In an open letter to Stephen Harper, Barry Padolsky urges the prime minister to find a “more appropriate” location for the memorial, to be built on a 5,000-square-metre property on Wellington Street, next to the Supreme Court of Canada.
That site had long been designated as the future location of a new building for the Federal Court of Canada, called the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Judicial Building in government planning documents.
Padolsky says the Trudeau building — or another comparable structure — is the missing piece in a planned “judicial triad” that would include the Supreme Court of Canada Building and the Justice Building on its eastern flank.
The so-called judicial precinct “needs a significant piece of architecture, not a low-profile landscaped memorial, on the west side of the judicial lawn to achieve the urban design vision for the parliamentary and judicial precincts,” Padolsky writes.
“Our national ‘acropolis’ deserves to be completed and embellished as proposed in our shared homegrown vision.”
And, Padolsky bluntly tells Harper, “We await your explanation of why the chosen site . . . was stolen from its intended use as the location for a future Federal Court building or other national institution.”
Plans for the judicial precinct dating back to 1920 consistently show the presence of a building on the undeveloped site that would create a trio of standalone buildings to mirror the configuration of the Centre Block, East Block and West Block on Parliament Hill.
Plans for the Trudeau building were announced in 2002, and an official naming and design unveiling ceremony was held in December 2003, raising hopes that the federal courts, which have had to rent space in various Ottawa office buildings, would finally get a permanent home.
Original Article
Source: ottawacitizen.com/
Author: DON BUTLER
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