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Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION
Winnipeg buildings: A random trend
Blog of the week: Anybody Want a Peanut?
Let's play a game!
In the picture below are photos of 8 buildings in Winnipeg. The first person to correctly match up photos with the names of the buildings wins! Wins what? Hmm. Good question. Lessee here... how about a set of glass drink coasters that say "THIRSTY" on them?
Check out the accompanying photo and match it up to this list of buildings:
A) Asper Institute
B) Buhler Welcome Centre
C) Youth For Christ -- Centre for Youth Excellence
D) Manitoba Hydro Tower
E) BGBX Condos
F) Winnipeg Birth Centre
G) 363 Broadway
H) North Centennial Recreation and Leisure Facility
I may need to exclude Christian Cassidy from this contest just to be fair to everybody else. In fact I wouldn't have even known about one or two of these buildings were it not for a blog post he did a while back.
In 2003 the Smith Carter-designed Asper Institute was built. In addition to a unique shape, the building sported unique multi-coloured panels in a random pattern. I wasn't quite sure what to make of it at first. It was a little bit retro and futuristic at the same time, and a little bit ugly too, but it was interesting and I'm all for interesting buildings.
In the years that followed, another building got built or renovated with multi-coloured panels in a random pattern, then another and another.
There is a definite trend here, and once again I'm not sure what to make of it. What will we think of these buildings in 30 or 50 years? Will we look at these buildings and say to ourselves, "What were they thinking back then?" If we try to tear one down, will people scream "No, you can't do that! That building is an excellent example of early millennium post-modern randomization!" How will they endure, style-wise?
Also, is this just a Winnipeg thing, or is this a widespread trend in exterior building design? Maybe some of you who travel more than I could answer that question. When I was in Montreal I stumbled upon the Palais des Congrès de Montréal (as well as a riot, but that's another story), which also sports the random-glass-panel look, so maybe it's not just us.
Maybe the trend is already waning. The Langside Terrace House by Syverson Monteyne Architecture was supposed to be similarly clad.
But the final product has a much more subdued exterior.
So a final question: after this trend has run its course, what is in store for us next? We had uniform-coloured panels in the 1950s, mirrored glass in the 1960s, exposed aggregate in the 1970s, metal and granite in the 1980s. Nothing was built in Winnipeg in the 1990s, so I don't know what the trend was then, and now we have these multi-coloured panels. What can we look forward to next?
Cherenkov blogs at http://anybody-want-a-peanut.blogspot.ca
Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition May 20, 2012 A10
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