A few rebuttals in The Globe...
Who you callin' ugly?
SARAH TAYLOR
May 15, 2007
Ottawa -- It is a sad truth that much of Ottawa, like most Canadian cities, is architecturally hideous (The Non-Glories Of Our Nation's Capital - May 14). But in saying that Ottawa has no recent architecture of merit, Lawrence Martin overlooks the War Museum, the National Gallery and the Museum of Civilization. Not to mention many lower-profile projects successfully marrying old and new, such as the main tourist information centre or the condo-ized former City Archives building. And please spare us condescending assumptions that Ottawa is dull because civil servants are dull. Duller than whom - accountants on Bay Street and insurance adjusters in Calgary?
The non-glories of our nation's capital
LAWRENCE MARTIN
May 14, 2007
Say it isn't so, good people of Ottawa.
Say you haven't turned the nation's capital, as some sushi-loving author claims, into an eyesore - a cement box that has suffered "the desecration of a generation."
Tell us your National Arts Centre isn't "reminiscent of a Stalinist detention centre," your central library isn't "held together by chicken wire and duct tape." Tell us that Andrew Cohen is way off when he labels Bank Street seedy and scruffy, "a varicose vein." Or Rideau Street "a pastiche of tattoo parlours, shawarma shops, gas stations and money marts patronized by drifters."
Tell us you're not "a town without climax."
The accusations are all laid out in a hair-raising chapter in The Unfinished Canadian, Mr. Cohen's new book.
The tome has outraged the city's principal newspaper, the Ottawa Citizen, which immediately denounced the author as an elitist, one among that breed who "measure quality of life with caviar spoons." Its editorial screamed: "Andrew Cohen is wrong." So what if "we have too much shawarma and not enough sushi for Mr. Cohen's taste?" The paper is currently running a series of rebuttals.
Wonderful! And good on Mr. Cohen for getting out the wrecking ball.
As regards our architectural plight, something was needed to break the silence. And Mr. Cohen's jackhammer does just fine.
Yes, he's way over the top on some things. Yes, Ottawa is clean and pretty at its centre. Yes, it's an outdoorsy and highly livable capital. But with many of his piercing appraisals, Mr. Cohen hits the mark.
Ottawa lives off its natural splendours - the canal, the river, the Gatineaus. It lives off vintage architectural glories. It has, as Mr. Cohen points out, the Gothic beauty of the parliamentary precinct and other jewels such as the Château Laurier.
Like so many Canadian cities, Ottawa's architectural prestige lies in the old cathedrals, provincial legislatures and CN hotels. They were built a century ago or more. The question is: What's happened to us in the past five decades?
To accommodate a growing bureaucracy, Ottawa "has thrown up monstrosities designed by the cum laude graduates of the School of Brutalism," separated by "an elevated expressway that cuts through the city like a rusting hacksaw." Mr. Cohen shouldn't have stopped at Ottawa. He should have got out his caviar spoons and taken a run at Toronto's appalling downtown canyons as well. But as the country's capital, Ottawa does merit particular attention.
The Sparks Street pedestrian mall is run-down, empty after 6 p.m. and listing with souvenir shops. The city's arts centre is, indeed, one of the ugliest buildings in existence. Its entrance is symbolically located - at the rear end. Carleton University is generously described by Mr. Cohen as a campus of "remarkably insipid buildings." Not to be forgotten are the geniuses who put the hockey arena 30 kilometres outside the downtown core. Ottawa's football team and stadium are both crumbling, and its baseball team is leaving town.
Some ennobling structures have gone up in recent times, but they are the exception to the aching rule. When the city wisely took down the dreadful Daly building beside the Château, it could think of nothing better to do than put up a glassy condominium box in its place. It doesn't even have a shaped roof. Anyone can see the majesty that a spire brings. Anyone but our architects who don't seem to know turrets from turtles. In the past, the media paid more heed. Today, our architecture critics have little standing; they're back-page creatures.
Ottawa is so happy with the ordinary, says Mr. Cohen, that practically any performance at the Stalinist detention centre gets a standing ovation. The city is "genteel and orderly, terrified of spontaneity. It has not had a big idea in years."
It did have one, actually. Jean Chrétien and the National Capital Commission wanted to reach for the stars. They wanted to tear down the top half of Metcalfe Street and create a boulevard opening onto the stateliness of Parliament Hill. A semi-Champs Élysées effect.
It was a spectacular idea, but small thinkers all over town shuddered at the prospect of doing something bold and it didn't get a second breath. Reeked of caviar.
lmartin@globeandmail.com
