[billy corgan19982]

Re: Overbuilt & Overly Grandoise Structures and Landmark

Kingston Ontario with its city hall (home of Canada's Would-Be First Parliament), grand theatre and other beautiful limestone structures that were built to befit the capital city of Canada.

Another example could be Rochester's subway.

 

[Irishmunk]

Re: Overbuilt & Overly Grandoise Structures and Landmark

Great Thread.

Some local examples:
The Living Arts Centre.
Toronto Centre for the Arts (or whatever the old LiveEnt theatre in NY is called now.
The beautiful pedestrian tunnel on the west side of York St that goes under the tracks. (I think I'm the only person in Toronto who uses it.)
The Allen expressway.

Outside Toronto:
Confederation Bridge in PEI.
Churchill, Manitoba (was originally conceived as a massive port for exported prarie grain).
Perimeter Highway in Winnipeg. (As an earlier poster alluded to, the entire city of Winnipeg is almost a singular example of the overbuilt and unrealized).
Expo Islands in Montreal, and the utterly pointless Metro line that goes there.

 

[adma]

Re: Overbuilt & Overly Grandoise Structures and Landmark

Expo Islands in Montreal, and the utterly pointless Metro line that goes there.

The fact that it goes onward to Longueuil makes it less "pointless"...

 

[FutureMayor]

Re: Overbuilt & Overly Grandoise Structures and Landmark

Irishmunk,

I would have to agree with your selection of the Living Arts Centre. The city had this vision of an instant and vibrant arts community in the heart of city centre that would attract a million visitors annually.

7 years later and the centre is only attracting half a million people and has little relationship with the city's art community. Mississauga is currently studying how to realize more of the centre's potential and how to spend the multimillion dollar Mayor's Gala Arts Endowment Fund.

Louroz

 

[spmarshall]

Re: Overbuilt & Overly Grandoise Structures and Landmark

Ontario's downtown malls (except Toronto and Ottawa):

Lloyd Jackson Mall/Eaton Centre, Hamilton
Brantford Eaton Centre
London Galleria
Portage Place, Peterborough
Bayside Mall, Sarnia

Buffalo's LRT system - overbuilt given the traffic considered, andthe huge stations.

 

[adma]

Re: Overbuilt & Overly Grandoise Structures and Landmark

Well, when it comes to Ottawa, either Sparks Street or the Rideau Centre would qualify--at least relative to the mistaken belief in the 60s and 70s (respectively) that this was "where the action would be", or that these would be the gestures to serve said action.

I mean, compare the Rideau Centre to the Byward Market area to the north...

 

[spmarshall]

Re: Overbuilt & Overly Grandoise Structures and Landmark

I would have to agree with your selection of the Living Arts Centre. The city had this vision of an instant and vibrant arts community in the heart of city centre that would attract a million visitors annually.

And it looks like Brampton is making the same mistake, and it will compete with the LAC for the same type of things. The only thing helping Brampton's centre is that it will be smaller, and perhaps it will be easier to foster an arts community in a underdeveloped downtown setting.

 

[Darkstar416]

Re: Overbuilt & Overly Grandoise Structures and Landmark

The 427.

 

[adma]

Re: Overbuilt & Overly Grandoise Structures and Landmark

The only thing helping Brampton's centre is that it will be smaller, and perhaps it will be easier to foster an arts community in a underdeveloped downtown setting.

Maybe "underdeveloped" in the strict sense of "lacking contemporary development"; OTOH I can see an argument for Brampton's downtown being less "underdeveloped" than Mississauga's, if we use the word as a synonym for "urbanistically impoverished, a nightmare for JaneJacobsites", etc

 

[tayser2]

Re: Overbuilt & Overly Grandoise Structures and Landmark

Canberra.

:lol

 

[wyliepoon]

Re: Overbuilt & Overly Grandoise Structures and Landmark

...and a number of other national capital cities, such as those in the "axis of evil" ...

Pyongyang, North Korea

Baghdad, Iraq

 

[shawnmicallef]

Re: Overbuilt & Overly Grandoise Structures and Landmark

Did somebody mention the Detroit People Mover?

 

[Darkstar416]

Re: Overbuilt & Overly Grandoise Structures and Landmark

Did somebody mention the Detroit People Mover?

Good point, although I think you could also argue that why it isn't successful is that it was "underbuilt as it only goes one direction and in a continuous circle to boot! It's like a toy train set that goes nowhere.

 

[adma]

Re: Overbuilt & Overly Grandoise Structures and Landmark

Well, Ren Cen also counts/counted as overbuilt/overly grandiose...

 

[scribble744]

Re: Overbuilt & Overly Grandoise Structures and Landmark

The Crossroads Centre in Burlington has to be the most insane building ever. They've taken all kinds of buildings representing a mythical "small town" home, inflated them to bizzare proportions and then stuck them all together creating this horrible mess:

www.crossroads.ca/images/centre2.gif

It has to be seen to be believed (no pun intended)