CBBarnett
Senior Member
I disagree with your characterization of my post - I don't believe that a park's "function" comes purely from the ability to cross through it quickly, I criticized the aspect where we preserve "old" over "function" to support use of the people using the park. "Function" of a space is defined as ability to use a space in any number of ways - enter, enjoy, pass through, passively, actively - all are functions. This park serves multiple functions, some better than others.
I don't believe being "old" - even 110 years old - is enough on it's own to justify preservation to a degree it impinges on the ability of the park to function well. Because a landscape was manicured in a particular way 110 years ago shouldn't handcuff us to a design if that design isn't fit for purpose. Bylaw protection or not, I think heritage preservation should be criticized for this kind of thing - its the museum-fication of public space; heritage is more important to look at than actually use.
Context is important. 110 years ago Calgary had 40,000 people. Beltline (Victoria Park I think in those days) had a portion of that. This park had the context in mind when it was first built. Like much of Edwardian landscape design, is designed very intentional for low-volume of users, in rural and suburban settings.
Today Calgary has 1.3 million people. Tens of thousands of people travel through the area on foot each day, thousands live in high-density areas immediately around the park. The context, demands and capacity needs are completely different.
In it's current design, the park underserves the demands of the current and future community.
The result of this mismatch between design and demand results in tangible issues today - it's empty, dark and with no snow clearing in the winter limiting use and accessibility. It has little shade in increasingly hot summers. Pathways are narrow, forcing two people to walk on the grass if they pass each other - even more of an issue if they are in a group of more than 2 people. By creating narrow and in-efficient interior pathways, we force many around the park rather than through, restricting passive monitoring of the area and "eyes of the street". This then triggers a cycle of perceptions of safety for some users, especially at night and in winters - many don't want to walk down narrow, dark pathways with poor visibility. These are all elements where design can help if the park was better integrated - but were missed opportunities because we wanted to preserve the old, narrow and non-direct pathways in all areas.
I don't disagree the park and the layout has historic value and importance. I just disagree that it's valuable enough to preserve exactly as it has always been. It's not like we haven't already made changes to the heritage pieces already throughout the life of the park. Statues have been added, the original bandshell has been removed, the more recent revisions added the washrooms and restaurant and some improved sidewalks on the fringes.
Here's a parking pad for the library and some ugly plastic garbage bins that was important enough to deviate from the original plans and pathway layout too:
Here's a pathway in Madison Square Park in New York - look at the width of the pathway and the generous benches provided. Heritage elements all over the place in it's ~150 year history but doesn't stop them from updating benches, pavers, adding playgrounds, tweaking amenities every time the park is up for renewal. Could you update the width and layout of some of the crushed stone pathways in some areas of Central Memorial Park to this kind of width so it's more appropriate to the volume of users in the area?
Every urban park must needs to be updated from time to time to it's context to stay relevant, usable and attractive. Part of that story is heritage preservation, but being old shouldn't be enough if the design is out-of-step with an increasing urban area with specific and higher intensity usage needs than the park was originally designed for. Sitcking too close to the heritage design is a big reason for many of the issues with the park's usability. I don't think the trade is worth it.
I am hardly calling for the park to be torn up completely re-done and "Riverwalk"-ify it with contemporary grey pavers and post-modern benches and cool-looking/unusuable bicycle racks. My argument is to just incorporate heritage as part of functional updates, not force function to take a back seat to preservation to such a degree it causes usability issues.
At it's most extreme, when we value "old" over "function" we get Heritage Park - nice old buildings to go look at but are fossilized in time in a museum. Central Memorial isn't that bad - but a few wider paths, better lighting, a few direct connections while incorporating heritage elements and you can preserve the majority of the park as-is while solving most of the issues I am raising. I would argue that the result would be a park that's more used and more loved.
