What do you think of this project?

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I went to the basement today and as far as I could tell the only access to the library for the public from the pedway is the old parkade door at the far west of the parkade. I didn't go out into the parkade as I didn't want to get locked out of the library, but my guess is that one has to still enter the library parkade and walk through the parkade to get to the basement entrance to the library.
 
Is the access from Churchill Station open yet or naw? :(
 
To be honest I was underwhelmed by the interior. It is certainly nicer than what it replaced, but frankly I found it to have that character-less shopping mall feel that I am not sure will hold up well over time. If you compare it to the library in Calgary the Milner is inferior in every way (and I say that as a very proud Edmontonian).

Frankly, if it was up to me I would have restored and expanded all the beautiful mid-century styling from the original library. The furniture and wood on the second floor was so cool and exuded character. The real problem was the cheap and poorly thought out renos from the 90s, which we've sort of doubled down on.

At the end of the day, the new space is nice and will be better used than the old library, but I see this as a missed opportunity by the City, which seems to have been convinced by their architect to simply embrace the latest flavour du jour.
 
archited,

just to close the week with a bit of humour, this (edmonton's provincial courthouse) is brutalist:

1601074329813.png


this (courtesy of bnfcream2014) is simply brutal (and this is its best side):

1601074294080.png
 
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Very funny, @kcantor, very funny! The Courthouse is almost a Brutalist knock-off of a similar project in Boston -- the City Hall -- and the Library a knockoff of the M1A2C Abrams Tank. All said, we are either ready for a bout with bureaucracy or war. We can sue them into submission or scare them with a battle machine.
 
our courthouse is much more successful than boston’s city hall (which i have seen in person). the courthouse is experienced from a much close perspective because of its closeness to the surrounding streets vs sitting at the far side of a dreary vacant plaza. the courthouse is also nestled at grade with some large landscaped and treed components that utilize some large concrete retaining walls to make them part of the structure.
 
@Daveography I do think the building in that pic looks kind of nice... in a sort of endearing way. It's also clearly not the same material the exterior of the courthouse is made from. The courthouse's finish is more of beige than a grey and frankly the grime 'patina' only makes it worse.

In both cases it still just looks poorly maintained which, for a government building, I feel is a pretty bad look.
 
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