a news release from Public Works.
Architecture and urban design critic Rhys Phillips doesn’t agree. He can be quite dismissive of modern buildings and I must admit to the odd “huh?” when he’s in full oratorical flight, alighting on things like “genus loci” and such.
“I think it says absolutely nothing about us,” he says of the new building (Dialog McRobie Architects), meaning it doesn’t signal anything about Ottawa or Canada or the federal presence here in the city, (as does the swooping Canadian Museum of Civilization).
“It’s just a very dull and bland building.” And the street level, at least as can be determined from photos, he finds “alienating.”
On one level, perhaps it is just a matter of taste. Architectural dust-ups are as old as the hills. Many will no doubt love the building.
There remains, however, the discussion about whether this is the right place for a building designed for that kind of use.
Barrhaven Councillor Jan Harder is chair of the city’s library board. She said the Lorne Building site was her personal favourite in the board’s failed attempt to find a new downtown home.
It has not just national but international stature as a location in the capital, she argued. She, too, would like to see a high-profile public use there, as there is so much foot traffic along Elgin, be it locals or tourists.
“This decision was never in the hands of the people of Ottawa,” she said.
Indeed it does seem to have flown right under everybody’s radar.
On a final note, the design of the building was, according to Public Works, approved by the National Capital Commission. Makes you wonder what the NCC’s role really is as the traffic cop of federal development downtown.
The commission, you’ll recall, is embarking on a cross-Canada tour to seek input into a 50-year vision, Horizon 2067.
Meanwhile, it is allowing important sites to be devoted to glass towers to be filled with mouse-armed accountants.
Here’s a vision: The way to make Ottawa less boring is to stop filling it up with so many boring buildings in gorgeous locations where people, at the end of the day, don’t want to be bored.
Read more: http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/Ke...#ixzz3qCdkxA1l
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