Vancouver's Cathedral Square

 

Cathedral Square in the eastern portion of Vancouver's downtown, right at the edge of Gastown, is one of those spaces that I've walked by a dozen times but never stopped to go inside and explore. Mostly it was because, despite the dramatic design of this public space, there was never any real draw to check it out. The square usually draws a cursory glance as people walk by to other things. It exists as one of those public spaces that were designed with the best intention, and then left to rot, untended.

Cathedral Square consists of a grassy expanse dotted by wooden benches on concrete platforms and a zig-zagged pathway. In the centre is a pool, the colour of the which makes it look less like a reflecting pond than your neighbours over-chlorinated and neglected backyard swimming pool, leafy detritus and cigarette butts magnified from their sunken spot at the bottom. This blue is "complemented" by Expo 86-style steel girders that make an open-air cage propped up on thick, concrete turrets. There is even a 'pier' should someone want to sit out and suntan. 

This cage sits atop a stepped plaza of sorts that is littered with trash, and mostly hidden from the street beside it. The site's architecture is imposing and unfriendly and almost prison-like in the huge concrete barriers and metal cage. Some of the benches are even missing, so all that remains is the concrete block on which they are supposed to sit.

Part of the reason for the site's lack of people, no doubt, is that the space is located in a inconvenient spot. As time passes in Vancouver the city's 'centre' has moved ever westward, from the pioneer days when the hot spot was what is now called the Downtown Eastside to contemporary times where most people are found along the commercialized spine of Robson Street in the West End.


However, it's undeniable that the design of this square is not a welcoming one. I found some pictures from the Vancouver Archives of what the square looked like when it first opened in 1986 to find out if it was as unwelcoming looking back then as it is now. 

Vancouver Archives, CVA 7840-098

In these photos the concrete pillars are fresh and have not yet succumbed to the rusty discolourations from years of rain, and there are flowers and small trees. 

Vancouver Archives, CVA 784-099

The cage overhead is revealed to have once been the frame for a covering that shielded the space from rain, but they obviously found it too difficult to maintain so removed it. You can also see in the below picture how the southern edge of the square is cut off from the adjacent street due to a change in grade, making this part of the space feel closed off and private.

Vancouver Archives, CVA 784-101

It's unfortunate that this space gets so little play. Vancouver's downtown peninsula has a real dearth of public squares and plazas larger than those occupying a ceded corner of real estate on a busy downtown block (the small plaza at the corner of Georgia and Granville outside of the Sears building was such a corner until the city built an oversized entrance to the Vancouver City Centre Canada Line station there). For now Cathedral Square remains mostly discarded.

As it stands, however, Cathedral Square does seem to serve a function of providing shelter and privacy to those who may be living on the street. I came across two people sleeping in separate sections of the plaza behind the giant concrete pillars. So a "rediscovering" of this space by the City would likely result in inequities in terms of who is able to use this space and for what.

Four Days in Montreal

I got back last night from four days (well, three and a half if you subtract bus travel time) in Montreal. This was not the first time I had been to the city, but I noticed a lot of new stuff since I was last there for two weeks in the summer of 2007. Namely, more and better public spaces, changes to the street system, and perhaps most drastically, the addition of the Bixi bike share program and a slew of amazing separated bike lanes.

Streets

The above picture is Rue St. Catherine, which is one of the main drags in downtown Montreal, spanning the gay village, the Place des Arts, and the major shopping street. The city is undertaking a massive change in tone to the streetscape along certain stretches by taking out the curbs that separated cars from pedestrians and laying the whole road in the same material. Although only parts were open, it's already obvious that this changes how the street feels entirely. Given that when I was there in 2007 for the jazz festival this street was the one closed off for the largest outdoor stage, it only makes sense to be able to create a space that converts easily between road and pedestrian plaza.

This is another section of Rue St. Catherine in the gay village. For multiple blocks beginning at Rue Berri the street has been shut to car traffic from May until September in order to create a pedestrian street where the many bars and restaurants in the area are able to extend their patios. The result is an amazingly vibrant area filled with all sorts of people. We drank many a beer and people-watched along this strip, as it was busy even late into weekday nights.

Montrealers seem to love their patios (who doesn't, actually?) and examples abound all over the downtown. Sometimes it's just a few tables and chairs out on the street and sometimes it's more formal, like in the above picture. While it makes walking the crowded streets sometimes difficult, it definitely adds to the atmosphere and makes for a more interesting walking experience. Plus, you get to see what everyone is eating.

Public Space

Montreal's waterfront, while still littered with industrial remnants, has some really great spots with wide walking and biking promenades and plenty of green space to sit. However, it didn't really feel all that coherent to me, meaning that as I walked along the waterfront there wasn't a sense of unity between all the different pieces. There were a few gems, though, like the small pond/canal featured above.

The area around Place des Arts, where much of the jazz festival takes place, has really bloomed with public spaces since I was there last. There are a lot of plazas, including the one above with some cool water spurts that glow different colours at night. The area consists of a bunch of medium to large-sized public spaces, some with grass, but most with hard surfaces, that all connect up to each other. My other favourite, which I didn't manage to get a picture of, was a grassy field with a strip of sidewalk down the middle that oozed water vapour that was lit up different colours at night. Biking through the fog was a good way to cool down on a hot day.

Here's a strange piece of public art on Rue St. Catherine. The letters looked randomly placed until you stood in the right spot and they coalesced into a sentence. If only I knew French.

And of course there is the square at the Berri-UQAM subway station that turns up in many a tourist photo of Montreal. This square has a sloping grassy hill complete with water features and a hard surface plaza on which you can play oversized chess. At night they moved in a giant movie screen and played Persepolis while a truck nearby handed out free food to those who needed it.

Bikes

I only took the (bouncy--it has tires!) subway system once in Montreal. The rest of the time I was on a Bixi bike or walking. Twelve dollars bought a three-day subscription to the system, and, with the amazing and connected separated lane network, I could get virtually anywhere I wanted in the city without feeling squeezed by traffic. There was a Bixi station on almost every block, so we didn't have to worry when we went somewhere about where to park. It seemed like every third bike that road by (and a lot of people ride bikes in Montreal) was a Bixi bike.

Every City Needs a Stairway to Nowhere

When the entries for the Toronto Entertainment District BIA's competition for a public space at John and King were announced, I was immediately drawn to the proposal for a King St. Staircase--or, really, a staircase to nowhere. The vision statement on the website says:

It will be a piece of urban sculpture and a landmark. Since the stair will be a destination in itself, then its shape can take cues from the surrounding buildings and pedestrian movement. Its forms can be designed to support the area's activities: bleachers during the marathon or a Walk of Fame commemoration; a viewing platform for celebrity sightings or events during The Toronto International Film Festival.

[image source]

Instead, what won was the Urban Ballroom, which consists of spherical seating (reminiscent of those giant, rubber excercise balls) scattered underneath a net of solar-powered globes. Although a nifty idea in itself, it looks like one of those ideas for a public space that look great for a year or two before upkeep and maintenance costs cause it to slowly degenerate. It's also a space with less flexibility as it would probably look way better at night than in the day, much like how Christmas lights on houses look nice at night, but like ugly lines of wires and bulbs in bright daylight. Also, what is up with the elderly lady carrying WAY too many shopping bags? Clearly someone needs to help her home.

[image source]

There are two great spots in central downtown Vancouver for people-watching, lunch-eating, outdoor-reading, sitting-and-staring, and various other hyphenated activities. These are the public steps to the Vancouver Art Gallery (both the south and north sides, which offer different levels of public display and privacy depending on your needs), and a few blocks east on Robson at the half-circle steps leading to the Vancouver Public Library. The funny thing is that neither staircase necessarily leads anywhere. The entrances to neither the art gallery or the library are at the top of the stairs. Essentially, they go nowhere.

But there's something about a staircase, even when they lead to nothing, that draws people. It's the ability to sit, obviously, but also the ability to rise above the action of the city, providing a better vantage point from which to look. They also provide ready made seating arrangements for outdoor buskers and various political rallys and other events, something that the steps at the art gallery and the library are used for often.

I've often thought, wandering around Toronto's downtown as I did in the summer, that there weren't enough spots from which to just watch the action. There are scattered benches and public plazas here and there, but nothing like the Vancouver Art Gallery steps where you are treated to a steady stream of people. Yonge & Dundas Square is too frenetic for me, and also doesn't really contain very much seating so that the effect is kind of a concrete field amidst towering advertisements. The King St. Staircase could have filled this vacuum, providing a locus for people in the area while being flexible in its uses and easy to maintain.

I suppose I could always just bring a step ladder to a crowded area, set it up, and sit atop for a few hours, but somehow it just doesn't have the same effect.

Make Vancouver's Robson Square a Real Square

Vancouver's best public spaces have always happened around its edges, as if some invisible centrifugal force were at play in the city, spinning all the residents to the sea wall. Don't get me wrong, the sea wall is magnificent. It's a gem of which Vancouver should be proud. But as a public space it has to be acknowledged that the sea wall is primarly a linear, moving strip. People walk the sea wall. They bike. They rollerblade. They jog. In other words, they move.

What Vancouver needs, and what was shown to be a great success during the Olympics, is a permanent central square. A place where citizens and visitors alike can sit and take in the bustle of the city. A central spot to meet, eat your lunch, read a book. The Vancouver Public Space Network recognized this need when they held their Where's the Square contest, calling on Vancouverites to rethink the city's potential.

During the Olympics, the redesigned Robson Square showcased this potential. The short block between Hornby and Howe, hemmed in on each side by the courthouse and the art gallery, was closed in order to allow thousands of people to congregate. As the Vancouver Public Space Network points out, the time is right for this area to remain closed. The section of the road in question has been closed for awhile for construction and Councillor Suzanne Anton has put forward a motion to make this closure permanent.

From the very beginning of its life Robson Square, designed by Arthur Erickson, got it backwards. Allowing a road to bisect the space and placing a pedestrian space underneath the street conveys a preference. The preference for cars over people. Literally.

Robson Square needs this portion of the street to stay closed in order to be a successful public space. Its downfall is that the majority of its space is hidden from view. The redesign for the Olympics (read my previous review of it here on Beyond Robson) did much to make this space more comfortable and inviting, but the reality of the situation is that without the closure of the street here the public space remains off the beaten path so to speak, closed off behind bushes or underground.

Much has changed in city planning and design since the original days of Robson Square. We now have car free Sundays where we pedestrianize city streets, and the Olympics saw the closure of many streets to car traffic. There is a longing for these central public spaces in Vancouver and we shouldn't miss the opportunity to make Robson Square into a real square.

City as Redesigned Public Square (Sort of)

Originally posted for Beyond Robson.

Some months ago the Vancouver Public Space Network held a competition in which entrants were supposed to design a public square for Vancouver's citizens to gather in the downtown core. But, wait a tic--don't we already have a public square?

Built in 1980 by the late Arthur Erickson (the man who designed the SFU campus), Robson Square is a labyrinthine maze of concrete, waterfalls, benches, shrubs, and tilted glass, that covers the area from Nelson street up to the Vancouver Art Gallery across from Robson street. There is no doubt that it's an interesting and often beautiful area; it's a reprieve and oasis from the city streets below. The only thing is that it isn't really used.

Yesterday, I went back to Robson Square to check out the first phase of its reopening--the underground ice rink, which hasn't been there for many years. It was an Olympic dreamworld down there, with LED lights in our official pastel green and blue colours, a jazz band performing at one end, and the Olympic logo plastered around competing for space with the large GE logos stamped onto the surface of the ice and set to remain for a few months (it is the GE plaza after all). It was the first time I had seen people taking the time to come off the consumer flow of Robson to walk down the stairs and check out what was happening beneath the street.

Could this be the rebirth of our public square?


I guess it all depends on how they use the space from now on and after the Olympics. The ice rink will be an attraction if they keep it up, and will bring in tourists and residents who want to skate. The ice was packed with tripping 5 year-olds and teenagers attempting to take self-portraits for their Facebook profiles while trying not to fall down. Personally, I have never understood the thrill of being corralled in a space and made to slowly rotate in a circle with a group of other people. At one point, the guy on the speakers made everyone skate in the opposite direction, causing a few collisions and shouts of "wrong way!". Entertaining from the sidelines, anyway.

I have to admit, it looks nice. The rink, while not nearly as big as those in New York or Toronto, is still a decent size. Being under the street makes it a bit dreary, but they have spruced that up with the lighting system, which makes the ice glow a cool blue. Although, you can't really combat the fact that the rink is underground, hidden and away from street view and the people above. The area suffered from much under-use, considering its location below one of our busiest streets. But why would anyone have gone down there before? To watch the breakdancers that sometimes practice there? To check out the UBC downtown campus? To renew their driver's license? Fun...

Erickson was a good architect, but he did a disservice to this city when he built our public square underground and hidden behind a maze of elevated concrete paths and trees. I often walked around in it on hot summer days, when the streets just a few feet away were teeming with people, and found the place empty. This, when just across (or above) the street, dozens of people were sitting cheek to cheek on the steps of the art gallery, which has become the popular place to hang out. On a totally anecdotal side note, I have known two friends who have been jumped and beaten pretty badly while walking through Robson Square at night. The place does offer many nice hidden areas.

Even though, the rink area was filled, the rest of Robson Square on this mild, but wet Sunday was completely empty. I worked for almost two years right next to Robson Square, but never once chose to take my lunch in there. The thing is, it feels too disconnected. If you want to people watch (which is what the VAG steps are good for) then you won't find much to do inside Robson Square. On the same day the photo to the left was taken, I counted about over a dozen people sitting on the art gallery steps.

So, I guess we'll have to see after the Olympics and when the summer creeps up what exactly the fate of the redesigned Robson Square will be. If they can convert the ice rink into a kind of roller rink then perhaps you'll still find people under there during the summer months. But if the rest of Robson Square remains as closed off as it always is, then my guess is it will remain a place to walk through perhaps, but not sit down and enjoy the city from. All in all, I wonder exactly where all the 40m spent on the redesign went (the ice rink upgrade cost $2m). On the plus side, at least they didn't build the clamshell.