Poll: What was Winnipeg's Best Era for Urbanism?

[esquire]

I've broken the eras up into 15-year chunks. Not specifically limited to downtown, but realistically downtown is going to be the focus.

PRE-BOOM ERA (1885-1900): When Winnipeg first truly became a city. Downtown was still centred around the area north of Portage and Main. This was the era when horse-drawn carts dominated. Buildings of this era include Old City Hall, Fortune Block and several Exchange District warehouses.

BOOM ERA (1900-1915): Peak Winnipeg, when the city was in growth mode and turned into a metropolis on the prairies. This was when Portage Avenue turned into one of Canada's most prosperous commercial thoroughfares. Downtown was still fairly small, but it was the undisputed hub of activity. We started to see the early development of street car suburbs and motor vehicle use in these years. Winnipeg started to see the formation of satellite hubs, as strips like Selkirk Avenue and Osborne St brought many amenities right to the areas where people lived. Buildings of this era include many of Winnipeg's most iconic structures, including the Manitoba Legislative Building, Union Station, Eaton's, the Hotel Fort Garry and the Union Bank Tower.

INTERWAR YEARS (1920-1935): Winnipeg was a mature city by this point, the explosive growth of the boom era was over but there was continued progress as downtown started to fill out and grew to the west. Cars started to figure prominently in these years. Buildings of this era include the Hudson Bay store and the Winnipeg Auditorium.

POSTWAR YEARS (1945-1960): The baby boom and increased prosperity brought cars and sprawl to Winnipeg, but downtown was still the place to be as streetcars and later buses brought hordes of shoppers to the department stores lining Portage Avenue. Buildings of this era include Polo Park Shopping Centre, the Norquay Building and Manitoba Hall at the University of Winnipeg.

MODERNISM AND SPRAWL (1960-1975): These years saw downtown reshaped from a fairly complete neighbourhood into a mainly 9-5 office district. Huge amounts of office space went up in new towers, and ambitious block-long redevelopments replaced the small buildings of Winnipeg's early years. Downtown grew physically as it swallowed up many blocks of formerly residential streets to the south and west. Suburban sprawl and shopping malls ate into downtown retail activity but downtown was still the centre of it all for shopping and entertainment. Buildings of this era include the Richardson Building, Centennial Concert Hall, the old Winnipeg International Airport terminal, the Royal Bank Building, the Winnipeg Convention Centre and the towers of Lakeview Square.

THE UNICITY ERA (1975-1990): By this point downtown was reaching a point of serious malaise as the suburbs had eaten away at its prosperity and vitality. Winnipeg was firmly a car city as well, as the city had been reshaped during the Metro era of the 1960s to handle more traffic, and there were no major transit improvements to revitalize urban neighbourhoods. Downtown shopping declined significantly in these years, and social problems increased. Unicity allowed Winnipeg's municipal government to grow to be more responsive to these problems. A lot of government-assisted projects were aimed at fixing problems downtown, like Winnipeg Square and Portage Place. Buildings of this era include 201 Portage (TD Centre), One Canada Centre and Fort Garry Place.

URBAN RENAISSANCE (2000-2015): Rising economic tides and population growth led to improvements downtown, and brought more people back to the streets. A mix of big projects like a new arena, with smaller ones like various downtown housing developments brought more people back to downtown streets. A renewed focus on transit helped. By this point downtown retail was starting to disappear completely, so downtown became focused more on dining and entertainment with a new arena and restaurants opening up. Buildings of this era include Centrepoint, Buhler Centre, the Canadian Museum for Human Rights and the new airport terminal.

[esquire]

For the record, I voted for 1945-1960. By that point Winnipeg was a mature, established city, it didn't feel like a pop-up boom town anymore. It was starting to enjoy some of the prosperity of the postwar boom years. Downtown was still king. Streetcars still ran for much of that era, and both train stations were bustling every day as passengers came and went.

Of course, it wasn't all great as the seeds were sown for the massive decline to come in later years. But it's hard to shake the idea that Winnipeg circa 1950 would have been pretty much peak urbanism in this city, before sprawl, cars, decline and poverty would chip away at it all.

[thurmas]

Best post war 45 to 60. Worst unicity 75 to 90. Unicity era stupid ideas of Winnipeg Square and closing portage and main and diluting the street level business activities. The albatross that was portage place. The failure to build a light rail system when it was feasible to do so. The mess the city made adding linden woods and whyte ridge and not planning Kenaston properly and giving us the mess we have today.

[harls]

I would have loved to see things being built 1900-1915.

[Unbending]

I always thought Lakeview Square was an interesting mid-century development, with two residential towers, hotel, and office buildings. The development has loads of street level retail, restaurants, and bars. Not to mention the Japanese-style park that adds much needed green space in the area.

[esquire]

Originally Posted by thurmas

Best post war 45 to 60. Worst unicity 75 to 90. Unicity era stupid ideas of Winnipeg Square and closing portage and main and diluting the street level business activities. The albatross that was portage place. The failure to build a light rail system when it was feasible to do so. The mess the city made adding linden woods and whyte ridge and not planning Kenaston properly and giving us the mess we have today.

60-75 was probably peak car in terms of reshaping the city to accommodate them, but there was still a good amount of legacy urbanism. 75-90 was when a lot of that eroded and what we were left with was a sprawled out, car-centric city. The 80s and 90s were the peak era of surface parking and the 9 to 5 downtown.

And as you point out, a lot of large subdivisions were built as was common in North America, but with very little of the transportation infrastructure (road or transit) needed to sustain them.

Originally Posted by harls

I would have loved to see things being built 1900-1915.

This would have been the most exciting time. I remember Andy6 once started a thread called "World Class Winnipeg" to highlight the truly world class things in the city. That era was probably the main time that the entire city itself was world class, in terms of the level of growth it was experiencing and the quality of the buildings being built.

Originally Posted by Unbending

I always thought Lakeview Square was an interesting mid-century development, with two residential towers, hotel, and office buildings. The development has loads of street level retail, restaurants, and bars. Not to mention the Japanese-style park that adds much needed green space in the area.

At one point that development was to be the model for much of the downtown area between Portage and Broadway. That never happened (and maybe it was for the better), but that complex filling an entire block is definitely an impressive landmark and a good example of that type of ambitious 70s urbanism. I wish it was better kept, though... it's not in bad shape but it's not necessarily great, either. Even a bit of money spent on the common areas like the Japanese Garden would go a long way.

What might have been...

[CoryB]

I would pick the modernism era. It alone had more impact on downtown and the character of Winnipeg that any other era.

- the current City Hall
- the former Public Safety building
- the concert hall
- the Manitoba Museum
- the Richardson building
- the Fairmont
- the Ramada Inn at Portage and Smith
- Winnipeg's first live-work-play development the Lakeview Square
- the convention centre
- the Woodsworth building
- the Norquay building (Completed 1960)
- the Stanely Knowles building
- the Medical Arts building
- the University of Winnipeg (chartered as a school in 1967)

I am sure there are more I have forgotten. Also just outside the era in the Canada Post/current WPS HQ building (before) and Winnipeg Square (after). The modernism era shaped the very essence of Winnipeg and gave it a lot of the character it has now. The current era is definitely trying to reshape downtown but I am not sure it will succeed in reaching the same heights even if it does have taller buildings.

[esquire]

Originally Posted by CoryB

I would pick the modernism era. It alone had more impact on downtown and the character of Winnipeg that any other era.

- the current City Hall
- the former Public Safety building
- the concert hall
- the Manitoba Museum
- the Richardson building
- the Fairmont
- the Ramada Inn at Portage and Smith
- Winnipeg's first live-work-play development the Lakeview Square
- the convention centre
- the Woodsworth building
- the Norquay building (Completed 1960)
- the Stanely Knowles building
- the Medical Arts building
- the University of Winnipeg (chartered as a school in 1967)

I am sure there are more I have forgotten. Also just outside the era in the Canada Post/current WPS HQ building (before) and Winnipeg Square (after). The modernism era shaped the very essence of Winnipeg and gave it a lot of the character it has now. The current era is definitely trying to reshape downtown but I am not sure it will succeed in reaching the same heights even if it does have taller buildings.

This era was probably the biggest paradox in terms of urbanism. Architecturally this was an amazing era, many of the buildings you listed are among my very favourites in Winnipeg. So from that perspective it was a good time for urbanism. There was certainly an impressive quantity of major buildings that have endured, and the quality was usually there too.

The downside of that era was that probably more than any other era, the central parts of the city declined and went from being a complete neighbourhood to a 9-5 office district. Compare Winnipeg at the beginning of that era (1960) when Portage was still the dominant retail strip in town, to the end of the era (1975) when suburban subdivisions and malls had eaten away at a lot of downtown's traffic. The importance of transit had declined as cars took over. Even downtown itself spread out to an unsustainably large size leading to the situation we still face today where there are many highly underutilized blocks with surface lots and small single-storey buildings... a lot of downtown residential south of Graham was cleared to make way for some new buildings, but also a lot of new parking lots that stand today. So the urban fabric definitely frayed in those years.

[optimusREIM]

Originally Posted by esquire

This era was probably the biggest paradox in terms of urbanism. Architecturally this was an amazing era, many of the buildings you listed are among my very favourites in Winnipeg. So from that perspective it was a good time for urbanism. There was certainly an impressive quantity of major buildings that have endured, and the quality was usually there too.

The downside of that era was that probably more than any other era, the central parts of the city declined and went from being a complete neighbourhood to a 9-5 office district. Compare Winnipeg at the beginning of that era (1960) when Portage was still the dominant retail strip in town, to the end of the era (1975) when suburban subdivisions and malls had eaten away at a lot of downtown's traffic. The importance of transit had declined as cars took over. Even downtown itself spread out to an unsustainably large size leading to the situation we still face today where there are many highly underutilized blocks with surface lots and small single-storey buildings... a lot of downtown residential south of Graham was cleared to make way for some new buildings, but also a lot of new parking lots that stand today. So the urban fabric definitely frayed in those years.

The separation of uses is a huge problem for that. Creating neightbourhoods only for one purpose or another really hurts the areas where there isn't a significant permanent resident population...

[esquire]

^ Yes, good point. That is the era when we saw the complex, interwoven urban fabric turn into more rigid separation of uses through the use of zoning. The idea itself was not terrible, it wasn't a bad idea to, say, prevent dirty industry from going up next to where people live. But we may have gone a little too far with it... it effectively decimated the residential population through much of downtown, and it also increased car reliance in suburbia by preventing any sort of commercial activity in many neighbourhoods.

[pacman]

My vote would be 1990-2000 if it was an option lol.

I chose 1920-1935, the city was maturing and filling itself out and wasn't sprawled beyond repair. I would imagine there was a lot of walking and the pedestrian experience without parking lots everywhere would've been a lot more friendly. Plus by that era Winnipeg would've had a lot of big city amenities relative to its size so from an urban perspective I think the big city lifestyle/small city benefits would've been at its peak, best of both worlds.

[esquire]

Originally Posted by pacman

My vote would be 1990-2000 if it was an option lol.

I chose 1920-1935, the city was maturing and filling itself out and wasn't sprawled beyond repair. I would imagine there was a lot of walking and the pedestrian experience without parking lots everywhere would've been a lot more friendly. Plus by that era Winnipeg would've had a lot of big city amenities relative to its size so from an urban perspective I think the big city lifestyle/small city benefits would've been at its peak, best of both worlds.

1920-1935 is a reasonable choice, by that point the boomtown years were in the rearview and city would have come into its own and had some growing confidence as a major city in the Canadian context. Winnipeg had developed numerous 'big city' trappings and a visitor at that time probably would have been impressed with what they saw. Those of us who grew up in Winnipeg probably took stuff like the big downtown department stores for granted, but to someone who strolled into town in 1930 they probably would have been quite impressed.

I purposely avoided including 1990-2000 because I saw that as a bit of a low ebb. The classic, pre-automobile era urbanism in the city was basically running on fumes by that point, and the postwar sprawl had inflicted a considerable amount of damage. Looking back, mainstream downtown retail pretty much died in the 90s when Eaton's went under. On top of that, the city had not yet begun to focus on new ways to improve downtown through residential growth and entertainment, as well as improved urban environments across the city through better transportation (transit/AT) and better approaches to planning. Things only began improving after the turn of the century.

[harls]

Originally Posted by pacman

My vote would be 1990-2000 if it was an option lol.

Eww..

[trueviking]

I would say that Winnipeg peaked as far as development goes in 1914, but it still had a reasonably small population at that time....by 1930, the population was close to a quarter of a million and it hadn't gone through any significant decline yet.....it had grown into itself to become a real city while still retaining all the great streets, buildings, and neighbourhoods built in the boom era....so. I would say that was likely the peak of its urbanism....

Winnipeg's peak urbanism was the day before construction on the first Richardson Building stopped in 1930.....I'll look up what that date was.

After 1930, you had the depression and then the war. Of course, after that, the word urbanism and Winnipeg can't ever be mentioned in the same sentence.

[trueviking]

Originally Posted by CoryB

I would pick the modernism era. It alone had more impact on downtown and the character of Winnipeg that any other era.

- the current City Hall
- the former Public Safety building
- the concert hall
- the Manitoba Museum
- the Richardson building
- the Fairmont
- the Ramada Inn at Portage and Smith
- Winnipeg's first live-work-play development the Lakeview Square
- the convention centre
- the Woodsworth building
- the Norquay building (Completed 1960)
- the Stanely Knowles building
- the Medical Arts building
- the University of Winnipeg (chartered as a school in 1967)

I am sure there are more I have forgotten. Also just outside the era in the Canada Post/current WPS HQ building (before) and Winnipeg Square (after). The modernism era shaped the very essence of Winnipeg and gave it a lot of the character it has now. The current era is definitely trying to reshape downtown but I am not sure it will succeed in reaching the same heights even if it does have taller buildings.

Modernism made some pretty buildings but it's a pretty tough argument that it made good quality urbanism.....they basically removed good urbanism to build it.

[BAKGUY]

Originally Posted by CoryB

I would pick the modernism era. It alone had more impact on downtown and the character of Winnipeg that any other era.

- the current City Hall
- the former Public Safety building
- the concert hall
- the Manitoba Museum
- the Richardson building
- the Fairmont
- the Ramada Inn at Portage and Smith
- Winnipeg's first live-work-play development the Lakeview Square
- the convention centre
- the Woodsworth building
- the Norquay building (Completed 1960)
- the Stanely Knowles building
- the Medical Arts building
- the University of Winnipeg (chartered as a school in 1967)

I am sure there are more I have forgotten. Also just outside the era in the Canada Post/current WPS HQ building (before) and Winnipeg Square (after). The modernism era shaped the very essence of Winnipeg and gave it a lot of the character it has now. The current era is definitely trying to reshape downtown but I am not sure it will succeed in reaching the same heights even if it does have taller buildings.

Ramada Inn at Portage and Smith? Do you mean the North Star Inn that is now Canad Inns Radisson?