Quel avenir: should we raze Viger Square?
Quel Avenir asks today whether we should save Viger Square as it is now, because it was the work of three artists, or raze it to the ground. He’s got a picture of the square as it was in 1904. Métro de Montréal has views of Charles Daudelin’s fountain Mastodo and Claude Théberge’s Forces.
Matthew 10:30 on 2012/02/29 Permalink
Upon seeing the pictures from 1904, to me this is a no-brainer. They should salvage what they can and move it to a museum/park/public space(one or multiple) and start from scratch. Not all urban experiments are successful. This one certainly wasn’t. Once the park is redone I see it being widely used due to its proximity to UQAM, the Village, Old Montreal, the new CHUM and the Faubourg Quebec.
Poutine Pundit 11:55 on 2012/02/29 Permalink
I agree that the art should be salvaged but the square needs to be redesigned. I completed a Masters in Heritage Preservation a few years back, and the people running that program felt the same way about Viger Square. Heritage Montreal is really coming out of left field here…
One of the mistakes made in the 20th century was running Berri through the park. Then they made the park bigger by adding the third section between Saint Hubert and Saint André, so you end up with three separate parks. I would reconnect the two original lots to create one unified park and sell the third lot to build residences fronting that park. This sale would bring in money for the city to build a decent park and enough residents around it to ensure that people actually use the park – better to have a smaller coherent park than one large threatening vacuum. It should be built like a park (open to the street, direct paths running through it) rather than as some labyrinthine allegorical art installation with dead ends.
Kate 12:32 on 2012/02/29 Permalink
Maybe, PP. I know some of the land was ceded to the city in perpetuity for a park and supposedly can never be built on, but I don’t know if that covers the entire extent. (By the way, are you sure about the third bit? The aerial photo I found showing the park in 1927 shows three distinct segments.)
My feeling is that the square will have to evolve in response to other changes in the area – the new CHUM, whatever happens with the old Viger hotel-station (a project that’s been delayed and changed around already and may take awhile yet), other developments yet unforeseen. Imposing a new form on the park prematurely might be unwise. I think they should consider removing the worst concrete bits and allowing the park to be something of a tabula rasa for awhile to see how it’s used. Ideally it should become a space where people working at the CHUM or in the Quebec archives building would feel comfortable eating their lunch – it’s a spot where street food carts would make some sense, since there are no restaurants nearby, but we know how the city feels about those – and allow the square to become what its users want it to be.
Poutine Pundit 00:05 on 2012/03/01 Permalink
Promise to keep the land as a city park was made to the dames Lacroix in 1844, and other promises came before for the land further west, but all of these apply to the land to the west of Saint Hubert. As far as I know, promises were not made for the land to the east of Saint Hubert, which was tacked onto the park after 1889. Here’s a map that shows the initial smaller layout of the park:
http://services.banq.qc.ca/sdx/cep/pleinecran.xsp?eview=CARTES_PLANS/174398/174398_32.tif&id=0000174398&mention=
Kate 01:01 on 2012/03/01 Permalink
Thanks, PP.
cheese 12:23 on 2012/03/01 Permalink
Somebody please give PP a municipal planning job!
Doobious 01:19 on 2012/03/03 Permalink
McCord’s got a nice little page on the history of Montreal’s public squares, and another sweet ground level view of Viger Square. Imagine how impressed visitors to our fair city must’ve been stumbling onto that first thing after getting off the train.