Brandon Donnelly — Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly. — Page 533

Back when Toronto was debating the future of the eastern portion of the elevated Gardiner Expressway, I was an annoying and vocal supporter of tearing it down and replacing it with an at-grade boulevard. I was blogging about it ad nauseam. I participated in Jane's Walks where I spoke about the merits of removal. And I even created a petition that went to City Council the day the decision was being made.

But throughout all of this, I felt like I was in the minority. Most people said I was crazy (though former mayor John Sewell agreed with me). How will people and services get to downtown Toronto? This is critical infrastructure, they said. And indeed, Toronto voted not to remove it.

Whatever you feel was the right decision at the time, that ship has sailed. We tore down a leg of the Gardiner east of the Don River, at that was positive; but the rest of it is either staying intact or being relocated. In both cases, it will be elevated.

But I believe in looking forward, not backwards. And so with that, I think we should be doing everything we can urbanistically to make the Gardiner as nice as it can be. It is for this reason that I think The Bentway is an extraordinarily important project. And it is for this reason that I wish we would light the underside of the Gardiner so that when you're driving on Lake Shore it makes you feel happy.

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A good example of this in action is the Yan'an Elevated Highway in Shanghai (greenery, of course, also helps):

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Relevant scene from Skyfall (James Bond):

https://youtu.be/Uh-5BS7ecgs?t=32

But let me be clear before my inbox lights on fire: I am not suggesting that this is an approach to urbanism that is in any way desirable or worth emulating. I am not advocating for elevated highways running through the middle of dense downtowns and walkable city centers. All I am saying is that if we are stuck with something as dreary and as utilitarian as the Gardiner Expressway, the least we can do is make it kind of cool. And lighting can be a relatively cost effective way of doing that.

So each year Europe runs a program called the European Capitals of Culture. The objective is to celebrate the richness of European culture and presumably drive throngs of tourists to its various locales. They do this by choosing a set of cities, designating them "capitals of culture", and then running events and programming all throughout the calendar year in those places.

When the program was created in 1985, it was originally called the European City of Culture, as there was only one city being chosen at a time. In the first year that city was Athens. But the program has since evolved and now multiple cities are chosen each year. For 2022, the European Capitals of Culture are Esch-sur-Alzette (Luxembourg), Kaunas (Lithuania), and Novi Sad (Serbia).

I was reading about Kaunas in FT this morning and I was fascinated to learn that this city of approximately 300,000 people has some 6,000 modernist buildings. Some are apparently in disrepair, but many remain in good form and, as part of the festival, visitors can book stays in some of the restored ones.

There is, of course, an interesting story behind these buildings.

This collection of modernist buildings is the result of a relatively narrow window of time and a specific set of circumstances. Lithuania gained independence from the former Russian Empire in 1918, following WWI and while Russia was busy fighting with itself. But at the time, its capital city Vilnius, which remains the capital today, was mostly occupied by Poland.

So Kaunas became its temporary capital city from 1920 to 1939, the latter date being when Vilnius was returned to Lithuania. This temporary designation created a tremendous need for new buildings, both public and private, and it just so happened to line up with the flourishing of European modernist architecture.

Kaunas didn't get any modernist "icons" from architects such as Le Corbusier, but there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. Kaunas instead created its own varietal of modernism, one that incorporated elements of Art Deco and one that you could argue is now deeply symbolic of a very important moment in its history: A peaceful period of interwar freedom and optimism.

Image: Kaunas 2022

The UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has just published its latest climate change report. Available here . As a follow-up to this report, Dezeen spoke with Hélène Chartier of the sustainable urbanism network C40 Cities. And she makes some very good points about the importance of cities in combatting climate change.

In fact, she goes so far as to say that sustainable living is only really possible, at scale, in cities. Because to live a more sustainable lifestyle, you need the right kind of infrastructure in place. And to have the right kind of infrastructure in place, you need density.

This crucial point is often forgotten (though never on this blog). If you are truly concerned about climate change, then you should be for urban density. And if you are out there fighting against urban density, then your actions are undermining this global imperative.

Chartier rightly points out that "architects have a huge responsibility" when it comes to addressing climate change. And this is entirely true. Their job is the built environment. But with all due respect to architects, the problems that need solving are ultimately much broader. Architects can only do so much if they're hamstrung by dumb land use policies and angry neighbors, among other things.

This needs to be a coordinated effort. We all have a huge responsibility.

Photo by Kaspars Upmanis on Unsplash