Calgary Event Centre | 36.85m | 11s | CSEC | HOK

Do you support the proposal for the new arena?

  • Yes

    Votes: 94 66.7%

  • No

    Votes: 38 27.0%

  • Maybe

    Votes: 9 6.4%
  • Total voters
    141
Mountain Man said:
Lets leave the election talk to the election thread.

So one thing that hasn't come up yet is the jumbotron. Are the Flames going to go modern and put a 40' 4K screen there, or use the Energy Board they have now? The reason I ask is I remember that they said the energy board would move to the new facility when they first announced it 10 or so years ago.
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The current Jumbotron is from 2007 and doesn't have some of the features that would be needed like underside screens. My guess is we'll get a new jumbotron similar to the one in Edmonton
 
The only people that seem to like it are the hockey fans who are only concerned about the inside. Everyone else thinks it looks terrible!
 
I'm a season ticket holder and am thoroughly disappointed. The interior is important, but there's nothing in the DP drawings that screams amazing interiors to me....
 
I gotta say I don’t get the absolute distain for the design of the CEC. I can understand not being happy with some of the design elements but the negativity seems very extreme.
Personally I’ll call myself indifferent to the design. I definitely don’t love it but I think it will be just fine in the entertainment district. I’d like to know what the dislikers were expecting. i.e. can they point to an example of an arena they like ?
 
FCC1982 said:
I gotta say I don’t get the absolute distain for the design of the CEC. I can understand not being happy with some of the design elements but the negativity seems very extreme.
Personally I’ll call myself indifferent to the design. I definitely don’t love it but I think it will be just fine in the entertainment district. I’d like to know what the dislikers were expecting. i.e. can they point to an example of an arena they like ?
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I believe that's a fair question, but inherently there will always be the battle around subjectivity and good/bad design. I myself really don't like this design, which is pretty subjective. I guess I'll start, and apologize in advance if I've put my foot in my mouth. Ironically, I had a design discussion with my partner yesterday about the state of design here in Calgary. This came out of a small zoom meeting we were part of with James Carpenter, and a former colleague from SOM. I guess I'll start with market constraints having a profound impact on design. It's not that good design has to be expensive and complex: good design has to take advantage of potential efficiencies provided by market constraints, I believe. Then there is the developer/Client. They too are subject to having consider market conditions. They're business "people". What I will say is that I believe we designers are really bad about sticking to our guns. Designers can be really bad about not having the courage to stick with an initial concept, Inevitably, resulting in a disappointment. This usually comes out of fear of losing the project, and a client going to some other firm It's bit like redacting an excellent poem and just leaving conjunctions. My point about this zoom meeting, is that it made clear to me that good design, even simple design has to be uncompromising, and the Client accepting for this to be a "magnet". Also, I don't believe the word "magnet" is a great foil for an architectural concept. Pretty damned violent form of attraction if you ask me, (although arguably /maybe appropriate for the sport of Hockey, )
For the subjective part now, I really wish the design was more transparent, I wish it had the ability as a design to work with more natural light manipulation on the exterior. (I guess the interior renderings may prove me wrong). I wish the design challenged the notion of inside vs. outside. So, now that I've put my foot in my mouth, (no dis-repect to us taxpayers by the way), ..... next
 
If the north side, fronting 12 Ave, did not look like a big blank wall as it does in the rendering, I don't think it would get nearly the criticism it is getting. Surely somebody(s) on the project team looked at that and said ' We can't have a big, blank wall fronting the main thoroughfare that the arena is located on'.
 
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JonnyCanuck said:
If the north side, fronting 12 Ave, did not look like a big blank wall as it does in the rendering, I don't think it would get nearly the criticism it is getting. Surely somebody(s) on the project team looked at that and said ' We can't have a big, blank wall fronting the main thoroughfare that the arena is located on'.
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That is my biggest gripe. The rest of the arena, I'm okay with, and the 4th street side, I actually like for the most part. But I keep looking at the 12th ave side, and say to myself 'really?' I guess it's one of the reasons CSEC wanted CMLC out of the picture. That wall doesn't do anything for adjacent development at all.
 
FCC1982 said:
I gotta say I don’t get the absolute distain for the design of the CEC. I can understand not being happy with some of the design elements but the negativity seems very extreme.
Personally I’ll call myself indifferent to the design. I definitely don’t love it but I think it will be just fine in the entertainment district. I’d like to know what the dislikers were expecting. i.e. can they point to an example of an arena they like ?
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The public was largely skeptical of subsidizing a for-profit corporation by building them a new area. City council rammed the deal through without bothering to build a consensus. Instead they offered us the vague promise that the arena would be an architectural icon and act as a catalyst for the development of a new entertainment district in an otherwise unused part of downtown. Since then, every direction this project has taken has just reinforced the view that it serves the exclusive interests of CSEC. The arena design is only the latest (and most striking) piece of evidence in this regard. CSEC's disdain for the public is designed right into its three massive blank walls. The building is basically saying: "thanks for the money, suckers!"

And, I should add, this is not just a matter of subjective aesthetic opinion. The principles of good urban planning are well established through research. We have decades of evidence that for-profit mega projects like arenas, casinos, and convention centres do not act as catalysts for generalized neighbourhood development and do not provide the economic benefits they initially promise. This project was promoted as something that would be different. It's not.
 
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