Doom stalks modernist gem

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The Public Safety Building (above), Winnipeg City Hall and the Manitoba Theatre Centre are part of the city's architectural heritage.

For now, the suddenly empty shell of the old Winnipeg airport terminal still waits for the final punctuation on its life.

Not for much longer, though. While heritage groups press for a last-minute reprieve, the shadow of the wrecking ball looms large over the 48-year-old building. The Western Canadian Aviation Museum looked at moving into the place, but opted instead to build anew.

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Winnipeg City Hall. (PHIL HOSSACK / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS )

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The Manitoba Theatre Centre. (PHIL HOSSACK / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS )

For many Winnipeggers, the coming loss of the old terminal is hardly worth mentioning. After the giant murals that dominated its north and south walls were rescued, the glass-and-concrete box itself fell out of the general public's concern. A Facebook page pushing to save the structure popped up and earned interest from across the world, and yet it's clear the place is destined for demolition.

This, says Winnipeg Architecture Foundation director Susan Algie, is a mistake -- and one she hopes is not soon repeated on Winnipeg's other examples of modernist architecture, a collection experts describe as one of Canada's finest of the style.

Of course, if you ask most Winnipeggers on the street what architectural gems Winnipeg needs to preserve, they'd think first of Exchange District brick, not of Winnipeg City Hall's stark expanses of concrete and glass. "It's very hard for people to think that something that came into being in their lifetime could be considered of particular importance architecturally," Algie said.

"But as people start to really take a look at (the modernist buildings) more, I think they start to understand what the innovations were, why we think they're important. Some of them historically were very significant. I think that conversation's just starting... "

It will launch in a big way at 7 p.m. tonight, when Algie joins three other experts -- architect John Petersmeyer, Shelter Canadian Properties vice-president Bob Mathieson and University of Winnipeg art history professor Serena Keshavjee -- at the Free Press News Café for a special panel discussion on the future of modernist architecture in Winnipeg.

Most of the dramatic examples of modernist design in Winnipeg are still very much in active use -- the Great-West Life building, for instance, or the Centennial Concert Hall.

But the future of the Public Safety Building at Princess Street and William Avenue -- a modernist classic that, Algie admits, can be hard for the public to love -- is unknown, as the Winnipeg Police Service will eventually move into the old Canada Post building downtown. It's not clear what will happen to the building when the service moves out, though renovation delays at the Canada Post building mean the building is unlikely to be empty any time soon.

Regardless of its future, experts say its design is deeply linked to the city's history -- and hope Manitobans would start looking to the buildings with a more searching eye.

The modernist architecture movement in Winnipeg began after the Second World War, when the University of Manitoba cultivated an architecture program with close links to modernist practitioners and schools in the United States. The students found themselves steeped in the visual language of sharp and minimal design.The firms they launched would soon cover the city in modernist pieces.

"A lot of those buildings were generated and are still here," said Petersmeyer, a retired architect who worked with the long-standing architectural firm Green Blankstein Russell and Associates, noting the old Winnipeg airport terminal was one of the finest of the modernist airports built across Canada during the mid-20th century.

And maybe they'll even be appreciated. "People are gradually becoming more interested in what constitutes modern design," Petersmeyer said. "I think there is a general stronger understanding of some of the beauty of less is more in these minimalist designs. I just think it's going to take awhile."

All are welcome at the discussion this evening at the Free Press News Café on McDermot Avenue at Arthur Street between 7 p.m. and 9 p.m.

melissa.martin@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition February 22, 2012 B1