Our proposal recognized the following basic principles:
1) No building should compete with "God's Mountain". Views of the Mount Royal summit should remain intact and unbroken. Reverence and echoes of natural elements, such as the former Saint Martin's River should be expressed since the river provided the bed for the Autoroute Ville Marie.
2) Historic squares should remain intact. Whenever possible these should be enhanced and given a pedestrian orientation.
3) Strong historic built features such as the French fortifications have disappeared with only a street name left behind. Architectural and civic forms should incorporate "allusions" to this important historical feature when the opportunity arises.
4) That Icons relevant to Native, French, and English settlement as well as those of Montreal's immigrant communities share equal respect in the planning processes in order to secure an understanding of Montreal's historic evolution.
(From competitor's text)
STAGE 1
This project uses a North-South public space axis, and an East-West low-rise built-up axis to create a strong place-setting design and provides a significant setting for the I.C.C. While, in our opinion, the North-South extension of Victoria Square is credible and feasible, the East-West axis, as shown, is achieved through an overall built form and typologies of doubtfull feasibility and that are not even necessarily desirable. This scheme needs to be reworked at the level or urban planning and urban design principles in order to make its strong basic statement more meaningful in terms of implementation over a period of years and by a variety of public and private agents, as well as to integrate it in the existing urban fabric, in particular the existing street network. The jury also noted that, for the proposed realignment of University Street, South of Saint-Antoine, which provides for potential new building sites, there are no indications as to the connection with Autoroute Bonaventure.
STAGE 2
The project is based upon the desire to develop simultaneously a low, consistent building height, and an extensive, diversified public realm. The primary building element devised is a slab type capable of spanning, where necessary, autoroute Ville-Marie. This ability to span also provides for an extensive east-west open space system ranging over several blocks, complementing the north-south system arrayed from Beaver Hall Hill to Rue McGill. Given their north-south axis and proximity to lower east-west buildings, these slab type buildings provide south-facing "sun trap" courts, which give light to the public open space system below. The building type prescribed, however, is not suited physically or symbolically to the development of the International Conference Center, submerging it within what would be seen as a system of private office blocks. Three-storey colonnade screen elements are devised to modify the misaligned fronts of existing buildings. While such modifications are in a good cause, there is little incentive for existing buildings to provide such additions since they offer little benefit in terms of development revenues. The open space system perhaps the most developed of any received, comprises a large-scale cruciform in plan with a diversity of places and facilities. The jury is not convinced that the buildings levitating overhead do not compromise and devalue this quite generous system. Similarly, the jury believes that the demarcation of public and private domains and the development parcel formation may constitute significant problems in attracting development proponents. The density generated (low relative to other competitors), the compromised open space and the lack of an elaborated lexicon of building types capable of solving other site problems (e.g. corners, in-fills, etc.) suggest that this is not a workable strategy. Some higher, well deployed buildings could alleviate some of the problems described.
(From jury report)
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