By Stefanie Arduini
Pedestrians strolling past the new CBC headquarters on Sparks Street will be able to watch its 700-person staff in action – but curious onlookers will have to trek to Queen Street to enter the building.
Next March, the 11-storey structure will consolidate the CBC’s operations in one building.
Right now, the CBC exists in four separate locations: the seventh floor of the Château Laurier hotel and the National Press building on Wellington Street, plus offices on Sparks Street and Lanark Avenue.
The new Sparks Street location will allow the CBC to interact with Canadians, says spokesperson Jason MacDonald. He says reporters and hosts will sometimes broadcast live from the street, and passers-by will be able to watch live newscasts through street-level windows.
“Sparks Street is a pretty lively place. When you have a broadcast centre on a street like that where there’s a lot of traffic, it allows greater interactivity with the hosts.”
But instead of a public entrance from the pedestrian strip, the 270,000-square foot building will have access from the south side, at 181 Queen St.
Project architect Clive Mason of Montreal-based DCYSM Architecture & Design, says office-lined Queen Street was chosen for the main entrance because its façade was more “formal and corporate.”
“There are two sides, two faces [to the building]… the more corporate and substantial face is the Queen Street side,” he says.
The building is still under construction, but has already faced scathing criticism from the media and public alike. On Aug. 2, the Ottawa Citizen called the building “banal with a somewhat bizarre historic front.”
It quoted architectural critic Rhys Phillips, who said the glass Queen Street façade “looks like a giant television from 1956.”
Margaret Knowles, vice-president of development at Toronto-based Morguard Investments Ltd., says she is frustrated by people judging the building’s design.
“It’s really ironic to have critics sitting back and criticizing the design. We just want to do our business, which is building.”
MacDonald declined comment on the building’s structure, saying there’s a misconception that the CBC owns the building and is responsible for its layout.
“I want to make clear… it’s not our building,” he said.
Although pedestrians won’t be able to access the new headquarters from Sparks Street, MacDonald says street-level studios will provide that same feel.
“Just because you can’t walk in doesn’t mean you can’t interact with people.”