Architects and artists involved in Ottawa Architecture Week say ongoing tensions exist between Ottawa as a national capital and as a growing city. From discussing the famous neo-gothic architecture of Parliament Hill to the utilitarian style of the Queensway, OAW will examine how “Town versus Crown” tensions impact Ottawa’s architecture and urban design.
The week runs from Sept. 20 to Sept. 26 and includes social events, walking tours, debates and more.
“We were really interested in exploring this because there have been a lot of conversations relating to how the presence of a capital or a federal government impacts our daily lives,” said Nico Valenzuela, OAW’s chair and a user experience designer in Ottawa.
“You can think of things like the (Victims of) Communism memorial that’s planned for Wellington or some of the things that have been happening with the light rail, in battles between the federal government and the city,” Valenzuela said.
The planned Victims of Communism memorial is a point of political contention and has served as a prime example of Crown-Town tensions: the Conservative federal government is championing the build, but city officials, including Mayor Jim Watson, have expressed their doubts over the planned location and scale of the monument.
The free distribution of Official Ottawa: An Unofficial Portrait will be one of the OAW’s main events. The booklet of photos, created by Ottawa-based portrait photographer Tony Fouhse, contains images that “strip the capital down to its bones by simply showing the architecture, functionaries and tableaux,” he says in the introduction. The images are meant to represent the federal presence, but also put less-noticed aspects of that power on display.
“You can go skating on the canal in February and have a BeaverTail, that’s great, it’s very picturesque, but then on Monday you’re walking down Slater Street,” Fouhse said. “Both those things affect us, but it’s the popularized – what I call the sentimental, the sensational and the obvious – that are normally brought forward. So I thought I would bring forward the non-sentimental, the non-sensational and the non-obvious.”
Official Ottawa includes photos of buildings such as the Department of National Defence headquarters, portraits of Ottawa’s movers and shakers such as Bank of Canada Governor Stephen Poloz, and stills of life in the city. All were taken on overcast days, which Fouhse said was a purposeful decision to subtract drama from the shot.
“A lot of the pictures, I describe them as boring… but still kind of interesting,” Fouhse said. “Which I think actually speaks to the subject as well. The subject is kind of boring, but there are bits of interest, little bits of symbolism.”
Fouhse’s photographs are also displayed at the Ottawa Art Gallery Annex at Ottawa City Hall.
OAW will feature a guided walking tour by Dennis van Staalduinen, an Ottawa storyteller with a passion for history and urban space. During the walking tour, titled Plans of the Crown; Ghosts of the Town, van Staalduinen will tell stories of forgotten spaces in Ottawa, where tensions between federal and municipal interests had long-lasting historical implications.
The tour will start at the intersection of Bronson Avenue and Sparks Street, where van Staalduinen says a magnificent home owned by Henry Bronson, one of Ottawa’s original lumber barons, used to sit. The walk will continue eastward along Sparks Street and loop back along Wellington Street, eventually ending at Knox Presbyterian Church on Lisgar Street.
“Particularly in the downtown core, there are so many areas that have changed radically over the last century,” van Staalduinen said. “People see these empty spaces and assume they’ve always been that way, but don’t have any understanding of the role that the neighbourhoods that used to be there played in the life of the city.”
OAW also includes a 613 Stimulus installation, a virtual building tour of Ottawa’s light-rail transit and a PechaKucha 20×20 presentation, where speakers show 20 consecutive images for 20 seconds each. A full schedule can be found on the OAW website (http://ottawaarchitectureweek.com).
Organizers had few problems finding events and activities for the festival.
“You can’t throw a rock in Ottawa without finding something that’s changed drastically because of Town-and-Crown tensions,” said van Staalduinen.