03-18-2021, 03:41 PM
(03-18-2021, 11:42 AM)westwardloo Wrote: To each there own, I will have to disagree on with you on this one. There are countless other John Lingwood structures across the region that can be preserved to celebrate his work. Market square should not be one of them. It is a complete failure of a urban built form. It represents the destruction of Kitchener city hall and the original market. It is a mass of red brick and green glass that interacts poorly at all three streets it interacts with. It is easily my least favorite part of king to walk down. In my opinion It will never be a viable retail space again and it takes up one of the largest city blocks in downtown Kitchener. If the clocktower was enough to pay homage to the old city hall, then the new Fredrick Station mimic the green glass that is enough to pay homage to this building.
It helped shape downtown into what it is today, but represents a complete failure in urban revitalization. Time to tear this building down and let somethin new help shape the future of DTK.
I’m sort of lukewarm on this building. I’m not as opposed as some, but I also don’t think it’s a great building.
I want to suggest that the bolded statement above is not a good reason to demolish it, however. Would you ever say something like that about a building you liked? If it’s good enough to keep, it’s still good enough even though it replaced a better (let’s assume; although I’m inclined to agree) building in the old City Hall. And if it’s bad enough to demolish, it would still be bad enough even if it replaced an open cesspit.
As you probably know, I really like protected pedestrian spaces. That being said, I also like being able to walk along outdoors if I want. So for this building I would like to see actual engagement along the street; as usual I suggest continuous porticos all the way along King and Frederick would help a lot. These give a large fraction of what I like about fully indoor walkways without introducing a big divide between the continuous sidewalk along the entire street and what is inside this particular building.
Additional note, I don’t believe one can even enter the mall area from the other corners besides King and Frederick, which means the building doesn’t even provide what I like about indoor pedestrian spaces: the option to traverse a block by walking through a building rather than along the street. If I had built that building more or less as it is (ignoring the other things I would or might change) you can be sure it would have entrances at all four corners of the block, linked internally by publicly accessible corridors.