Why Edmonton might need façadism even though a lot of people hate it /
I'm going on a limb on this one but hear me out. Edmonton needs to consider looking into adopting façadism as a way to preserve its architectural history. And here's why I say this.
Just the other day, as I left the Blush Lane building on Whyte Avenue, I caught a glimpse of the brick A. Minchau Blacksmith shop and its oft-unseen ghost sign on its western wall. My heart beat just a bit faster. History does this to you — it slows you down, makes you think, connects your own place in the right-now with some of those who came before you.
EY Tower, Toronto. The 40-storey tower is built atop a 1920s Art Deco gem. Many consider it an example of façadism done right. Photo: Oxford Properties.
But enough poetry. The A. Minchau Blacksmith shop in Strathcona is likely going to be demolished. History, erased; connection, destoyed. The owner wants to do it. The city doesn't want them to do it. But there are very few bylaws, municipally, that can be brought to bear on the owner to compel them to do otherwise. The real power player in the conversation, the Alberta government, has the ability to prevent a historic building from being torn down. But that's not always a good thing.
Instead, here's an idea: Façadism is the way forward.
The reason I say the Alberta government saving the building from a wrecking ball isn't such a good thing is the experience of the Canada Permanent Building. It's an Accidental Wes Anderson masterpiece on 100 Street, just north of Jasper Avenue. And it's empty. And it will remain empty for a very, very long time. The Alberta government stepped in to save it back in 1995, but that doesn't make its main problem — a need for a complete and crazily expensive renovation — any different. And so the the building will sit as it does today for a long time — preserved but boarded up and inhabited by, one can only imagine, very classy ghosts. Many have tried to overcome the costs, but all have given up.
The Royal Ontario Museum — a relatively unliked example of façadism. Photo: Wikimedia
This is not a great outcome.
We have just watched demolition crews wreck a granite box in our downtown, the BMO building, to make way for an underground parkade and (likely) a condominium atop it. A very similar fate likely awaits the land where the Blacksmith shop sits.
So why don't we make façadism the way forward?
Now, let's be blunt: Nobody *loves* façadism and everyone sees it as a compromise. When it's done wrong, boy does it ever suck. But when it's done right, historic buildings can be saved to some degree while more appropriate and lucrative uses, like high-density housing, can also be built.
In Edmonton, we're already about to see an example of façadism with the MacLaren Building on 124 Street.
Bank of Canada building. The original is from the late '30s and gorgeous; the addition allows for modern uses. Photo: Wikipedia
Do I love this? No. Did I suggest the MacLaren be built right beside my condo in Oliver, which is a surface parking lot, rather than on land that already had a beautiful old building? Yes.
Still, if it means the building remains and a new use is added, I see potential.
Agree or disagree. I'm writing this only to spark a conversation.
When good people leave it MEANS things are bad /
When someone with youth, ideas and passion throws up their hands and leaves an influential planning position at the City of Edmonton, the City as well as all of us who care about shifting the status quo here must all take a good look at ourselves. We are all responsible and poorer as a result. And we all need to do better.
Most people don't follow the inner minutiae of planning in Edmonton to quite the level that I do, so I’m assuming, dear reader, that you have no clue what I'm referencing here. The Coles notes are this: a rock-star of an urban planner recently returned from Toronto to their hometown, Edmonton, and was working — hard — to build a better city. They were living their vision of a better Edmonton, too, by biking, walking and busing to work, and pushing for better streets and more vibrant neighbourhoods.
While this might seem like a common thing to do for an urban planner with the City of Edmonton, given all the urban-shift rhetoric that our leaders and city campaigns share with us (one city worker told me at a parking event, recently, that when it comes to streets, “pedestrians are now seen as the most important users,” which made me quietly chuckle), my anecdotal experience tells me it’s not, and that, instead, many in our planning department still seem content to car-commute from bedroom communities outside our city boundaries, yet nonetheless make decisions about which users our city’s streets should prioritize.
Photo: Flickr//IQRemix
As you might have guessed by the title of this blog, said rock-star planner who we lured back to work in Edmonton has now decided to leave their planning position here and take a job with, let’s say, a more welcoming environment in another city. We are far poorer a city with their loss. But that’s entirely clear, isn't it. What’s probably less clear, though, is that we all need to look at ourselves when things like this happen.
Those who push things within our city administration right now face an unsatisfying existence and that needs to change. From within, they face resistance if they work to push projects that deviate from the status quo — which, in my own words, is still to prioritize moving vehicles and worry about the rest of it all after that’s baked into the built environment.
And yet, on the flip side, these champions for change face way too much flack from outside their office as well. Communities pushing for better things — bike lanes, walkability, complete streets, LRT, density, you name it — figure out that one planner is on their “team” and unusually engaged. And then, sadly, these communities, with good intentions, no doubt, can tend to flood that person with pent up complaints, criticism, frustration.
What’s the incentive, then, to break out of the disengaged norm as a city planner when you face a tough crowd from both inside and outside? There isn’t one. And sometimes people get so frustrated by that that they leave.
The deeper issue here, then, is that there are many communities in Edmonton who want to see change, and want action rather than more discussion, talk, study, consultation. But those who work at our city, and who listen to and act on these signals are, in my view, currently being set up to fail. They are blocked from within by a city still primarily focused on avoiding risk. And they are then criticized from without for not accomplishing more things more quickly because, well, they work for an organization that sees change as risk, not opportunity.
Those who are working to act and build on the promises we see in strategic documents or hear in election campaigns are our city’s rock stars. If we want to get where these shimmering promises tell us that we’re heading, though, we need to all give these rock stars a lot more support. And then, maybe, more of them will stay.
Now that another one's leaving, it's time to reflect on how we change this situation.