Quote:
Originally Posted by SeeGeeWhy
They should've built Mawson's proposal at Eau Claire. How crazy would it be to have that in our city at that spot? Gorgeous...
"Unfortunately, Mawson’s plan was very expensive. In 1914 it would have cost at least $10 million dollars to create Mawson’s vision for the City, a huge amount when you realize that one of Calgary’s largest supermarkets made only $420 a day. Calgary was run by hard-headed businessmen who believed it was city council’s job to make it easy for businesses to make money and Mawson’s very costly plan failed to convince them that it would make the city more money. Then there was the problem of Calgary’s severe financial difficulties. In 1914 , after years of poorly managed budgets and heavy overspending, the city council was struggling to find enough money to even run the city for a year, let alone to completely remake it. The money needed for Mawson’s vision was impossible to come up with and the beginning of World War I in August made money even harder to find.
Nevertheless, although Mawson’s plan was never implemented in Calgary, parts of the city do show his influence. The location of Mewata armouries, for instance, is exactly where Mawson wanted it. He thought putting it at Mewata Park instead of at the mouth of the Elbow would create an impressive view for the end of 11St. SW. He also thought it should be near the park instead of in it to preserve what little park space Calgary had. Not so surprisingly, modern Calgary is in many ways the city Thomas Mawson predicted it would become if his plan was rejected."
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This would be a very different place if Mawson got to build his Vienna on the Bow. A lot of these planned Utopian cities of the late 19th and early 20th centuries never worked out the way the designers intended however.
