Quote:
Originally Posted by Ozy_Flame
Good design talent often does not stay in Calgary long, and I suspect it's because of the penny-pinching conservative clients who will cut corners to meet the bottom dollar.
I think at some point, architects don't just want to do work; they want to do interesting work, and it's few and far between in Calgary, unfortunately.
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Quite honestly though, on the whole design quality where I am in Toronto isn't any better. In fact there are few cities in North America as a whole that truly have embraced a culture of great architecture. Chicago is one that comes to mind. But even it has only a few standouts and a massive swath of mediocrity.
Calgary as a young and tiny city is coming along. Projects like the Calatrava Bridge, The Bow, The Water Centre, Cantos, the urban design of The Bridges development, plans for the East Village, the new Epcor Expansion (Bing Thom), design competition for the Central Library are certainly getting the ball moving in the right direction. Even the general standard of mundane condo towers has increased quite dramatically in the last 5-8 years from the crap you saw in the west end to a reasonably acceptable sort of Vancouver standard of architecture such as Waterfront, Stella/Nova, Kahanoff, Battistella's Colours, or Erickson's Concord Pacific project.