Winnipeg | 300 Main St.- Phase II 360 Main St. | 465 Ft | 42F | Completed

[biguc]

Originally Posted by Urban recluse

Settling for the mundane is why Winnipeg is now battling to become a vibrant city. For so many decades, a lack of vision and flare has resulted in downtown being dominated by remnants of a time where buildings were built to look like, well, streets, and they blend in with the streets. Nothing about Winnipeg at this point screams modern.The concrete monolith's dominating the Winnipeg skyline are cold and uninviting. Cities that gleam from so much glass, and boast fine, beautifully cared for historic architecture are the cities people love to be in. The Richardson building would be acceptable to me if there were numerous gleaming towers around it. As it stands now, it is dreadfully dull.

Not enough flair!

[WhipperSnapper]

Originally Posted by Urban recluse

Settling for the mundane is why Winnipeg is now battling to become a vibrant city. For so many decades, a lack of vision and flare has resulted in downtown being dominated by remnants of a time where buildings were built to look like, well, streets, and they blend in with the streets. Nothing about Winnipeg at this point screams modern.The concrete monolith's dominating the Winnipeg skyline are cold and uninviting. Cities that gleam from so much glass, and boast fine, beautifully cared for historic architecture are the cities people love to be in. The Richardson building would be acceptable to me if there were numerous gleaming towers around it. As it stands now, it is dreadfully dull.

It's a great international style tower and one that is rapidly disappearing from Canadian skylines as aging precast is being replaced with mundane SSG curtainwalls.

You don't even know what you have. That's why Winnipeg gets ignored by others.

[Urban recluse]

Winnipeg's image is why it is ignored, namely a dreary, dark and depressing downtown.

What needs to happen is more building owners need to renovate their stale downtown buildings. There is a new energy in Winnipeg thanks to Artis, True North, etc, and if more business leaders step up, the city will thrive.

[Urban recluse]

Originally Posted by GarryEllice

The cities that I love to be in are the ones that are full of life. Gleaming glass skyscrapers look lovely in pictures but they don't really make much of a difference to day-to-day life at street level.

I think you've got the causation backwards. Vibrant cities attract development, and in the current era much of that development is clad in gleaming glass. Having lots of glass buildings is a result of urban success, not a cause of it.

You underestimate what impressions are formed by looking at a city's skyline.

[Urban recluse]

Originally Posted by optimusREIM

Agreed. It's not exactly vibrant given that much of the land to the east and south of Richardson is dead surface parking. I think that if the lots between there and shaw park as well as south main and the railside lands were developed and built out it would go a long way to revitalizing the look of Richardson. Especially if a couple of shinyglass skyscrapers went up.

Good point. Perhaps if the Fairmont were recladded, and a few mid-rise glass towers were built around the area, that would create what I am looking for.

[Urban recluse]

Originally Posted by biguc

Not enough flair!

LOL, sufficient flare for me:

http://www.pictec.com/2014/12/18/duke-energy-center/
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B1uf522CYAAbFbV.jpg:large

[BAKGUY]

Originally Posted by Urban recluse

Good point. Perhaps if the Fairmont were recladded, and a few mid-rise glass towers were built around the area, that would create what I am looking for.

True. My ideal ... would be a recladding of: The Fairmont, The Radisson, The west wall of the Kensington Bldg. Also, I hate the baby poop colour cladding on 433 Main street I sure go hope that gets redone. That would brighten up Main street. In its current state, I feel the need for a restroom.

[Urban recluse]

Very good ideas.

[TimeFadesAway]

Originally Posted by biguc

Exactly. It's like people celebrating the pending demise of the PSB, ignorant to the fact that when the old city hall came down, many people celebrated the demise of such an "ugly" building.

Now, some are similarly short-sighted with respect to our modernist buildings, some of which are quite fine indeed.

Yep...People also easily confuse a lack of proper maintenance and cleaning for a building being tired and out-of-date. If you take the PSB, for example, when it was new and clean, it looked pretty spectacular.

https://digital.library.yorku.ca/yul-275983/public-safety-building

And it wouldn't take too much to get it back to this state (around $8 million as the majority of the $65 million quoted for refurbishment would be for the interior).

The old airport is another good example. Back when it opened, before it had been jammed full of more stuff than the building could handle, it looked amazing.

http://wbi.lib.umanitoba.ca/WinnipegBuildings/viewImage.jsp?id=3690&size=llarge

http://wbi.lib.umanitoba.ca/WinnipegBuildings/viewImage.jsp?id=3683&size=llarge

[esquire]

Originally Posted by TimeFadesAway

The old airport is another good example. Back when it opened, before it had been jammed full of more stuff than the building could handle, it looked amazing.

http://wbi.lib.umanitoba.ca/WinnipegBuildings/viewImage.jsp?id=3690&size=llarge

http://wbi.lib.umanitoba.ca/WinnipegBuildings/viewImage.jsp?id=3683&size=llarge

It was tragic how WAA rammed so much 🞵🞵🞵🞵 into the old terminal that people couldn't see the beauty of its design anymore. But then, maybe that was the point.

[steveosnyder]

Originally Posted by esquire

It was tragic how WAA rammed so much 🞵🞵🞵🞵 into the old terminal that people couldn't see the beauty of its design anymore. But then, maybe that was the point.

I remember there was a big hub-bub about the art in that is in the first picture and where it was going/the cost of moving it.

Looking at it in that picture it looks good... Does anyone know how that all finished up? I thought they were moving it to U of M?

[scryer]

Originally Posted by Urban recluse

Winnipeg's image is why it is ignored, namely a dreary, dark and depressing downtown.

What needs to happen is more building owners need to renovate their stale downtown buildings. There is a new energy in Winnipeg thanks to Artis, True North, etc, and if more business leaders step up, the city will thrive.

Just to kind of bring us back to Winnipeg's image...

Renovations do not make up the essence of a vibrant city. A city's walk-ability factor and how the buildings interact with the side-walk/pedestrian traffic determines how vibrant it is. And even if Winnipeg redesigned its downtown buildings to interact more effectively with the side-walk, it would be an uphill battle to get people to actually want to visit with the reputation it has.

[Cyro]

Originally Posted by steveosnyder

I remember there was a big hub-bub about the art in that is in the first picture and where it was going/the cost of moving it.

Looking at it in that picture it looks good... Does anyone know how that all finished up? I thought they were moving it to U of M?

I beleive thier was quite a discussion reg: the WAA, Artwork, design, photos, etc..in the
Winnipeg James Armstrong Richardson International Airport Thread...

[Andy6]

Originally Posted by biguc

Exactly. It's like people celebrating the pending demise of the PSB, ignorant to the fact that when the old city hall came down, many people celebrated the demise of such an "ugly" building.

There are some things that people universally agree make a building look good, and in as much as they do, we can agree there are certain objective aesthetic values. Beyond that, what we value aesthetically is subject to the same market forces as anything. Scarcity increases value. This city used to wipe its 🞵🞵🞵 with its neo-classical building stock, until everyone realized they weren't going to get any more and started caring about them. Now, some are similarly short-sighted with respect to our modernist buildings, some of which are quite fine indeed.

Our skyline may look brown and drab now--enough to cheapen the value of any part of it. But I consider us lucky to have avoided accumulating many inanely whimsical, candy-coloured po-mo buildings. And in ten years when you look at booming cities like Toronto and realize their skyline is a tedious mass of blue-grey glass, you'll wish you could still see the varied styles of Commerce Court, the BMO Tower, and Scotiabank.

Very good post. A+.

[Urban recluse]

Originally Posted by biguc

Exactly. It's like people celebrating the pending demise of the PSB, ignorant to the fact that when the old city hall came down, many people celebrated the demise of such an "ugly" building.

There are some things that people universally agree make a building look good, and in as much as they do, we can agree there are certain objective aesthetic values. Beyond that, what we value aesthetically is subject to the same market forces as anything. Scarcity increases value. This city used to wipe its 🞵🞵🞵 with its neo-classical building stock, until everyone realized they weren't going to get any more and started caring about them. Now, some are similarly short-sighted with respect to our modernist buildings, some of which are quite fine indeed.

Our skyline may look brown and drab now--enough to cheapen the value of any part of it. But I consider us lucky to have avoided accumulating many inanely whimsical, candy-coloured po-mo buildings. And in ten years when you look at booming cities like Toronto and realize their skyline is a tedious mass of blue-grey glass, you'll wish you could still see the varied styles of Commerce Court, the BMO Tower, and Scotiabank.

I would say maybe the odd person called it ugly; I am not buying that as a mantra. You read "City beautiful", didn't you?

But said examples are a Hell of a lot nicer than the Richardson building; I would take any of those three examples over the cold concrete Richardson Building.

There is a reason skylines are becoming more translucent, just as the majority of people look at sparkling diamonds and other gems with amazement.

[Urban recluse]

Originally Posted by scryer

Just to kind of bring us back to Winnipeg's image...

Renovations do not make up the essence of a vibrant city. A city's walk-ability factor and how the buildings interact with the side-walk/pedestrian traffic determines how vibrant it is. And even if Winnipeg redesigned its downtown buildings to interact more effectively with the side-walk, it would be an uphill battle to get people to actually want to visit with the reputation it has.

Downtown is struggling because just look at it. What about it is alluring? It is dark, cold, and univinting. You underestimate the importance of color, landscaping, and building materials. Look down at Portage and Main: concrete. A lot of it. The Richardson building and the Fairmont look as if they are extensions of the streets.

The brilliance emanating from True North's plans has lifted people's thoughts about the area, and it has yet to rise. People like things that sparkle.

[Svenn]

I don't think the Richardson will ever be re-clad. Like someone posted...maybe they add some lighting at the top.

I think it's a classic and I certainly hope they don't make any drastic changes to it.

[The Jabroni]

For what it is now, there's no way in hell the Richardson Building will ever get a reclad. It will remain what it is until it's either time to replace it, or god forbid, destroyed by either a natural or man-made disaster.

[drew]

The Richardson facade (and similarly the BMO tower and RBC tower) doesn't lend itself well to replacement a la 360 Main Street (or perhaps much of the TD Tower down the road).

I suspect it would cost much more to reclad the Richardson, meaning it won't make any economic sense for the foreseeable future.

[Arts]

Originally Posted by WhipperSnapper

It's a great international style tower and one that is rapidly disappearing from Canadian skylines as aging precast is being replaced with mundane SSG curtainwalls.

You don't even know what you have. That's why Winnipeg gets ignored by others.

As someone that spent his primary years there then moved away only ever visiting family there once or twice a decade, I have come to that very conclusion myself... many people in Winnipeg don't even know what they have, it truly is one of the most established and interesting cities in North America. It does not have glitz, nor screams for attention, but it has grit and character and strikes a certain balance that no other city in Western Canada can claim.