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CITYSPACE QUEBEC CITY
A Quebec mayor's bold urban vision
Investing (to the point where the suburbs were in a snit) in the Saint-Roch neighbourhood was an inspired move, writes LISA ROCHON
LISA ROCHON
QUEBEC CITY -- Flattery can be a good thing, except when it stifles change. Quebec City's designation as a World Heritage Site in 1985 by UNESCO meant its downtown was seen as a monument, not as a living work in progress. By the end of that decade, things were dire: Quebec could either die the death of a thousand T-shirt shops or reinvent itself.
Had Loto-Québec had its way, the historic Palais Montcalm might have become a casino. But, after three years of restoration and expansion work, the Palais has just re-opened its doors as a concert hall dedicated to classical performances. Meanwhile, the Saint-Roch neighbourhood continues a passionate urban revitalization that spins on youth and culture.
Both initiatives have to do with the vision of a strong mayor who acted on the advice of a Toronto urban designer. I should clarify that the mayor I'm referring to is Jean-Paul L'Allier, a man of serious culture who served as Quebec City's mayor from 1989-2005 and, years before that, as the young culture minister who wrote the green book on the arts for Robert Bourassa's Liberal provincial government. A man, it struck me during our interview a couple of weeks ago, with a genuine curiosity for the making of complex cities who, as the vice-president of the International Association of Francophone Mayors, cultivated friendships with leaders and urban designers in Spain, France and Germany.
In the late 1980s, Toronto urban designer Ken Greenberg gave a speech in Quebec City attended by L'Allier, and their relationship started then and there. "The principle which guided us was culture and youth," recalls L'Allier, during the press opening earlier this month of the renovated Palais Montcalm, a project he helped to spearhead despite criticism that a classical concert hall was far too grand and far too elite for Quebec City.
When it originally opened in 1932, the Palais Montcalm was built on the foundations of an old marketplace and was designed in a restrained Art Deco style to house an auditorium, a library and a swimming pool. (It was, in essence, Quebeckers' response to the YMCA built nearby.) Over the years, stars from Quebec and around the world, including Maurice Chevalier, Edith Piaf, Gilles Vigneault and B. B. King, performed on its stage.
Jacques Plante, the acclaimed Quebec City architect who won the provincial competition for the restoration, retains the rather severe front facade of the hall -- a decision that pays decent tribute to the significance of collective memory -- while effectively hollowing out the inside and excavating from below to provide a multitiered concert hall, with no proscenium arch, seating 979 people.
"For me, as the designer, it was crucial not to intervene on the facade," says Plante, whose clients include Quebec iconoclasts Robert Lepage and Le Cirque du Soleil. "It's one of those rare buildings that students can draw by hand as if it forms part of their memory."
By excavating from below, Plante not only provided a bigger concert hall but a direct ground-floor entrance -- visitors previously arrived on the upper mezzanine level -- to the new performance hall. The building's rare flourishes -- a terrazzo floor detailed with the ancient Greek lyre, lighting and a deeply coffered ceiling, all original to the Art Deco design -- have been restored. Larry King of New York-based JaffeHolden designed the acoustics in the hall, called the Salle Raoul-Jobin, including concrete walls covered with plywood boxes filled with olivine (volcanic sand) and monumental velour curtains behind and around the stage that can be opened or closed depending on the desired sound.
A motorized canopy above the stage allows for a variety of performances, but will typically be kept at a medium height for chamber concerts given, for instance, by Quebec City's pride and joy, Les Violons du Roy.
Mayor L'Allier recognized long ago that Les Violons du Roy was a cultural treasure of the city that he wasn't interested in trading away. Led by conductor Bernard Labadie, the 15-member chamber orchestra performs regularly in Europe and at New York's Lincoln Center, and on Tuesday, plays Roy Thomson Hall in Toronto.
The group had been invited to set up permanent residence in Boston. L'Allier countered the offer with a promise of $23-million to reinvent the Palais Montcalm to satisfy the dreams and acoustical requirements of Les Violons du Roy. The deal seems to have worked: The group has agreed to give about 20 performances every year in the Salle Raoul-Jobin.
But cities do not trade internationally on singular moments in architecture. The renewal of entire neighbourhoods is also required. As a first-term mayor in 1989, mayor L'Allier turned his attention to Saint-Roch, a once-thriving neighbourhood abused by decisions to replace buildings with parking lots and turn a major thoroughfare, Saint-Joseph Street, into a dreary pedestrian mall. "I had a very long conversation with Ken Greenberg and he gave me some very good advice. The city had left Saint-Roch for the dead. It hadn't planted a tree for 20 years. What can a city do? Sidewalks, trees, public space -- and what if we did a public garden?"
A competition for the Jardin de Saint-Roch was organized. The park, designed by Williams, Asselin, Ackaoui et Associés, includes a cascading water feature, native plants and numerous benches facing the streets or turned toward the waterfall. Nearby, aluminum cladding was stripped from Laliberté, the venerable old department store, to reveal intricate brickwork. And the 500-metre-long roof of the deadening pedestrian mall was mostly taken down, street furniture was installed and sidewalks were widened along Saint-Joseph with only bollards separating pedestrian traffic from vehicles. The technique is commonly used in cities such as Berlin, Bordeaux, Barcelona and Paris, places that had specifically inspired L'Allier.
Still, the revitalization of the neighbourhood didn't stop with design -- a concept that cities such as Toronto need to find a way to embrace. Grants for renovation of facades along commercial streets were provided as well as major tax credits on the value added to the properties. Artists moving into the area could qualify for a program covering 40 per cent of interior and exterior renovations to their spaces.
The province's finance ministry offered companies up to $10,000 a year for 10 years for every employee who was moved into the newly established National Centre for New Technologies of Quebec, located in the centre of Saint-Roch.
During the early 1990s, councillors from Ste-Foy and other suburbs of Quebec City pummelled the mayor for what they perceived to be a piece of insane spending. But the city's investment of about $90-million has paid rich dividends. Between 1992 and 2005, says Quebec City senior urban designer Peter Murphy, an estimated $250-million was invested by the private sector. Over 4,000 jobs have been created in Saint-Roch since the beginning of this process, as well as 1,100 housing units. Fifteen hundred students now study in Saint-Roch and there are now 130 artist studios there.
And the revitalization shows no signs of slowing. About 10 buildings are in the works, including two office buildings about eight storeys high. The $350,000 Jardin du Savoir by Côté-Chabot-Morel architectes, which links a business school and research buildings through graphically arranged trees and hard surfaces, is slated for completion this summer.
Even surreal ideas are imagined as possible new realities in Quebec City. Theatre director Lepage and architect Plante want to turn a gigantic cavern created by a thwarted underground highway project to the west of Quebec City's fortress walls into performance and theatre-production spaces. Quoi? If the city were smart, it would let Lepage have his way. In terms of sheer audacity, the payback would go way beyond revenues generated by kitschy Bonhomme key chains.
"Each time I've been back, I've been very, very impressed -- it just keeps going," says Greenberg, who was hired by Quebec City as Saint-Roch's strategic planner from 1989 to the early 1990s. "Quebec, more than we have in Toronto, has been looking at and finding inspiration from urban practice in Europe -- particularly in France. Mayor L'Allier -- he was definitely one of those hands-on, personally engaged mayors who saw as his responsibility to deliver success. He inspired the staff, really creating a high morale and a can-do sense of things. I think he was one of the great mayors in Canada."
lrochon@globeandmail.com
A Quebec mayor's bold urban vision
Investing (to the point where the suburbs were in a snit) in the Saint-Roch neighbourhood was an inspired move, writes LISA ROCHON
LISA ROCHON
QUEBEC CITY -- Flattery can be a good thing, except when it stifles change. Quebec City's designation as a World Heritage Site in 1985 by UNESCO meant its downtown was seen as a monument, not as a living work in progress. By the end of that decade, things were dire: Quebec could either die the death of a thousand T-shirt shops or reinvent itself.
Had Loto-Québec had its way, the historic Palais Montcalm might have become a casino. But, after three years of restoration and expansion work, the Palais has just re-opened its doors as a concert hall dedicated to classical performances. Meanwhile, the Saint-Roch neighbourhood continues a passionate urban revitalization that spins on youth and culture.
Both initiatives have to do with the vision of a strong mayor who acted on the advice of a Toronto urban designer. I should clarify that the mayor I'm referring to is Jean-Paul L'Allier, a man of serious culture who served as Quebec City's mayor from 1989-2005 and, years before that, as the young culture minister who wrote the green book on the arts for Robert Bourassa's Liberal provincial government. A man, it struck me during our interview a couple of weeks ago, with a genuine curiosity for the making of complex cities who, as the vice-president of the International Association of Francophone Mayors, cultivated friendships with leaders and urban designers in Spain, France and Germany.
In the late 1980s, Toronto urban designer Ken Greenberg gave a speech in Quebec City attended by L'Allier, and their relationship started then and there. "The principle which guided us was culture and youth," recalls L'Allier, during the press opening earlier this month of the renovated Palais Montcalm, a project he helped to spearhead despite criticism that a classical concert hall was far too grand and far too elite for Quebec City.
When it originally opened in 1932, the Palais Montcalm was built on the foundations of an old marketplace and was designed in a restrained Art Deco style to house an auditorium, a library and a swimming pool. (It was, in essence, Quebeckers' response to the YMCA built nearby.) Over the years, stars from Quebec and around the world, including Maurice Chevalier, Edith Piaf, Gilles Vigneault and B. B. King, performed on its stage.
Jacques Plante, the acclaimed Quebec City architect who won the provincial competition for the restoration, retains the rather severe front facade of the hall -- a decision that pays decent tribute to the significance of collective memory -- while effectively hollowing out the inside and excavating from below to provide a multitiered concert hall, with no proscenium arch, seating 979 people.
"For me, as the designer, it was crucial not to intervene on the facade," says Plante, whose clients include Quebec iconoclasts Robert Lepage and Le Cirque du Soleil. "It's one of those rare buildings that students can draw by hand as if it forms part of their memory."
By excavating from below, Plante not only provided a bigger concert hall but a direct ground-floor entrance -- visitors previously arrived on the upper mezzanine level -- to the new performance hall. The building's rare flourishes -- a terrazzo floor detailed with the ancient Greek lyre, lighting and a deeply coffered ceiling, all original to the Art Deco design -- have been restored. Larry King of New York-based JaffeHolden designed the acoustics in the hall, called the Salle Raoul-Jobin, including concrete walls covered with plywood boxes filled with olivine (volcanic sand) and monumental velour curtains behind and around the stage that can be opened or closed depending on the desired sound.
A motorized canopy above the stage allows for a variety of performances, but will typically be kept at a medium height for chamber concerts given, for instance, by Quebec City's pride and joy, Les Violons du Roy.
Mayor L'Allier recognized long ago that Les Violons du Roy was a cultural treasure of the city that he wasn't interested in trading away. Led by conductor Bernard Labadie, the 15-member chamber orchestra performs regularly in Europe and at New York's Lincoln Center, and on Tuesday, plays Roy Thomson Hall in Toronto.
The group had been invited to set up permanent residence in Boston. L'Allier countered the offer with a promise of $23-million to reinvent the Palais Montcalm to satisfy the dreams and acoustical requirements of Les Violons du Roy. The deal seems to have worked: The group has agreed to give about 20 performances every year in the Salle Raoul-Jobin.
But cities do not trade internationally on singular moments in architecture. The renewal of entire neighbourhoods is also required. As a first-term mayor in 1989, mayor L'Allier turned his attention to Saint-Roch, a once-thriving neighbourhood abused by decisions to replace buildings with parking lots and turn a major thoroughfare, Saint-Joseph Street, into a dreary pedestrian mall. "I had a very long conversation with Ken Greenberg and he gave me some very good advice. The city had left Saint-Roch for the dead. It hadn't planted a tree for 20 years. What can a city do? Sidewalks, trees, public space -- and what if we did a public garden?"
A competition for the Jardin de Saint-Roch was organized. The park, designed by Williams, Asselin, Ackaoui et Associés, includes a cascading water feature, native plants and numerous benches facing the streets or turned toward the waterfall. Nearby, aluminum cladding was stripped from Laliberté, the venerable old department store, to reveal intricate brickwork. And the 500-metre-long roof of the deadening pedestrian mall was mostly taken down, street furniture was installed and sidewalks were widened along Saint-Joseph with only bollards separating pedestrian traffic from vehicles. The technique is commonly used in cities such as Berlin, Bordeaux, Barcelona and Paris, places that had specifically inspired L'Allier.
Still, the revitalization of the neighbourhood didn't stop with design -- a concept that cities such as Toronto need to find a way to embrace. Grants for renovation of facades along commercial streets were provided as well as major tax credits on the value added to the properties. Artists moving into the area could qualify for a program covering 40 per cent of interior and exterior renovations to their spaces.
The province's finance ministry offered companies up to $10,000 a year for 10 years for every employee who was moved into the newly established National Centre for New Technologies of Quebec, located in the centre of Saint-Roch.
During the early 1990s, councillors from Ste-Foy and other suburbs of Quebec City pummelled the mayor for what they perceived to be a piece of insane spending. But the city's investment of about $90-million has paid rich dividends. Between 1992 and 2005, says Quebec City senior urban designer Peter Murphy, an estimated $250-million was invested by the private sector. Over 4,000 jobs have been created in Saint-Roch since the beginning of this process, as well as 1,100 housing units. Fifteen hundred students now study in Saint-Roch and there are now 130 artist studios there.
And the revitalization shows no signs of slowing. About 10 buildings are in the works, including two office buildings about eight storeys high. The $350,000 Jardin du Savoir by Côté-Chabot-Morel architectes, which links a business school and research buildings through graphically arranged trees and hard surfaces, is slated for completion this summer.
Even surreal ideas are imagined as possible new realities in Quebec City. Theatre director Lepage and architect Plante want to turn a gigantic cavern created by a thwarted underground highway project to the west of Quebec City's fortress walls into performance and theatre-production spaces. Quoi? If the city were smart, it would let Lepage have his way. In terms of sheer audacity, the payback would go way beyond revenues generated by kitschy Bonhomme key chains.
"Each time I've been back, I've been very, very impressed -- it just keeps going," says Greenberg, who was hired by Quebec City as Saint-Roch's strategic planner from 1989 to the early 1990s. "Quebec, more than we have in Toronto, has been looking at and finding inspiration from urban practice in Europe -- particularly in France. Mayor L'Allier -- he was definitely one of those hands-on, personally engaged mayors who saw as his responsibility to deliver success. He inspired the staff, really creating a high morale and a can-do sense of things. I think he was one of the great mayors in Canada."
lrochon@globeandmail.com