Spacing Saturday

Spacing Saturday highlights posts from across Spacing’s blog network in Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, and the Atlantic region.

Thinking about the debate around Halifax’s expensive new downtown convention centre, Emily Richardson launches into a fascinating discussion about the realities of long term benefits promised by the project. Her main concern is that the convention centre relies on bringing people into the city, something which may become increasingly difficult in a future world of high oil prices and expensive carbon offsets.

Andrew Harvey takes Spacing readers inside the ‘Landmarked’ art project in St John’s that bases its exhibits on exploring the spaces they are located, and talks about what the exhibits say about different areas in the city.

Laneways are an important, yet oft neglected, part of the urban fabric. Evan Thornton pays tribute to some of the laneways that still exist in Ottawa despite years of being filled in and ignored by the city. Focusing specifically on the laneways behind the busy pedestrian precinct on Wellington St, Thornton imagines what the city could do with the space that, as shown by other cities, is apt to be embraced by pedestrians.

Contributer Daniel Valarde uses the controversy around a new 10 storey public art installation being proposed for Napean point, behind the National Gallery, as a window for exploring the character of the city that will host it. Searching within the rehearsed criticism of media commentators against a large public art expenditure, Valarde finds a deeper criticism for the piece based on its obstruction of the deeper feelings that give the city character.

Decades on from its construction the Ville-Marie Expressway is considered a costly and damaging mistake of modernity and a scare on the urban fabric of Montreal. With speculation that the city may eventually decide to cover the open areas of the expressway trench Devin Alfaro reports on the results of a speculative design competition for how to rejuvenate the district around the Champs-de-Mars metro station. The contest did not list practicality as a requirement.

In light of Quebec’s arts funding, which stands at $335 per person, Emile Thomas issues a reminder to graffiti artists that perhaps their time could be better spent pursuing funding that tagging his new neighbourhood of Plateau Mont-Royal

John Lorinc hit a nerve this week in a city clearly exacerbated by the failure to make progress on transit. His editorial questioning the merits and reality of mayoral candidate Sarah Thompson’s plan to fund subway expansion with revenue from road tolls generated almost a hundred comments in a lively discussion about the future of transit in the GTA and the problems in getting it funded.

In other news stemming from the municipal election, Dave Meslin attempted to use cold hard facts to diffuse the attempts of some candidates to make drivers vs cyclists a wedge issue in the campaign. Responding to candidate Giorgio Mammoliti’s proposal to create a bicycle registration fee, Meslin cites facts from previous city reports showing that such a proposal would likely fail to cover its own operating expenses. Interestinly Meslin also uses statistics to discredit the idea that cyclists and drivers are really two solitudes.