City Beautiful Movement in Edmonton

[Daveography]

Heritage council sponsors 3D film about Edmonton's city plan that never was
Alberta’s capital might look like Washington, D.C., if Edmonton had followed an early 1900s plan to develop stately buildings, museums and numerous gardens, a local architect says.

The City Beautiful movement that arose in Edmonton around 1905 was part of an international push to lay out urban areas with beauty and grand monuments, including North America’s booming Western cities.

“We would have some formal gardens around the legislature,” Darrel Babuk of Boreas Architecture & Civic Design said Monday.

The structure would have been at the other end of a road linking it with City Hall that roughly followed the current 108 Street.

“(The street) would have been surrounded by classical buildings on either side, and these buildings would all have been museums.”

http://edmontonjournal.com/news/loc...film-about-edmontons-city-plan-that-never-was

 

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Let's keep the pressure on to elevate the game... https://getpocket.com/explore/item/...gs-all-look-the-same?utm_source=pocket-newtab

 

[TAS]

I read that cities like Copenhagen and Melbourne have a City Architect to beautify the city. From the street furniture to the sidewalks, transit stations and private development - they bring design into the conversation of city-building.

I know we have design committees as part of our process, but would a position like a City Architect in Edmonton help achieve better results on this front?

 

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would a position like a City Architect in Edmonton help achieve better results on this front?

No! City-anything pumps the creativity out of the being -- hire outside consultants for the best results (even then nothing is guaranteed 'cause the City administration tends to want to put their thumb on the scale that measures creativity).