Federal Liberal MPs have joined the chorus of opposition against the huge scale and high-profile location of the planned Victims of Communism Memorial in downtown Ottawa. Meanwhile, concerns about the huge sculptural tribute appear to have prompted changes to the design, which has been downsized somewhat.
Stéphane Dion, Liberal heritage critic, and Ottawa Liberal MPs David McGuinty and Mauril Bélanger, voiced their opposition at a recent press conference.
The project has already raised intense criticism from a structural and esthetic perspective from the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada, Ontario Association of Architects and local architects Barry Padolsky and Shirley Blumberg, who had served as a member of the design committee that approved the project.
The memorial is slated to be built on one of the last major undeveloped pieces of land on the north side of Wellington Street, located between the Supreme Court of Canada and Library and Archives Canada. The National Capital Commission approved the location in November.
It is the same site of a “judicial-triad,” proposed in 2007 and approved by Parliament, where the Supreme Court of Canada and the Justice Building would be complemented by the Federal Court. The plan was to complete a Judicial Precinct of national significance.
The current proposal to place the memorial at this location is generating controversy but, according to Bélanger, the original design had reached a unanimous consensus among the government, the NCC, the House of Commons, the Senate and the Supreme Court.
“The decision to put the monument there changes that dramatically,” the Ottawa-Vanier’s says. “We have a significant issue with that.”
“They should have the support of everybody who is concerned,” said Liberal MP David McGuinty at the press conference.
The Liberal trio echoes accumulating opposition in suggesting that a more suitable site for the memorial would be the Garden of the Provinces on Wellington Street, across from Library and Archives.
For Voytek Gorczynski, the principal designer at ABSTRAKT Studio Architecture in Toronto, the memorial is not about the politics but the 100 million victims of totalitarian communism around the world.
Yet the studio is still “fine tuning the original concept” in response to the mounting criticism on the monumental size and its corresponding cost, Gorczynski says.
The memorial is composed of two main elements. One component features six large concrete folds, covered by “memory squares” honoring the millions of lives lost to past and present communist regimes.
The other is the Bridge of Hope, a multi-story, angular viewing platform, which has been shortened by 20 metres and lowered by nearly two metres. The team is also looking at alternative material in response to fears that the proposed concrete will not withstand harsh Ottawa winters.
The project is expected to cost approximately $5.5 million. The government has contributed $3 million and donated the land. Public Works valued the land at $1 million, but architect Padolsky has suggested it could be upwards of $16 million.
Ludwick Klimkowski, chair of Tribute to Liberty, the charity established in 2008 to raise money for the memorial, wants to remind critics of the full name of the project. The “Memorial to Victims of Communism – Canada, a Land of Refuge” should be representative of nation and it’s role as a “beacon of freedom.”
“We need an uplifting message for all Canadians to embrace,” says Klimkowski. To accomplish this, he says he believes the project must create an image that better represents the Canadian experience.
NDP MP Paul Dewar has been a loud advocate for moving the monument. “This isn’t part of our narrative,” the Ottawa Centre MP says. “Does it have a place? Sure. But not here.”
The Canadian Institute of Planners released a statement on March 3 also asking the federal government to “identify a more appropriate location elsewhere in the National Capital Region” for the tribute.