Reflecting on Old Ottawa South’s Built Environment, Past and Present (cont.)
Unlike its older northern neighboring district, The Glebe, and its newer southern neighboring districts, Alta Vista and Billings Bridge, Old Ottawa South has been very fortunate in its evolution, and has been spared a number of the negative developments to have affected these two districts. A sense of unity of scale has been maintained throughout the neighborhood, and Old Ottawa South has avoided the multi-story buildings that have popped up in The Glebe, Alta Vista, and Billings Bridge. Although such multi-story buildings can function well on both the architectural and urban levels if placed within the right context, this does not apply within the setting of low-rise residential structures where they are located as they have destroyed the unity in scale that previously had existed around them.
Interestingly enough, if one examines Old Ottawa South’s newest large-scale building, which occupies the southeastern corner of the intersection of Bank and Grove streets, and is referred to as the Campanile Building (fig. 2), it clearly is a good example of a high-density, multi-use structure of which more need to be inserted within the urban fabric. It is an unpretentious but elegant building that seems to always have been there, rather than being an aggressive and imposing newcomer in the neighborhood. It helps provide the street with a clear urban edge. Also, the combination of commercial space on the ground floor and residential units on the three floors above allows for introducing higher densities in the area and provides an opportunity for Bank Street to fully function as a healthy urban street that is used along a 24-hour cycle, being one where people work, shop, eat, and live. This is in contrast to single-use zoned commercial areas, which become ghost towns once the work-day ends and people working in them head off to their homes.
Fig. 2: Campanile building from the northeast (Mohammad al-Asad, 2008)
When crossing the Bank Street Bridge over the Rideau Canal and approaching Old Ottawa South from The Glebe to the south, one is visually greeted by the two elegant public buildings mentioned above: Southminster United Church to the right and the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons to the left (fig. 3 & 4). In contrast, if one moves in the opposite direction, and crosses the bridge heading north, i.e. leaving Old Ottawa South and entering The Glebe, one is presented with a markedly different view. Instead of the view of Lansdowne Park’s historical Aberdeen Pavilion of 1889, one instead faces the large unsightly exposed-concrete back-end of the southern grandstand added to Lansdowne Park Stadium in the 1960s. It is an imposing and aggressive structure that shows no sensitivity whatsoever to the architectural character and urban fabric of The Glebe or Old Ottawa South (fig. 5).
Fig. 3: Southminster Church as seen from Bank Street Bridge (Mohammad al-Asad, 2008)
Fig. 4: Royal College of Surgeons as seen from Bank Street Bridge (Mohammad al-Asad, 2008)
Fig. 5: Frank Claire Stadium as seen from Bank Street Bridge (Mohammad al-Asad, 2008)
Rather similar remarks may be made as one leaves Old Ottawa South along Bank Street, and crosses the Rideau River heading into Alta Vista and Billings Bridge. Here, one leaves behind the modestly-scaled buildings located along Bank Street and crosses into an environment where strip malls collide rather chaotically with multi-story residential and commercial buildings (fig. 6). The insensitive architectural and urban character of the entrances to The Glebe and Alta Vista / Billings Bridge from Old Ottawa South greatly undermines these two areas, and serves as a reminder of how fortunate Old Ottawa South has been to be spared such interventions.
Fig. 6: View of the Billings Bridge area from Old Ottawa South along Bank Street (Mohammad al-Asad, 2008)