{"id":365,"date":"2007-12-12T18:19:35","date_gmt":"2007-12-12T22:19:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacingmontreal.ca\/?p=365"},"modified":"2013-01-21T11:42:23","modified_gmt":"2013-01-21T16:42:23","slug":"quebecs-politicians-lets-build-our-public-buildings-out-of-wood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/montreal\/2007\/12\/12\/quebecs-politicians-lets-build-our-public-buildings-out-of-wood\/","title":{"rendered":"Quebec’s politicians: let’s build our public buildings out of wood!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Quebec’s provincial leaders are tripping over each other to support a new initiative, proposed by natural resource minister Claude B\u00e9chard, that would require publicly-funded buildings to be constructed out of wood. The idea is that incorporating more wood into our buildings would be a boon to Quebec’s flagging forestry industry. “Not only would constructing more public buildings and institutions out of wood help the struggling industry and create jobs, [politicians] argued, it is environmentally friendly and an excellent showcase for Quebec’s know-how in the business,” reports the Gazette<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Wood is a flexible building material that can be put to great use. But the idea of forcing any building project that uses public money to incorporate lots and lots of wood into its design, all in the name of propping up a declining industry, strikes me as a bit shortsighted. It seems clear that Quebec’s party leaders are supporting this move mostly to win more votes from the rural regions that rely on forestry. (Don’t forget that, thanks to Quebec’s imbalance in seat distribution, these regions have more political weight than Montreal.) Is this really a smart move? The government certainly has a role to play in supporting local industries, but that means it should foster innovation and adaptivity. It shouldn’t be creating artificial demand for a product that is failing because nobody else wants it. <\/p>\n

More importantly, though, all of this wood talk makes me nervous for Montreal. The last time we built any significant wood-based structures was in the early eighteenth century, shortly before the entire city burned down and local officials ordered everyone to build with stone instead. I’m not suggesting that using more wood will be a fire hazard, but wood isn’t part of our local vernacular. It’s one thing to encourage<\/i> government-funded products to use wood but quite another to force<\/i> them. So far, the politicians are only citing Montreal’s future symphony hall, which would be built at Place des Arts, as one example of a publicly-funded project that would be built with wood. I hope I’m not the only one who’s sceptical about the chances of a wood building integrating well with the Modernist glass-and-concrete aesthetic of this important civic landmark. <\/p>\n

Imagine if politicians had already drafted a law requiring government-funded buildings to use wood. What would this have meant for the Grande Biblioth\u00e8que<\/a>, the Palais des congr\u00e8s<\/a> and the Caisse de d\u00e9p\u00f4t et de placement’s headquarters<\/a>? All are major public structures that have been built in the past five years; all have won plaudits for their designs, which incidentally contain little to no wood. If the forestry industry had been faced with a crisis five or six years ago, would the provincial government have forced their architects to incorporate wood into their construction? We would certainly have a different-looking set of public buildings if that were the case.<\/p>\n

It all depends on how far our lawmakers are willing to go. We need to know exactly how much wood will be required and how it can be used. <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nLaval University’s Centre de transformation sur le bois ouvr\u00e9, built in 2005, is the Quebec’s first major publicly-funded structure built entirely from wood.<\/i><\/p>\n

Photos: Kathleen Marie and Laval University<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Quebec’s provincial leaders are tripping over each other to support a new initiative, proposed by natural resource minister Claude B\u00e9chard, that would require publicly-funded buildings to be constructed out of wood. The idea is that incorporating more wood into our buildings would be a boon to Quebec’s flagging forestry industry. “Not only would constructing moreContinue reading “Quebec’s politicians: let’s build our public buildings out of wood!”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5008,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,7841],"tags":[1374,1375,1372,1371,125,1376,406,68,292,1373,345],"class_list":["post-365","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-architecture","category-services","tag-claude-bechard","tag-kathleen-marie","tag-laval-university","tag-law-requiring","tag-montreal","tag-natural-resource-minister","tag-provincial-government","tag-public-services","tag-quebec","tag-quebecs-party","tag-the-gazette"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nQuebec's politicians: let's build our public buildings out of wood! - Spacing Montreal<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/montreal\/2007\/12\/12\/quebecs-politicians-lets-build-our-public-buildings-out-of-wood\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Quebec's politicians: let's build our public buildings out of wood! - Spacing Montreal\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Quebec’s provincial leaders are tripping over each other to support a new initiative, proposed by natural resource minister Claude B\u00e9chard, that would require publicly-funded buildings to be constructed out of wood. 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