HERITAGE OTTAWA

An article published under this headline in today's Globe and Mail expresses serious concerns about the Federal government's site choice for a proposed National Memorial to the Victims of Communism.

After expressing support for the recently-announced facelift of the National Arts Centre, the article criticizes the Harper government's recent decision to invest $80-million into the existing, problem-plagued structure housing the Canadian Science and Technology Museum, describing the case for starting over with something new as "overwhelming". The article goes on to state:

"Equally bad is the site for the new Memorial to the Victims of Communism, the brainchild of a private foundation eagerly supported by the Harper government. 

The site along Wellington Street, the main ceremonial thoroughfare that runs in front of the Parliament Buildings, is diagonally across from the Art Deco Supreme Court building. From some angles, the huge new memorial will block views of the Supreme Court. 

Until 2012, the site was supposed to be for a new Federal Court Building, thereby completing a triad of judicial buildings: the Justice Department, the Supreme Court and the Federal Court. 

The huge memorial will take most of an entire square. Costs have already risen with Ottawa’s share (private philanthropy is supposed to raise $2.5-million) going from $1.5-million to $4-million. 

Shirley Blumberg, a partner at one of Canada’s most creative architectural firms, KPMB, and a member of the design jury for the memorial, thinks the cost estimate is way too low. Try two or three times higher, she suggests. 

Worse, Ms. Blumberg told the Ottawa Citizen that the site is all wrong: “I have a massive problem, a huge problem, with this memorial going on that site. I think it completely misrepresents and skews what Canada is all about.” She warned that it will “completely dominate” nearby buildings, including the Supreme Court and should therefore be placed elsewhere.

Ms. Blumberg is absolutely right. The memorial will be in the wrong place. As with the Science and Technology Museum decision, is it too late to think again? Bad planning decisions last for a century or more."

Read the entire article by Jeffrey Simpson in the Globe and Mail here.

Read a related editorial about the Memorial by Kelly Egan in the Ottawa Citizen here.