Why Is Canadian Architecture So Bad? | Hacker News Reader

Why Is Canadian Architecture So Bad?

thewalrus.ca

41 pointslaurex27 comments

If I was an editor of the publication that ran the article I would probably have said “yeah, I’m not running a piece about a architecture without pictures relevant to the subject matter. Come on, think”.

If you want people to care, meet them half way. A wall of text isn’t that.

> We have become so devoted to frugality and bureaucracy, and are so readily appeased by basic functionality, that we have lost the fortitude to take and demand risks, even if the outcome could be the most beautiful thing we’ve ever seen.

The most notable example of this is that for the entirety of his seven year term, the Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, has declined to stay at the Official Residence of the PM, 24 Sussex Drive, because it's in such poor condition. He has also not moved an inch to make any repairs whatsoever to bring it up to a standard such that the property could be used. Presumably it would be "unseemly" for a PM to spend money for their indirect benefit.

If the property is so bad and undesirable that it should be replaced instead of renovated, man, I can't believe it would be possible to be done. Canadian governments are so miserly I cannot imagine a government that would spend millions on this project even if it was an elegant Canadian designed building Canadians could all be proud of.

So the property just sits there. Incredible Canadian politicized frugality ensures mediocrity.

All it needs is for someone to come along with a vision for a residence for the Canadian head of state that embodies Canadian ideals, is environmentally conscious, appears timelessly grand, yet is inexpensive to construct and maintain. It'd be interesting if it somehow included a nod to Canada's logging and energy industries. It would be really cool if... since Superman is half-Canadian, being built with a Fortress of Solitude architectural theme, which would increase the desire of the head of state to live there. If built using dirt bags (an unfortunate name for an economical building material) using volunteer Canadian citizen labor, nearly all of the cost would be clearing the previous structure.

This is just a classic example of how messed up Ottawa is.

- Maintenance for 24 Sussex is under the control of the National Capital Commission (NCC).

- The people who work at the NCC don't like doing their maintenance responsibilities. They like holding festivals. You need to scream and shout to get them to maintain buildings.

- The press likes to jump on any politician screaming and shouting to get renovations.

- The NCC will fight like hell to stop anyone from tearing down one of their buildings. Even if it is a piece of crap with little historic value.

- 24 Sussex was built by a man trying to win back his wife, it wasn't built to last. The government got it on the cheap and used it because it looked nice and had a prime location.

So they can't do the logical thing and replace the building with one built to last hundreds of years. Renovating it would cost a fortune and won't fix the fundamental problems.

A huge article on bad architecture and not a single picture of any example of said bad architecture.

I don't know about other cities, but in Halifax the new architecture is pleasant, to my eyes at least. A lot of the properties have a mix of brick and glass which isn't too showy but still looks distinctive when compared with the older buildings. See this:

https://www.thecoast.ca/halifax/27-developments-that-are-cha...

Those are all mockups! Where are the real buildings?

Most of those are "let's use a traditional style for a third of the building, but the rest remains steel and glass, to show the commoners who's in charge"

Some are just... I have no words: https://media1.fdncms.com/thecoast/imager/u/original/5490160...

Could be part of Canada's national defense posture. According to the experts, https://www.reddit.com/r/polandball/comments/7xnulz/canadas_..., they have "cultural WMDs".

Compared to whose?

Come to Washington, DC, and explain to me the glories of K Street NW or of L'Enfant Plaza. Drive through Los Angeles and see how much rises above "inoffensive".

Harsh weather extremes + heavy building tech influenced by US that's not fully optimized for Canadian climate.

I like the (new) architecture here in Vancouver.

Apparently it is so bad that it would break camera's and completely disgust any readers who might actually want to view one or more photographic examples...

Wow... An article about a visual and real-world medium that contains exactly zero depictions of it's subject matter? Is this parody?

Here are some starter pictures for you, they are from architecture in Quebec. I don't think the article is right and barely mentions the Montreal Old Port. There are many interesting buildings here and good architecture doesn't stop at the old European style visible in Montreal and Quebec City.

https://www.google.com/search?q=architecture+quebecoise&tbm=...

I suspect what the article was complaining about was Canadian brutalist architecture for example, the Mathematics building at the University of Waterloo, but really, that was mostly the style of the 1960s and 1970s (although the buildings are still around)

http://www.essential-architecture.com/IMAGES2/WaterlooMathBu...

Growing-up in Southern/South-western Ontario during the 70's/80's, I had a rare health condition which had me in and out of all sorts of hospitals. I suppose that because they were successful and kept me alive, this is one of the fundamental reasons I love brutalism in architecture - it was "futuristic / modern / high-tech".

I think there's also a difference between buildings that architecturally aren't aligned with today's aesthetic, versus those that are truly ugly due to poor design or lack of consideration for any aesthetic.

A brutalist or Bauhaus building today could look old, ugly, etc. but one can still appreciate its aesthetic in context... A glass condo copy and pasted in CAD software and then rotated to fit a plot of land without consideration for anything... That's ugly.

> A glass condo copy and pasted in CAD software and then rotated to fit a plot of land without consideration for anything...

There's a similar issue in new suburban neighbourhood, where the same floor plan is copied and pasted down a whole street, yet the house on the corner lot lacks windows on wall facing the perpendicular street... It's so disheartening to see.

Oof. :(

While I'm sure that it's also a style-choice, it may have also been partly functional. The building was built in the 60's, and I believe that it was intended to host strategically important computing power in its basement, which was designed to protect this asset in the case of a nuclear attack (it was the cold war). IIRC, there was a slightly-lower sub-basement in the center of the building which was the effective bomb shelter.

In any case, I think the article is complaining mostly about the unoriginal glass clones that have gone up over the last twenty years.

It’s a Canadian website, and it’s pretty clearly written with a Canadian audience in mind. Presumably the intended audience can drum up some mental images of what buildings look like in their own country.

I am Canadian and live in two major cities (split between Toronto / Vancouver). I have no idea what Ottawa's central library looks like... Why would I? Definitely should have photos. :)

An article like this, without pictures for examples, shows a complete failure in the journalist and editor. It could better titled, "Why is Canadian Journalism So Bad" and it would serve as it's own example.

Agreed, I scanned to see if there were pictures of examples and closed the article when I saw there were none. It’s a worthless article without pictures.

The Walrus is kind of a weird publication... it's a respected non-profit magazine.

It's too prestigious to just use a bunch of creative commons photos.

It's too poor to pay for photos from real photographers.

I wonder how much of that is due to subsidies for culture (are they considered as such?). Don't really need to attract readers if the government check keeps coming in every month.

Architecturally speaking, I had to go to Ottawa once (for an acquisition that ended up not working out) and the contrast with DC was spectacular. It looked like there was no clear plan for the city, despite it being an artificial one (they decided to build a capital there in the 19th century if I recall).

Quebec city left me the feeling that every stone had a story to tell. Also a lot of wedding photography.

This is the project site new Ottawa Central Library:

https://inspire555.ca/

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