Bridge to Nowhere?

[Traditional_Ale]

Originally Posted by kevman

Furthermore, it's the inner city residents that pay the highest taxes to fund those suburban interchanges. It's about time we buy something for ourselves!

By all means build an asthetically beautiful bridge.

But NOT to the tune of 25-million for ONE bridge. That is insane. I'd rather see classroom size in elementary thru jr. high capped at 23 per class.

When I was in grade seven way back in the day, there were 36 kids in my home room. What a joke.

10-million for a bridge and 15-million for elementary and jr.high school class sizes would definately help with our "culture" issue. I'm sure one of the kids who benfits could go on to design a bridge that doesn't look like a random fractal from some hippie's screensaver.

[MrMastodonFarm]

Originally Posted by burn_this_city

lol, I just think it would look out of place considering how plain the rest of our infrastructure is.

Gotta start somewhere...

[Wookie]

Originally Posted by Muta

Ouch. You'd be surprised how internationally-recognized the courthouse builiding is becoming. It's arguably alot more well-designed than 'ever other office building' as you say. Have you been in there? There's a 24-story, floor-to-ceiling atrium connecting both structures, which is truely impressive, for starters.

i stare at that building all day every day out my office window, my screen is angled so it's completely in my field of view and I never noticed that atrium until now, cool. If it's soooo nice they should tell someone to talk down that ladder that's sitting there 3 or 4 floors up that's been there for 6 months.

[Flame On]

I think it's great news. Calgary is a bit of a Plain Jane city I think and this will add with things like The Bow and The Dome to our skyline/city scape.
I grow tired of hearing what people think taxes should be put to, I can't opt out of things I don't like.

[fredr123]

Originally Posted by Wookie

i stare at that building all day every day out my office window, my screen is angled so it's completely in my field of view and I never noticed that atrium until now, cool. If it's soooo nice they should tell someone to talk down that ladder that's sitting there 3 or 4 floors up that's been there for 6 months.

Try visiting it some day. The glass elevators combined with the atrium make for a pretty interesting experience. Just don't wear a belt or steel-toed shoes or anything else you wouldn't bring on a plane. The airport-style security there can be a bit of a pain.

[Titan]

Originally Posted by fredr123

Try visiting it some day. The glass elevators combined with the atrium make for a pretty interesting experience. Just don't wear a belt or steel-toed shoes or anything else you wouldn't bring on a plane. The airport-style security there can be a bit of a pain.

I have not been yet. If I flash my "members only" card do I get to bypass the security? Or just no cavity search?

[fredr123]

Originally Posted by Titan

I have not been yet. If I flash my "members only" card do I get to bypass the security? Or just no cavity search?

Yah, your bar card plus your drivers' license gets you through the VIP line. Cavity searches available upon request.

[Titan]

Originally Posted by fredr123

Yah, your bar card plus your drivers' license gets you through the VIP line. Cavity searches available upon request.

There is certainly a joke in here about lawyers, a$$h0le$ and body cavity searches. I just can't quite think of it...

Where is Fotze when you need him?

[Table 5]

Originally Posted by Titan

Where is Fotze when you need him?

too busy getting in line for those free cavity searches he keeps hearing about....

[Bunk]

How could something beautiful possibly be out of place with the natural beauty of the Bow River????

An ugly utilitarian structure so many of your are aspousing would be out of place with the river, and not worthy of its location.

For all the naysayers - I implore you to watch this video about the importance of place and design in society:

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/j..._suburbia.html

The Druh Farrells of Calgary are trying to build a city WORTH caring about.

The Ric McIver's want nothing but a bland, utilitarian (but cheap! yay!) non-place of a city.

[RougeUnderoos]

I'm all for a fancy bridge. The ones on the first page of this thread are pretty cool and our city would be better for it. If they build one on the cheap, what are they going to spend the savings on? My guess is another road. Yay. One road, one ugly bridge, coming up.

But what's the deal with the second "iconic" bridge. Is this part of some master plan to "beautify" the river with nifty bridges, or was the second one just sort of tacked on? It kinda seems that way. "What the hell, we're building one, might as well make it two. What's next on the agenda".

My guess is that we'll get the first one, the second will be scrapped. Or ugly.

[Table 5]

I think ideally you give one bridge to some hot shot architect like Calatrava or Foster, and the second one you give it some hot shot young, but lesser or un-known, firm who will work for cheaper but also have the drive to put themselves on the map.

Btw, Rouge, yes it is part of a master-plan actually!

[Bunk]

Originally Posted by RougeUnderoos

But what's the deal with the second "iconic" bridge. Is this part of some master plan to "beautify" the river with nifty bridges, or was the second one just sort of tacked on? It kinda seems that way. "What the hell, we're building one, might as well make it two. What's next on the agenda".

My guess is that we'll get the first one, the second will be scrapped. Or ugly.

Not tacked on. The second is to connect a redeveloping East Village with Bridgeland (all part of the Rivers District). It's about greater connectivity throughout the core of the central city. You can't cross the river east of Langevin Bridge for kms. It will come forward a bit down the line. The Calgary Municipal Land Corporation, the authority formed a year ago and armed with over $150 million to set the stage for redevelopment (including remediating contaminated land, building new streets, plazas, sidewalks, restoring heritage, expanding the Riverwalk etc), will be managing and paying for the second bridge through land sales in the neighbourhood.

I think ideally you give one bridge to some hot shot architect like Calatrava or Foster, and the second one you give it some hot shot young, but lesser or un-known, firm who will work for cheaper but also have the drive to put themselves on the map.

I've heard from the Horse's mouth at CMLC that they DO want to do a design competition for the eastern bridge, rather than simply hand it to someone like Calatrava (which might happen for the Prince's Island Bridge). So that's good.

[RougeUnderoos]

Originally Posted by Table 5

I think ideally you give one bridge to some hot shot architect like Calatrava or Foster, and the second one you give it some hot shot young, but lesser or un-known, firm who will work for cheaper but also have the drive to put themselves on the map.

Btw, Rouge, yes it is part of a master-plan actually!

Well that makes sense. I've never heard of this plan though.

On a related note, did anyone ever see the Ken Burns movie about the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge? It's pretty cool. Theres dead people in that bridge!

But, they were mostly Micks, so who cares?

[Muta]

Originally Posted by Table 5

I think ideally you give one bridge to some hot shot architect like Calatrava or Foster, and the second one you give it some hot shot young, but lesser or un-known, firm who will work for cheaper but also have the drive to put themselves on the map.

I agree with this; it's the way it will likely be done. Calgary's pretty good at giving chances to local architectural firms, so this does work out. One should never discredit the potential work of a lesser known entity.

BTW, that location on the West end of Prince's Island Park is a VERY IMPORTANT, STRATEGIC location for a bridge. If there's any location you want to put an expensive, well-designed pedestrian bridge, it's at that apex of the bend in the Bow River. I cannot stress the importance of doing this bridge correctly in this location, for a number of reasons.

Perhaps I'll submit an RFP for this project. Watch out for a bridge in the future labelled 'Muta'. Complete with spitting green mist.

[Cowboy89]

Originally Posted by josh white

The Druh Farrells of Calgary are trying to build a city WORTH caring about.

The Druh Farrells of Calgary need medication.

[Muta]

Originally Posted by Cowboy89

The Druh Farrells of Calgary need medication.

Why?

[Table 5]

im sure it has something to do with them gay pinko gubment liberals

[MrMastodonFarm]

Originally Posted by Table 5

im sure it has something to do with them gay pinko gubment liberals

I think Calgary needs more ceramic cows personally.

[jammies]

Originally Posted by MrMastodonFarm

I think Calgary needs more ceramic cows personally.

You forgot the green highlighting... although I have an album of those cows my parents gave me, which made me really really wonder about my true parentage - those things looked like hillbillies got loose and defaced the city.

As far as the bridges go, hell yah. Aesthetics are important, and as long as they aren't $25 million dollar bridges that are going to cost another $10 million every decade or so to refurbish, you have to look at the long-term picture here - these are something future generations will be using when we are all dead and gone. Spread the cost over a hundred years and all of a sudden they don't seem so crazily expensive.