Is this what we wanted?

9 comments

1. You know, that’s not bad. I thought it was some European town at first.

2. Although, on consideration, it’s OK as a woonerf, but where does the vehicular traffic fit in?

3. It’s been noted by many that one of the reasons people love Disneyland, although completely subconsciously, is because it’s actually a functioning pedestrian environment.

   Can we get Intrawest to do Griffintown? :D

4. It’s rather visually appealing, especially compared to bland, ugly, monotonous post-war apartment blocks.
   However, it is still obvious that all this was built by only ONE developer, who had a quasi-monopoly. I’d rather have several developers obey to a certain number of regulations (such as building height, share of social housing). Also, this architecture is too tied to leisure and tourism; these buildings were made for a relatively wealthy clientelle, ready to spend a quite large amount of money for leisure. I’m not sure it’d be very suitable for every type of income.
   But I however totally agree that architecture should be visually appealing, no matter the purpose of the building or the income level of the people who will live or work in it, and that there has to be some level of architectural cohesion.

5. The fundamentals are good. But it looks like any other of IntraWest’s properties scattered about North America.

6. I don’t think it’s obvious at all that these buildings were designed for wealthy people. Check out my photos of HLM in Cergy-Pointoise at http://www.ballofdirt.com/entries/539/271835/90.html (in particular, the last four rows of photos).

   Also kinda interesting to see how well they have been maintained over the past 25-30 years.

7. It looks very much like such purpose-built ski villages in Europe, or perhaps like certain European town destroyed by the war and rebuilt all at once in a somewhat historical style, though usually the latter look more modern except for the street plan, except in the case of actual (and very costly) historical reconstructions such as the centre of Warsaw. Although it is a mite “Disneylandish”, still I’d be more comfortable there than in the proposed Griffintown development, because of the excellent scale, modestly vertical design and walkability of this development. Yes, I have been there, and been to similar purpose-built villages in Europe.

   You are right; the colours are a bit too garish, but not terribly so (I’ve seen much worse, here and there).

   William, I’m actually rather familiar with the new town of Cergy-Pontoise, as the family of an old friend of mine live in Théméricourt, a village close by (Cergy-Pontoise is the closest RER station to there).

   And I see architecture that seems to be traditional Pontoise (the old town) and of villages du Vexin-français (the region; there is also le Vexin normand across the departmental border).

   Yep, and the famous huge clock at the Cergy station!

   I’ve been to street markets at Cergy, and they certainly aren’t necessarily white and petit-bourgeois. It will be interesting to see how the buildings age – yep, some strange baroque, but that is also a reaction to the Le Corbusier “barres” of earlier planned towns, which are universally hated.

   Cergy was designed at a somewhat lower height and thus density. While I wouldn’t want to live there – I don’t mind some of the proche banlieue towns at all – it has developed, has a university campus now, doesn’t seem as depressing as some of la Grande couronne.

8. Intrawest is not so bad. Decent planning, decent quality, decent amount of creativity put into their projects, and decent to their employees too from what I hear. They’re not architectural or urban planning geniuses but they’re decent.

9. “Intrawest is not so bad.” Yes, they are: $65/day to wait two hours in line, both at Tremblant and Blue; they fired half their staff a few winters ago at Blue without severance; it’s less a resort company than a real-estate ponzi-scheme; ski resorts are inherently bad for the environment (as much as I like to ski).