National Victims of Communism Memorial | Completed

[Arcologist]

Just to make the link to the online questionnaire stand out, here it is:

http://canada.pch.gc.ca/eng/1443025436163/1443025436165

Take the time to voice your opinion.

[Arcologist]

In the Comments section, I also said it didn't really belong in the Garden of the Provinces.

I also said that if it gets built (which I don't think it should), then it should be small, similar to the U.S. memorial in Washington.

[Kitchissippi]

My vote would be to put it in Strathcona Park within eyesight of the former Soviet Union embassy (now the Russian Embassy) Putin's minions would have a fit.

Or how about New Edinburgh Park across the Rideau River from the Chinese embassy, to flip a bird on the last remaining "communist" superpower.

[acottawa]

Is this like the All Star vote? Can people submit thousands of requests for John Scott?

[Radster]

Now we need the same to be done for the Holocaust monument. I vote to have it built at a much smaller scale, somewhere on the Museum of War terrain.

[rocketphish]

NCC resisted Tory pressure to sign off on victims of communism memorial

Don Butler, Ottawa Citizen
Published on: April 6, 2016 | Last Updated: April 6, 2016 5:33 PM EDT

Those who opposed the former Conservative government’s plan to build a Memorial to the Victims of Communism on a prominent site near the Supreme Court might owe a debt of gratitude to the National Capital Commission.

According to NCC chair Russell Mills, the Conservatives wanted the commission’s board to give final approval to the memorial at its meeting last June.

But Mills and NCC chief executive Mark Kristmanson declined to submit the project for design approval, concluding that it was “simply not ready,” Mills says.

That decision meant the Conservatives government was unable to proceed with work on the memorial prior to the Oct. 19 federal election, which it lost to the Liberals.

The new Liberal government subsequently cancelled the Conservative plan to build the memorial on a contentious site near the Supreme Court of Canada. Instead, a much smaller memorial will be built, following a new design competition later this year, at the Garden of the Provinces and Territories.

The memorial was always problematic for the NCC. The department of Canadian Heritage was the project’s proponent, but the NCC had to sign off on the chosen site and design before the memorial could proceed. Its board had unanimously approved the site without debate in 2013 but ultimately never voted on the design.

Mills’s revelations, made in an email and interview with the Citizen, cast the NCC’s role in a fresh light.

As public opposition to the memorial grew, some opponents accused the agency of kowtowing to the government on the issue. One opponent, architect Barry Padolsky, even charged that the NCC was trying to minimize public awareness of the board’s anticipated vote on design approval last June.

It came as a surprise when a recommendation to approve the memorial’s design didn’t appear on the agenda of the June 2015 meeting after all. Instead, trustees were only asked to approve a cleanup of its contaminated site.

Mills says he and Kristmanson decided to “sever” design approval from decontamination of the site, largely because the government and Tribute to Liberty, the memorial’s sponsor, had not addressed 10 recommendations to improve the project made by the NCC’s advisory committee on planning, design and realty (ACPDR).

“We had ongoing dealings with Tribute to Liberty,” Mills says, adding that it was clear the group wasn’t really dealing with what ACPDR suggested they should do.

“It really wasn’t at a stage that we would expect — not just this memorial, but any similar proposal — to be at before we would take it to the board. It just wasn’t there yet.”

Despite that, “the previous government would have preferred that the NCC give the project design approval anyway,” Mills says. “They would have preferred the whole thing to go forward, but we told them we weren’t ready to do that, but would move forward with decontamination. They accepted that.”

Mills says there was “discontent” among NCC board members about the memorial and particularly the location chosen by the Conservative government, which was not on the agency’s extensive inventory of potential monument sites.

“Monuments in the nation’s capital should unite Canadians and make them proud of their country,” Mills says. “This memorial in a controversial location failed in that regard. Many of our board members believed it caused division rather than unity.”

One of those was former Ottawa mayor Jacquelin Holzman. A member of the board for nearly eight years, she was abruptly replaced days before last June’s meeting.

Holzman says she had made it clear to Kristmanson that if NCC staff asked the board to approve “that design at that location, I was going to speak against it and vote against it.”

Holzman says she doesn’t know how many board members shared her opinion and Mills says it wouldn’t be appropriate for him to speculate on the outcome of a vote that did not take place.

However, he adds, “it would be fair to say that a majority of the NCC board supports the current government’s decision to move the location of the memorial project back to a less controversial location in the Garden of the Provinces and to begin a new round of design consultations on the memorial.”

While the board did approve decontamination of the site by a margin of 9-3, with Mills notably opposed, the NCC chair says those who voted in favour of the cleanup did so largely because it would have to be done eventually anyway.

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twitter.com/ButlerDon



Board shuffle not related to memorial: Mills

Conspiracy theorists went into overdrive when the former Conservative government quietly appointed five new directors to the NCC’s board last June on the eve of what was expected to be a critical vote on the Memorial to the Victims of Communism.

It was widely thought that the government had chosen to replace four trustees whose terms were ending with the new appointees to improve the odds that the board would vote in favour of the memorial.

But NCC chair Russell Mills believes the shuffle was unrelated to the pending memorial vote. Mills says he raised the issue during a meeting last June with Pierre Poilievre, the minister then responsible for the NCC.

“I pointed out to (Poilievre) that we had a number of board members who were beyond the normal expiry of their terms, and the government might want to look at that. So they did,” he says.

“It kind of surprised me that they moved so quickly, but I think they just did it because we asked them to do it in a general sense. I don’t think it had anything to do with this monument specifically.”

One of the trustees replaced was Jacquelin Holzman, who had made her opposition to the design and location of the memorial known within the NCC.

She had been under the impression that her term had been extended to November 2015, but in fact it had not. “I was there at the pleasure of the minister, for whenever they wanted to ask me to leave.”

Holzman, a former mayor of Ottawa and active member of the NCC board, says she doesn’t know if her views played a role in the government’s decision to replace her.

“I was delighted to be there for almost eight years and I think I served the nation well by being on it,” she says.

http://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news...ign-off-on-victims-of-communism-memorial

[rocketphish]

Celebration of advocacy

concerning the
Victims of Communism Memorial



The Royal Architectural Institute of Canada will host a celebration of the successful
advocacy campaign for relocation of the Victims of Communism Memorial.

Please join us for cocktails, networking and stories of how civil society organizations
and individuals worked together in the public interest.


Tuesday, April 19, 2016
5:30 – 7:30pm


The Courtyard Restaurant
21 George Street
Ottawa, ON
McArthur Room
https://raic.org/


RSVP by April 15 – [email protected]

[silvergate]

Originally Posted by rocketphish

Celebration of advocacy

concerning the
Victims of Communism Memorial



The Royal Architectural Institute of Canada will host a celebration of the successful
advocacy campaign for relocation of the Victims of Communism Memorial.

Please join us for cocktails, networking and stories of how civil society organizations
and individuals worked together in the public interest.


Tuesday, April 19, 2016
5:30 – 7:30pm


The Courtyard Restaurant
21 George Street
Ottawa, ON
McArthur Room
https://raic.org/


RSVP by April 15 – [email protected]

After this we should build a monument to the relocation of the victims of communism monument!

[rocketphish]

Public wants 'human-scaled' and 'intimate' victims of communism memorial

Jon Willing, Ottawa Citizen
Published on: April 22, 2016 | Last Updated: April 22, 2016 8:08 PM EDT

More than 8,500 people have offered their advice to the federal government on what the next design of the Memorial of Victims of Communism should look like, with most saying they want a “human-scaled monument set in an intimate environment.”

That was one of the options given in an online survey run by Canadian Heritage, which wanted to know Canadians’ preferred approach to building the memorial.

“We want to make sure that we respect the Garden of Provinces and Territories’ original design, while having a monument that provokes a very important and significant emotional experience,” Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly said Friday at Library and Archives Canada, which is across the street from the garden.

Joly held a roundtable discussion with community stakeholders to fill them in on the consultation results.

The results emphasized the importance of the Garden of Provinces and Territories, since it’s down the road from LeBreton Flats and a short walk from the city’s future Lyon LRT station.

“We will make sure to strike the right balance,” Joly said.

Of the 8,547 surveyed respondents, 47 per cent indicated they live in the National Capital Region.

The National Capital Commission board of directors on Thursday will be asked to approve the Garden of Provinces and Territories as the site for the memorial.

The previous Conservative government wanted the memorial on a property near the Supreme Court of Canada, much to the dismay of planning advocates and municipal politicians. The land had previously been earmarked for a new federal court building.

The project was put on ice through the fall election and, after the Liberals won a majority government, Joly announced that a smaller, less expensive version of the memorial would be built farther west off Wellington Street at the Garden of the Provinces and Territories. Joly’s decision kickstarted a two-week public consultation in February to help inform a new design competition.

The Liberals reduced the project budget to $3 million from $5.5 million. Half would be funded by the public. The group Tribute to Liberty has been fundraising for the rest of the cost.

Ludwik Klimkowski, chair of Tribute to Liberty, said the organization has raised $1.1 million in cash. When adding pledges tied to the actual construction, the number increases to $1.4 million.

“Closing the gap should be fairly smooth and quick,” Klimkowski said.

Klimkowski credited Joly for developing a “transparent” process for planning the memorial.

“The period of uncertainty and ups and downs is behind us, and I think the refocus on this memorial under the leadership and partnership with (Joly) removes any ambiguity or any doubt,” Klimkowski said.

Klimkowski said the feedback of the general public might be different from that of families who have escaped communist regimes, but there is overlap.

“It’s just a question of finding a good consensus in terms of the most important themes that have to be represented at the memorial when it’s completed,” Klimkowski said, adding that “education” and “emotion” should be top of mind.

The federal government hopes to have the memorial built by 2018.

See the full results of the survey: http://canada.pch.gc.ca/eng/1458222570175/1458222642292

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twitter.com/JonathanWilling

http://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news...d-intimate-victims-of-communism-memorial

[kwoldtimer]

edit

[Norman Bates]

More people responded from BC - the furthest away - than from Quebec.

[rocketphish]

NCC board approves new site for Memorial to the Victims of Communism

Don Butler, Ottawa Citizen
Published on: April 28, 2016 | Last Updated: April 28, 2016 11:59 AM EDT

The National Capital Commission‘s board has signed off on a new site for the proposed Memorial to the Victims of Communism. But the NCC will have to relocate an existing piece of public art to accommodate it.

The board voted unanimously Thursday to approve a site on the western edge of parkland adjacent to the Garden of the Provinces and Territories for the memorial.

But before the memorial can be built, the board will have to give two more approvals: one for site-specific urban design guidelines, and another for the final design itself, once it has been chosen by a jury following a new national design competition.

The previous Conservative government wanted to build the memorial on a 5,000-square-metre site near the Supreme Court of Canada, much to the dismay of planning advocates and municipal politicians. The land had previously been earmarked for a new federal court building.



The project was put on hold through the fall election and, after the Liberals won a majority government, Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly announced that a smaller, less expensive version of the memorial would be built at the Garden of the Provinces site.

The Liberals reduced the project budget to $3 million from $5.5 million, with half funded by the public and the rest to be raised by the non-profit group Tribute to Liberty, the project’s sponsor. Ludwik Klimkowski, Tribute to Liberty’s chair, said last week the organization has raised $1.1 million in cash – $1.4 million including pledges tied to the actual construction.

Shifting the memorial to its new site will require the “sensitive and appropriate” relocation of a 3,175-kilogram red cedar modernist sculpture, called Twelve Points in a Classical Balance, created in the early 1980s by Vancouver artist Hung Chung, said NCC planning director Stephen Willis.

Willis said it would be “too cluttered” to have both the victims of communism memorial and Chung’s sculpture on the same site. He said the NCC has several good options for relocating the sculpture.

In addition, NCC staff said the chosen site is potentially contaminated. The cost of the clean up will be determined by the new memorial’s size and exact location.

Given the controversy that surrounded the original plan for the memorial, there was surprisingly little debate about the new location.

Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson, attending his first meeting of the NCC board as an ex-officio member, asked whether the approval should be contingent on Tribute to Liberty raising its share of the funds, but was assured that the memorial would only proceed if that happened.

Board member Michael Poliwoda noted that more than 40 per cent of those who responded to a Canadian Heritage questionnaire about the memorial expressed concerns about it. “The aspirations of the proponents may not be aligned with the aspirations of the public,” he said.

The NCC originally approved a similar site near the Garden of the Provinces for the memorial in 2011, but it was shifted to the contested location near the Supreme Court by the federal government in 2013.

That prompted NCC board chair Russ Mills to joke after the vote that he was getting “a very powerful feeling of déja vu, because we did this five years ago.”

The government hopes to have the memorial built by 2018.

[email protected]
twitter.com/ButlerDon

http://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news...for-memorial-to-the-victims-of-communism

[rocketphish]

Revised victims of communism memorial behind schedule and pricier than thought

Don Butler, Ottawa Citizen
Published on: August 10, 2016 | Last Updated: August 10, 2016 5:59 PM EDT

When it comes to the Memorial to the Victims of Communism, nothing, it seems, comes easily.

The national design competition for the memorial, rebooted by the Liberal government last December, is now behind schedule and the memorial itself will be costlier than previously reported.

Briefing notes prepared for Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly in January, released under access to information, show a total budget of $3.5 million for the new Ottawa memorial, to be built at the Garden of the Provinces and Territories on Wellington Street.

In addition to the $3-million construction budget, which will be shared 50-50 by the government and Tribute to Liberty, the project’s sponsor, the briefing notes say the Department of Canadian Heritage will contribute $500,000 toward the development of the memorial’s design.

That brings the taxpayer cost to $2 million. In December, when Joly announced plans to move the memorial to the Garden of the Provinces from its previous location near the Supreme Court of Canada, she said the government’s contribution would be “capped” at $1.5 million.

The memorial project started under the former Conservative government and became highly controversial, primarily because of its prime location, mammoth size and bleak theme. Its budget rose to $5.5 million under the Conservatives, who were prepared to provide $4.3 million of that amount.

The Liberal government cut the budget and drastically downsized the memorial, which had been allotted a 5,000-square-metre site by the Conservatives.

They also invited public comment in February through an online survey, completed by more than 8,500 Canadians. Most said they preferred a human-scaled monument that would remind visitors about core Canadian values of freedom, democracy and human rights.

Joly’s spokesman, Pierre-Olivier Herbert, said the $500,000 cost for design has always been part of the plan and will be absorbed internally by Canadian Heritage.

“I’m pretty sure that we have mentioned that before,” he said in an interview Wednesday, saying he believed Joly raised it in a radio interview in February. “It’s in the lines that the minister has been consistently saying from the beginning.”

Herbert said Joly has always been clear that the $3 million budget was for construction costs only.

The briefing notes, prepared by the deputy minister of Canadian Heritage, Graham Flack, show direct construction costs for the revised memorial of $2 million with the other $1 million allocated for construction contingency, project management fees, studies and surveys, and maintenance.

The additional $500,000 includes $135,000 for a national design competition, $360,000 in design development and contingency costs, and $5,000 for the unveiling ceremony.

The $3.5-million budget doesn’t include $370,000 Canadian Heritage spent on the project under the Conservatives or a $300,000 grant Tribute to Liberty received from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada several years ago to help with fundraising activities.

If those amounts are included, the full cost of the memorial rises above $4.1 million, with taxpayers on the hook for more than $2.6 million of that amount.

In addition, the National Capital Commission will cover the cost of decontaminating the soil at the Garden of the Provinces site.

Herbert said he couldn’t comment on money spent by the Conservative government. “The only thing I can talk about is our government’s approach, and that’s $3 million in construction costs and $500,000 in design costs.”

According to a “critical path” timeline included in the briefing material, a new national design competition for the memorial should have been launched in June. But so far, there has been no announcement.

The original timetable shows the competition, aimed at selecting five finalists, was to end in January 2017. Next would come seven months of design development and 15 months of tendering and construction, followed by an unveiling in December 2018.

But Herbert said the critical path was a “hypothetic working document” that was always subject to change, depending on Joly’s schedule.

It showed public consultations and a roundtable discussion with stakeholders taking place in January and February, but in fact the roundtable wasn’t held until April 22, he said. That delayed planning for the design competition, which will begin “in the next few weeks,” Herbert said.

The late launch of the competition shouldn’t delay completion of the project, he said. “We’re definitely aiming for 2018 as promised.”

Asked about the delay, Tribute to Liberty chair Ludwik Klimkowski replied: “If I have learned anything in this prolonged process, it would be to never again speak or speculate on behalf of the government.”

Klimkowski said Tribute to Liberty “is still committed” to provide its $1.5-million share of the construction costs when it’s needed.

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http://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news...behind-schedule-and-pricier-than-thought

[rocketphish]

Budget drops for victims of communism memorial — or does it?

Don Butler, Ottawa Citizen
Published on: August 29, 2016 | Last Updated: August 29, 2016 6:51 PM EDT

The federal government launched a two-phase design competition for a new Ottawa Memorial to the Victims of Communism Monday with a budget that appears to be significantly downsized.

But appearances, it seems, can be deceiving. Though a Request for Qualifications (RFQ) released by the Department of Canadian Heritage says the “total all-inclusive budget” for the memorial will be $2.37 million — seemingly about $1 million less than previously announced — a spokesman for Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly said the budget actually remains unchanged.

“The cost for construction and the site work is still at $3 million,” said Pierre-Olivier Herbert. He said a further $500,000 in design costs is not included in the budget “because it’s absorbed entirely by the department.”

Herbert said the construction budget includes project management fees, site work, direct construction costs, construction contingencies and maintenance, but said the RFQ “reflects only part of these costs.”

The budget breakdown in the RFQ lists $2 million for fabrication of artistic elements, construction of the monument and landscaping; $300,000 for design work; $20,000 for travel by the successful design team; and a $50,000 provision for site decontamination.

The federal government has promised to match money raised by Tribute to Liberty, the project’s sponsor, to a maximum of $1.5 million. Ludwik Klimkowski, Tribute to Liberty’s chair, said the charitable group “will deliver $1.5 million as per our commitment.”

The current budget is far smaller than the $5.5 million established by the former Conservative government, which had planned to build the memorial on a contested 5,000-square-metre site on Wellington Street, just west of the Supreme Court of Canada.

Joly scrapped that plan last December, shifting the memorial to a smaller site across Wellington Street at the Garden of the Provinces and Territories. According to the RFQ, the new site comprises 500 square metres — one-1oth the size of the site allocated by the Conservatives — on the garden’s west side.

Joly also held public consultations on the project and promised to hold a second national design competition. With Monday’s release of the RFQ, that process is now underway.

A five-member jury will shortlist up to five finalists from the teams submitting qualifications, each of which must be led by a Canadian citizen and include an artist and a landscape architect.

The finalists will then develop a “unique and compelling design concept” for the memorial and present their ideas to the jury early next March.

Around the same time, there will be a public viewing of the finalist design concepts, which will also be posted online for public comment.

According to the current schedule, the winning team will be notified on April 3, 2017, with major monument elements unveiled in December 2018 and completion of site work and landscaping by March 2019.

The revised memorial honours the “countless millions” who have perished or suffered under Communist regimes worldwide, particularly those who sought refuge in Canada.

More than eight million Canadians can trace their origins to countries that have suffered under totalitarian communist regimes, the RFQ says. “Their stories have for too long gone untold.”

While the memorial will be a “powerful place of meaning” that will invite visitors to recall the tragedies that others endured under communist regimes, it will also focus on the idea of Canada as a land of refuge.

It will be a place, the RFQ says, “to be grateful for Canada’s commitment to freedom, democracy, human rights and the rule of law. The memorial will prompt visitors to reflect on the meaning of liberty and remind them that the core Canadian values that unite us must continue to be vigilantly protected.”

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Follow the bouncing budget

$1.5 million: Original estimated cost of the memorial, to be borne entirely by private donors
$1.95 million: “Total, all-inclusive budget” for project, as listed in Request for Qualifications issued April 1, 2014 by the Department of Canadian Heritage
$3.15 million: Budget as amended two weeks later
$5.5 million: Estimated budget in December 2014 when federal government announces that a design by ABSTRAKT Studio Architecture has won the design competition
$3 million: Revised construction cost after new Liberal government announces plan to move and downsize the memorial in December 2015
$3.5 million: Budget, including design costs, in January 2016 briefing document prepared for Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly
$2.37 million: “Total, all-inclusive budget” as listed in Aug. 29, 2016 RFQ launching second national design competition. Despite that, government says budget remains at $3 million plus $500,000 for design costs.

http://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/budget-drops-for-victims-of-communism-memorial-or-does-it

[rocketphish]

Victims of communism memorial sponsor has raised nearly $1M, NCC board told

Don Butler, Ottawa Citizen
Published on: September 12, 2016 | Last Updated: September 12, 2016 3:15 PM EDT

The group sponsoring the proposed Memorial to the Victims of Communism has raised “close to $1 million” so far towards its expected $1.5-million share of the cost of the proposed memorial, the National Capital Commission’s board heard Monday.

Before the board unanimously approved design guidelines for the new memorial at the Garden of the Provinces and Territories, Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson, an ex-officio member, noted that the sponsor, Tribute to Liberty, has had difficulty raising money for the project.

“I have this fear that (work on the memorial) starts and they run out of money and we have a half-finished memorial,” Watson said.

An official from the Department of Canadian Heritage told the board that Tribute to Liberty recently reported it had raised close to $1 million.

She said the agreement between Canadian Heritage, Tribute to Liberty and the NCC states that sufficient funds need to be available before a design contract is signed or any construction starts.

The federal government has agreed to match money raised by Tribute to Liberty to a maximum of $1.5 million. A Canadian Heritage spokesman said last month the estimated construction cost of the memorial is $3 million even though a recent tender document pegged it at $2 million.

The design guidelines approved Monday make it clear that the memorial will be far smaller than the massive commemoration originally proposed for a site near the Supreme Court of Canada, since rescinded by the Liberal government.

At the new site, the monument can occupy no more than 500 square metres, and its central element, if any, can be no more than four metres high.

There will also be a gathering area of more than 1,000 square metres, including the memorial area, for crowds of up to 500 people to gather at ceremonies and events.

Additionally, there will be an element to recognize up to 20 major donors, set apart from the monument itself.

As well, designers should plan for a surface that can display the names of up to 1,000 people from different ethno-cultural communities who chose Canada as a refuge from Communist regimes.

Though soil on the site is contaminated, site disturbance should be minimized to the installation of necessary footings and foundations only to limit cleanup costs, the guidelines say.

The NCC will be responsible for the maintenance of the memorial and the guidelines say it must be long-lasting, resilient and able to withstand the rigours of an Ottawa winter.

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http://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news...nsor-has-raised-nearly-1m-ncc-board-told

[rocketphish]

Five teams in running to produce new design for victims of communism memorial

Don Butler, Ottawa Citizen
Published on: November 7, 2016 | Last Updated: November 7, 2016 5:26 PM EST

Five teams have been shortlisted in the new design competition for the relocated, downsized Memorial to the Victims of Communism that will rise in downtown Ottawa.

Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly announced the names of the five finalists Monday as the design teams toured the future site of the $3-million memorial, just west of the terraces of the Garden of the Provinces and Territories.

“I feel confident that this open design process will result in a thoughtful and compelling memorial that will speak to the present and future generation of Canadians,” Joly said in a news release.

The five teams were selected from among those that responded to a Request for Qualifications that closed on Oct. 11.

They include one team that was also shortlisted when the federal government held the first design competition for the memorial in 2014.

Team Moskaliuk, which includes Markham architect Wiktor Moskaliuk, Washington D.C. artist Larysa Kurylas and landscape artist Claire Bedat, was unsuccessful in the 2014 competition, won by a team led by architect Voytek Gorczynski.

The original site chosen by the Conservative government for the memorial, near the Supreme Court of Canada, along with its stark design and large scale, provoked widespread opposition.

After the Liberals won power in the 2015 election, one of Joly’s early acts was to cancel those plans. She relocated the monument to a much smaller site, solicited feedback from more than 8,500 Canadians and launched a new design competition in August.

In addition to Team Moskaliuk, the shortlisted teams include:

• Team space2place, made up of Vancouver landscape architect Jeff Cutler and Philadelphia artist Ken Lum.
• Team Mills, a seven-member team of artists, landscape architects and public art consultants led by Karen and Ben Mills of Hamilton.
• Team Raff, headed by Toronto artist and architect Paul Raff, along with landscape architects Brett Hoornaert and Luke Kairys and designer and arborist Michael Ormonston-Holloway.
• Team Reich+Petch Architects, which includes Toronto architect Tony Reich, artist Catherine Widgery from Cambridge, Mass., and Matthew Sweig, a Toronto landscape architect.

They have until March 2 to submit their proposals, which will be evaluated by a five-member jury.

One of the jury members is Larry Beasley, Vancouver’s retired director of planning, who stepped down earlier this year as chair of the National Capital Commission’s advisory committee on planning, design and realty. The committee strongly opposed the original site of the memorial and raised many concerns about the chosen design.

The other jury members are Ruth Derksen, a professor emeritus at the University of British Columbia, Ted Merrick, director of the design studio at Ferris + Associates, aboriginal artist Nadia Myre and Ludwik Klimkowski, chair of Tribute to Liberty, the charity sponsoring the memorial. Only Klimkowski was on the first jury.

The current timetable calls for the jury to evaluate the designs in April. There will also be a chance for members of the public to view and comment on the submissions before a decision is made.

If all goes according to plan, major elements of the memorial will be unveiled in December 2018 with site work and landscaping done by March 2019.

[email protected]
twitter.com/ButlerDon

http://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news...design-for-victims-of-communism-memorial

[rocketphish]

Original designers of victims of communism memorial 'shut out' of new competition

Don Butler, Ottawa Citizen
Published on: November 8, 2016 | Last Updated: November 8, 2016 5:25 PM EST

The head of the team that won the original 2014 design competition for the Memorial to the Victims of Communism is demanding to know why his team was left off the shortlist for the second competition, now under way.

Architect Voytek Gorczynski, head of Toronto’s ABSTRAKT Studio, sent an email last week to Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly arguing that as winners of the 2014 design competition, his team should be “automatically qualified” to participate in the new competition.

“Instead, we are being completely shut out and are not even given a chance to participate,” he complained.

In his email to Joly, Gorczynski said the Liberal government’s handling of the memorial project and its treatment of his design team was “less than fair. It is a blatant display of complete disregard for design professionals in general and complete lack of respect for our design team.”

Gorczynski also sent an email to Canadian Heritage officials asking why his team wasn’t shortlisted, given that it had won the first competition. He hasn’t yet received a reply.

Joly announced this week that five teams had been selected to submit designs for the memorial. Gorczynski’s team submitted its credentials but was not chosen for the next phase of the competition.

The government decided to hold the second design competition after it scrapped the former Conservative government’s controversial plan to erect the memorial on a 5,000-square-metre site on Wellington Street near the Supreme Court of Canada.

Instead, it will be built on a much smaller site at the Garden of the Provinces and Territories, just east of LeBreton Flats.

In response to Gorczynski’s email, Joly’s press secretary, Pierre-Olivier Herbert, said the Liberal government had followed “an open and transparent process” for the memorial.

“The five teams shortlisted were evaluated by the third party jury according to strict criteria,” Herbert said, including the input of close to 9,000 Canadians who answered a survey earlier this year.

In an interview Tuesday, Gorczynski said he wrote to Joly last December seeking a meeting after learning the memorial might be shifting to a new site.

Aside from an email saying his request would get “due consideration,” he heard nothing until Canadian Heritage terminated the team’s design contract without explanation in February.

Gorczynski said he wanted to meet with Joly because his team had worked with Canadian Heritage to address concerns about the size and cost of the memorial and its relationship to the Supreme Court site, ultimately scaling it back by nearly 50 per cent.

“It wasn’t widely known, but we had adjusted the design. It was softened quite a bit. I just wanted to convey our approach and that we wanted it to be very respectful towards the city and the victims of communism as well.”

When Joly announced plans for the new design competition, Gorczynski said, “our first reaction was that we don’t want to do it again. But then we had an internal discussion and we decided to go for it. We wanted to participate.”

Had his team been shortlisted, Gorczynski said, it would have submitted a “completely different design” for the new Garden of the Provinces site. “Our original design wouldn’t work on this site.”

Adding to his bewilderment was that one of the other teams from the first competition, led by architect Wictor Moskaliuk, was shortlisted this time around as well.

Moskaliuk’s team, one of six that submitted designs for the 2014 competition, wasn’t even the runner-up, Gorczynski said.

The 2014 jury chose two finalists – Gorczynski’s team and one led by B.C. landscape architect Christopher Phillips – and Shelly Glover, then minister of Canadian Heritage, made the final choice.

Gorczynski said he suspects politics might explain the decision to eliminate his team.

“My suspicion is that our design was quite strong and quite forceful. It rubbed a lot of people the wrong way,” he said.

“They want to run away from any controversy, I think. And the whole thing is going to be a non-event in the end.”

The five shortlisted teams have until March to submit their decisions. A five member jury will review them in April and make a recommendation to Joly, with construction of major elements completed by December 2018.

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http://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news...ism-memorial-shut-out-of-new-competition

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Five competing designs revealed for Victims of Communism memorial

Don Butler, Ottawa Citizen
Published on: March 2, 2017 | Last Updated: March 2, 2017 5:46 PM EST

The Department of Canadian Heritage Thursday revealed five competing designs for a relocated and drastically downsized Memorial to the Victims of Communism at the Garden of the Provinces and Territories on Wellington Street.

Five teams of artists, architects and other design professionals were short-listed last November and given until March 2 to submit their proposals.

The teams are:


* Team space2place, made up of Vancouver landscape architect Jeff Cutler and Philadelphia artist Ken Lum.




* Team Mills, a seven-member team of artists, landscape architects and public art consultants led by Karen and Ben Mills of Hamilton.




* Team Moskaliuk, led by Markham, Ont. architect Wiktor Moskaliuk, with landscape architect Claire Bedat and artist Larysa Kurylas, both of Washington, D.C.




* Team Raff, headed by Toronto artist and architect Paul Raff, along with landscape architects Brett Hoornaert and Luke Kairys and designer and arborist Michael Ormston-Holloway.




* Team Reich+Petch Architects, which includes Toronto architect Tony Reich, artist Catherine Widgery from Cambridge, Mass., and Matthew Sweig, a Toronto landscape architect.



This is the second design competition for the $3-million memorial, made necessary after the incoming Liberal government scrapped the former Conservative government’s controversial plan to erect a massive memorial on a 5,000-square-metre site on Wellington Street near the Supreme Court of Canada.

Instead, it will be built on a much smaller site at the Garden of the Provinces and Territories, just east of LeBreton Flats.

The designs will be evaluated by a five-member jury that includes Larry Beasley, a former chair of the National Capital Commission’s advisory committee on planning, design and realty, and Ludwik Klimkowski, chair of the memorial’s sponsoring group, Tribute to Liberty.

The winning team will be notified early next month, with major monument elements unveiled in December 2018 and completion of site work and landscaping by March 2019.

According to a Canadian Heritage document, the memorial will honour the “countless millions” who have perished or suffered under communist regimes worldwide, particularly those who sought refuge in Canada.

More than eight million Canadians can trace their origins to countries that have suffered under totalitarian communist regimes, the department says.

While the memorial will be a “powerful place of meaning” that will invite visitors to recall the tragedies that others endured under communist regimes, it will also focus on the idea of Canada as a land of refuge.

It will be a place, Canadian Heritage says, “to be grateful for Canada’s commitment to freedom, democracy, human rights and the rule of law. The memorial will prompt visitors to reflect on the meaning of liberty and remind them that the core Canadian values that unite us must continue to be vigilantly protected.”

http://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news...vealed-for-victims-of-communism-memorial

[Uhuniau]

Toppling lenin yes yes yes

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More renderings and video of the 5 shortlisted projects can be found here, on the Department of Canadian Heritage site:

http://canada.pch.gc.ca/eng/1443025436163/1443025436165