With this board I hope to discuss Architecture and Urban Planning, from both UE and general perspectives, everything from questions and general discussions about architecture of the past, present and future, to realistic assements of the renovation/preservation of abandoned properties. Also speculation and possible research into WHY certain amazing buildings were abandoned, histories of particular buildings or styles, and fantasizing about dream homes and personal compounds. Maybe even how to's on joining local historical societies and discussions about further education in the Arch. or Urban Studies fields. And possibly more, who knows?

How many people are on this board ?

Not many, yet.

HR Rage, Nirvy Guy, Phoque, You and Me. I'm gonna post another notice somewhere, hopefully gain a few contributing members...there must be a few others interested in this topic.

I'm now here as well.

I hope this works out, I find very few people to talk Urban Design with

EDIT::Removed something dumb, I can't read....

Hey Everybody,

I would like to get a few more people on here so if you know anybody that might be interested let them know. Especially people that have been to or are in school for Arch/UrbPlanning and related fields, or people that work in these areas.

As for myself I studied Industrial Design at AIVE in Eindhoven,NL for a year and got my BFA at VCU in furniture design. I have been working for a renovation contractor for the last six years here in Richmond, VA but have been thinking about going back to school to get a Masters in Architecture.

I hate urban sprawl, especially the McMansionvilles that keep springing up here in Richmond, love infill, adaptive reuse and renovation/restoration. Although some of the recent warehouse conversions around here seem ill-concieved and potentially doomed.

What's everyone elses experience so far? What issues are at the forefront of your architectural and urban conscience?

xrahy

I am in school majoring in Historic Preservation with a minor in Architectural History and Urban Planning and Design. I am at the Savannah College of Art and Design (www.scad.edu). I live in the downtown area, which is one of the largest historic landmark districts in the nation, and the oldest model of urban planning in the nation I think. Anyway, I have been intersted in history of towns and buildings as long as I can remember. I want to go to grad school after I graduate from here for a realted feild but I am not sure what yet. So that is the background I can remember about me right now.

I took the first year of a 3 year of Construction Engineering college program and beacuse of lack of funds and uncertainty of which avenue I wanted to pursue, never finished the othe two years.

I got my shit together and took a 2 year college program that I completed and gives me the designaition of Architectural Technician.

Heritage landmarks (recognized designation or not) and their struggle to survive demolition, tasteles renovations or redevelopment have always been a personal interest of mine. I once inquired about joining the local LACACC, but it is an elected process. I knew no one in the "inner circle" and chose just to monitor their efforts and the outcomes of stop demolition injuctions.

I am also very intrigued by the human animal, and the "nomadic" movement of our modern day society. Urban sprawl makes me puke. It is uncreative, mindless, cookie-cutter developments such as Markham, Mississauga Oakville that totally lack any cultural or city centre.

Detroit blows my mind. The myriad of architectural gems and french heritage that are the heart of this city, are forgotten and abandoned by the mass exodus to the suburbs. Thats my rant for now...

Hi kids,

First, thanks to xrahy for having us, um, aboard. I'm pretty fried tonight from 10 hours sleep in the last two nights, so I can't blather much. Don't mind the incoherence.

I'm in love with my city, Montreal. I don't have any formal eduction in architecture or urban planning, but both these subjects are dear to my heart.

Uh, sorry but this is taking more effort than I can manage at this point. A couple more beers and I'm going to bed. I'll tell ya more about myself next time. Thank god I can sleep in tomorrow. In the meantime, you know how they say a picture is worth a thousand words? Here's 88,000 of them...

http://www.imagestation.com/album/?id=4286318947 The password is "ilikesteam". I hope you enjoy the tour.

Sleep well.

Ah. I'm feeling about a zillion percent better today. There's nothing like sleeping in on a Saturday morning to make the work week go away.

A little about the NirvyGuy and how he came to be here. 43, single, living in an apartment in the western 'urbs of Montreal, unemployed firmware designer, washing windows part-time to help pay the rent and keep the bank from calling in the line of credit. Things I like doing include riding my bicycle, taking pictures, stealing vast quantities of alt-country/americana music off the internet, collecting maps, seeing weird films, traveling, catching bands live, and just hanging out downtown. I just started into UE a couple of months ago. Exploring and photographing... Mmmm mmmm mmmm! What an excellent combination.

I'm a frustrated downtown dude. I grew up in the boring white-bread suburbs of the "West Island". My folks had a bit of money so they sent me to a private high school in Montreal West (another 'urb, but much closer to the city). For five years I traveled to the port after school to get a lift home with my dad. The route took me through downtown. Since school let out at 2:45 and my dad worked until 5:30 or 6:00, I had a lot of time to hang around town. That's how I fell in love with the city. I always wanted to live and work downtown, but I took this apartment to live close to my first (post-University) job, and all my jobs since then have been in the same boring suburban neighbourhood. Now that I'm out of work, I'm free to move anywhere I want, but I don't have to coin to do it. Tragic, eh?

It's so terminally boring out here in the suburbs. It's nice. My apartment's great, it's quiet (except for the airplanes), there's lots of greenspace around, and all the conveniences are located nearby. But it's just not interesting. I have no affection for this place, nor can I relate to my neighbours with their mortgages, and their minivans and their children. So I jump on the bike or the 211 (bus) or the train and go into town four of five times a week. Even if all I need is a bag of groceries. 80% of the time I'd rather make the 50 km round trip to town than walk the 2 kms to my local strip mall.

The car is king here. And the king should be shot and pissed on. If I venture too far from my neighbourhood, the green space is quickly replaced by acres of concrete and asphalt. I never did learn to drive, so I find the local infrastructure quite oppressive. There was no planning to speak of when this area was developed. Features to please the pedestrian or the bicyclist are very few and very far between. When my parents bought their house in 1961, the West Island was rural. Mostly farmland and woods. In my lifetime, I've seen nearly every scrap of it plastered with houses and streets and strip malls and business "parks". It's pretty gross. Traveling north-south on foot or bike in the West Island is idiotically dangerous. Highway 40 runs east-west through here, and the only places you can cross it are at the road overpasses where the major north-south roads cross it. Not one of them have any facility to stop the traffic entering the cloverleaf. You have to just wait for an opening in the traffic, and dash like mad. It's nuts, I tell ya!

Not all is bad though. Montreal is an island (in case you didn't know). The municipality I live in, Pointe-Claire, includes a few kms of southern waterfront on Lake Saint Louis. A few years ago the town started buying up waterfront houses when they go on the market (and the money's available). They're slowly (very slowly) knocking them down in order to create a linear waterfront park. Some of the other towns between here and the city (eg: Lachine, Lasalle) have great long chunks of waterfront park already. The Lachine Canal, what used to be the industrial heartland of Canada, has been transformed into a 12 km long linear park with bike paths on both sides, ending in Old Montreal. And two or three years ago, they reopened the long abandoned canal to reacreational boat traffic. The bike ride between here and this city is a mighty fine one already, and it's getting better every year.

Montreal has a number of cool features. What do you like about your city?

Old Montreal is an amazing collection of 19th century historic buildings...
http://www2.ville.montreal.qc.ca/mtlcarte/images/VIEUX-MT.pdf
http://www.vieux.montreal.qc.ca/eng/accueila.htm

The morons who run this place did mar it with 2 horribly conceived towers, but these are thankfully on the periphery of the place. When you're in the middle of it, it's like being in a time warp. I like to sometimes ride my bike down there early in the morning on the weekend. The illusion is especially strong before the invasion of the cars takes place. 30 years ago we came very close to losing a great big swath of Old Montreal. Back then it was mostly abandoned and decaying. The Autoroute 720 was supposed to have been built right along the waterfront. Probably half of the buildings would have been razed to accommodate the thing. Thankfully, smarter brains prevailed, and the highway was built inland, in a trench for the most part. Psychologically this trench separated Old Montreal from the rest of the city. Bot Old Montreal thrived nevertheless. The area around the highway was a bit of a pedestrian's nightmare for a long time, but with the expansion of the Palais de Congres (the already big-ass convention center that straddles the highway) and the resurgence of the financial district, some serious effort has been put into repairing the damage. It's actually a nice place to walk around now, with a new public square, updated street lamps, redone sidewalks, and even some benches. This area's still much less lively at night than downtown proper, but it's a step in the right direction.

Downtown is something else. I've only visited maybe a dozen major North American cities and San Francisco is the only thing I've seen that compares to it. People actually live there! In so many cities, the downtown core goes dead when the office towers empty at 5:00 pm. Not here. Along de Maisonneuve, between Guy and Atwater, there's something like 50 high-rise apartment buildings. I believe this area has the highest population density in all of Canada. McGill and Concordia Universities are right smack dab downtown too. Tons of people, especially students and in the summer, tourists. They're everywhere, day and night. And I can't remember the last time I felt unsafe downtown. Perhaps this has something to do with the fact I'm a tall guy. Perhaps not. Maybe it's just a Canadian thing.

Saint-Catherine street is a disastrous shame these days. Main street downtown. It used to be a useful shopping street. Now it's all shot to hell. Over the last 20 years McDo, the Gap, stupid purse shops, tourist trinkets and money changers have taken over. Apart from being an excellent place to watch girls, it just sucks. Goodbye mom and pop store. It was nice while it lasted. It does have one redeeming feature though. It's so crowded with people, that pedestrians and automobiles are actually on equal footing in this area. Montreal drivers are for the most part a maniacal lot, but on Saint-Catherine street, you can step in front of a car and the odds are very good that it won't kill you.

Here's another map if you're into these things...
http://www2.ville.montreal.qc.ca/mtlcarte/images/CENTRE-V.pdf

Ah, the underground city. This thing is pretty unique to Montreal if I'm not mistaken. About 40 years ago Canadian National Railways owned three rather large blocks at the center of downtown. In one fell swoop, Place Ville Marie (the cruciform office tower and shopping complex), Central Station, and Place Bonaventure (a trade mart, shopping center, with another hotel on top of thing) were all developed together. The designers hooked up the basement (read: shopping) levels of these three blocks with pedestrian friendly tunnels and the underground city was born. Enter, the subway. Here in Montreal it's called the "metro" after the one in Paris I suppose. Two lines (the green and the orange) run east-west across downtown, separated by just a few blocks. Rubber-tired cars too! When those three blocks were connected to the metro stations, the rest of the downtown core followed suit. Today the network allows you to walk for miles underground around and between the two metro lines. Shops, malls, office buildings, apartment buildings, movie theatres, the hockey arena, suburban train stations. You name it, it's all accessible from the metro without stepping so much as a foot outside. It's a real god-send in the winter. But the tourists find it disorienting, and it does have a way of sucking some of the life off of the streets above.

Then there's Mount Royal. Our beautiful "mountain" park right in the middle of the city. But I think I've blathered on more than enough for one night. Sorry if I've bored you to tears. It's just that Montreal is what I know and love. If I've touched on any subject you find interesting, buy all means start a new thread and lets see where it goes. If you could introduce yourself a bit, that would be nice too. Some context is always good.

Sleep well, and post away!

Nirv

PS: Oh, before I go, I've got to mention the CCA. The Canadian Centre for Architecture. Phyllis Lambert, wife of one of the Seagram Bronfmans, is (was?) a Montrealer and an architect. She gave us this amazing place out of the kindness of her heart and the fatness of her wallet. Thank you very much, Phyllis. http://cca.qc.ca/ Check it out if you ever get the chance.

Wow Nirvy Guy, Nice detailed description of Montreal, I'd love to visit someday.

I agree with you that our automobile oriented society has been the ruin of many downtowns as well as hundreds of thousands of acres of forest and farmland. Here in Richmond we have seen two huge mega mall/shopping centers built outside of the city in the last two years and downtown is still limping along with hopelessly inadequate infrastructure and funding. Our downtown is mainly empty after 6pm when the last office workers begin their 30minute drive out to the burbs. We are seeing a large growth in renovated warehouse spaces in the last two years though, maybe that will bring some life back to downtown when they are completed.

Here's a link to a site that keeps track of building and development in Richmond: www.richmondcitywatch.com

More later...

I actually grew up in Baltimore Maryland and have seen the same thing happen there.

Posted by xrahy Here in Richmond we have seen two huge mega mall/shopping centers built outside of the city in the last two years and downtown is still limping along with hopelessly inadequate infrastructure and funding.

I've seen this happen in more than one of the smallish towns in the north east states. I do some of my bike camping trips in NY and VT. Big box stores go up on the periphery of town where land is cheap and parking is plentiful. Next thing you know the locals have abandoned the main street merchants just to save a few cents on whatever stupid shit they need to buy. Only the guy who makes all the the "For Rent" and "For Sale" signs benefits. Pathetic. I love the main streets of those little new england towns. Beautiful red bricks! On all four sides of every building. It's so easy to stop the sprawl. All it takes is one person in authority with half a backbone, to just say "No!" to WalMart or whoever. But it rarely seems to happen.

Re: the underground city... sorry I didn't mention this in the previous post. You can see the extent of it in one of the maps I linked earlier: http://www2.ville.montreal.qc.ca/mtlcarte/images/CENTRE-V.pdf The area in light blue is the subterranean/indoor pedestrian network. Didn't stop to think that most of you probably don't read french too good.

xrahy, we need to get more people involved in this board. Probably most of the UER members are just kids goofing around, but I'm pretty sure a lot of the more serious explorers care for these issues. More visibility is needed methinks. But what to do? Switch to a regular thread in the "Other" section? Ask Av to put an ad for this board in a prominent place? PM posters that sound potentially interested? I don't know what to do. I just feel a bit lonely in here. Any ideas?

You gotta come up here and experience Montreal before your days are through. Crash on my poorly located couch if you'd like. Just make sure to do it in the summer. Winters are pretty damn rude up here in Igloo-ville. When summer finally does hit, there's a frenzy of festivals from June through August. It's insane, the amount of stuff to see and do around here. Beautiful girls all over the place. And here I am washing windows out the whatoozie. I really need to swing me another week or two off of work next month.

Later,

Nirv

Posted by BCT Chronic Detroit blows my mind. The myriad of architectural gems and french heritage that are the heart of this city, are forgotten and abandoned by the mass exodus to the suburbs.

Detroit? No shit? I passed through there two summers ago on my way towards a sweet little broken-hearted Niagara River bike/camping excursion. Didn't stop there, apart from a food and beer stop in a particularly seedy neighbourhood. Way too many kids with way too little to do is what I recall. Didn't turn my back on my friend's car for more than a minute at a time. Reminded me a bit of Stephen King's hometown in Maine. Bangor, was it? Creepyville's what I'd call it.

I also remember seeing something big and beautiful and abandoned looking from the main east-west highway crossing Detroit. Any idea what that was? What other cool places does Detroit offer?

I know a bit about Kitchener-Waterloo too. Spent half of '80 - '85 at University of Waterloo drinking beer and ace-ing electrical enginnering exams. A lot of them, anyway. Beers and exams both I mean!

U of W alumni eh?

Consestoga College Alumni, Construction Engineering Technology, no CET designation.

and

Mohawk College Alumni, Arhitectural Technology, Dipl. Tech., no OACETT member designation ever pursued.

and

Jello Biafra's "Life is My College" Alumni, Staying Alive, Paying the Rent, Master's Degree

Hello, I just joined this board a few days ago (thanks to xrahy for letting me on.) I have no formal training in architecture or urban planning, just a very stong interest.

My involvement in bike advocacy issues, trying to make Chicago a bit less car-oriented, has fueled my interest in urban planning.

I've always been facinated in the history of industrial sites like old steel mills--how and why they become abandoned and what happens to them afterwords is something that concerns me. Here in Chicago, two abandoned steel mills (Acme Steel and Inland Steel) were recently demolished, and there is discussion of turning the abandoned Acme coke plant into some sort of "industrial heritage museum."

I'm sort of suprised that there are not more people on this board--to me it seems like UE and a interest in architecure/urban planning go hand in hand.

Anyway, I'll do my best to hold up my end of the conversation.

-N

Hey NV. Welcome aboard! Yeah, it's a little too quiet in here. Do you know any other explorers that might be interested in joining? We really need to get this board a little livelier...

Posted by NV My involvement in bike advocacy issues, trying to make Chicago a bit less car-oriented, has fueled my interest in urban planning.

So you're an activist in this area? Biking is very near and dear to my heart too. I don't drive, so Mr. Trek is my primary means of transportation when the weather's good. I don't fit very well into our car-centric society here, needless to say.

What's the weather like in Chicago? I only visited once and it was in the summer. Here in Montreal winter and summer both come full-blown. Unless you're a real die hard, the biking season only lasts from May through October, which is probably the main reason why the bike path network is so small.

http://www.velo.qc.ca/velo_quebec/Documents/rvm-montreal.pdf

The solid red lines represent paths that are actually separated from the roadway. For scale, it's about 50 km (35 miles) from one tip of the island to the other. I live on the western extent of the island. Notice how the number of north-south bike paths can be counted on the fingers of no hands. Not a whole lot of kms in total either, especially when considering how many people live here, and how popular biking is. So it's the old chicken and egg problem.

The root problem seems to be in the mentality of the people. On weekends you see people on bikes all over the place. But on weekdays, very few people (except in the city proper) use a bike to get to work. It seems to be viewed as largely a recreational activity, as opposed to a practical way to get around.

The "Tour de l'Ile" is a special event held every year on the first Sunday in June. A loop of anywhere from 45 to 70 kms of roads are closed to traffic, and the cyclists take over in a glorious celebration of the coming of summer. The last few years, 40 to 45,000 people have turned out for the thing. It's pretty sweet to have the roads owned by bicyclists, if even for just one day. Then Monday morning comes and it's back to the same old shit.

Anyway, that's my rant for the day. Nice to have ya here, NV!

Nirv

BTW, Lance Rules!

Posted by NirvyGuy So you're an activist in this area? Biking is very near and dear to my heart too...

"Activist" may be too stong a word--there are many people here in Chicago who do so much more than I do, I just try to pitch in once in a while. But yea, my bike is my car, and I do ride year round in Chicago's crappy weather. A lot of people do, actually--see for yourself: http://www.bikewinter.org

I started another thread re: bikes, cars, and city planning. I think the topic is relevant to this board, and I don't want the "Introduction" thread to wander TOO far off topic.

Thanks for the welcome, NirvyGuy.

BTW, Lance Rules!

Yes, he does.

-N

I'm sure most of the people on this board already know about it, but if not, I would highly recommend reading "the death and life of great american cities" by jane jacobs. I just finished reading it and found it very interesting and educational.

Though, I sorta skimmed over a few of the boring chapters, the chapters about parks, sidewalks and city blocks were thoroughly entralling. Heh, I was talking to some people I had recently met, and what we were reading came up in the conversation. They thought I was out of my mind to be reading a book that had entire chapters dedicated to sidewalk layout.

Books, books and more books! For anyone interested in the history (and downfall) of architectural gems in Toronto, ON, I have acopy of a great book called "Toronto, No Mean City" that is excellent!I am at my office right now and the authour escapes me, but I reccommend to any TO architectural history buffs.

Andrea, this may be somewhat of interest to you to see what is going on north of the border. My parents were at "Open Doors Niagara" a few weeks ago and brought back some info on an estate they toured in Queenston, ON (Niagara Falls area).

It's an estate called "Willowbank" which is being restored and which is also the home to the "hands-on" campus of The Willowbank School of Restoration Arts.

Your campus is your project in this interesting course. More details and info can be had by contacting

Karin Jahnke-Haslam
Managing Director
905-262-1239

or email at [email protected]

I have no website currently, but will inquire or look for one. I wish I was 21 again and had the money and time to enroll there!...and live with my parents again!lol!