Landmarks Unique and iconic Winnipeg locations

Landmarks is a monthly feature in which columnist Alison Gillmor explores unique and iconic Winnipeg buildings and locations.  

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Landmarks is a monthly feature in which columnist Alison Gillmor explores unique and iconic Winnipeg buildings and locations.  

 


 

Polo Park has weathered the whims of consumer culture

Winnipeg Free Press file
Polo Park reopened after a refurbishment on Aug. 13, 1986.

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In a strange twist of design history, the man who helped develop the North American shopping mall, Vienna-born architect and planner Victor Gruen, later repudiated it.

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Quirky Fort Garry neighbourhood combines urban planning and nature

Jodi Pratt cross country skiing in Wildwood Park, Sunday, April 14, 2013. (TREVOR HAGAN/WINNIPEG FREE PRESS)

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In popular culture, planned suburban subdivisions are often used as a kind of visual shorthand for conformity and rigidity, for the slow death of the soul. Suburbia, at least according to the movies and TV, is bland, beige and uniform.

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Circular condo building looks spacey, but shape is grounded in practicality

WAYNE GLOWACKI / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS FILES
The 62M Condo is project located on MacDonald Avenue near the Disraeli Bridge.

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I’m always interested in buildings that get nicknames. Usually these monikers indicate affection, occasionally the opposite, but they always mean people are paying attention.

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Précieux-Sang church fuses together modernist design and religious renewal

MIKAELA MACKENZIE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS
Precious Blood Roman Catholic Church in Winnipeg on Tuesday, May 22, 2018. This is the 50th year of worship inside the unusual building.

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On my way to visit l’ Eglise du Précieux-Sang in St. Boniface, I got lost. There was road construction, and I somehow missed my turn. I managed to find my way, though, when I glimpsed that distinctive spiralling roofline in the distance.

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WAG's angular architecture combines form, function in a building both timeless and of its time

ken gigliotti  winnipeg free press  dec4 2002 feature on wpg architecture- Winnipeg Art Gallery WAG ,(old beater cars parked  at base  could not get better shot as building is underconstruction )-kg

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Asked to talk about the Winnipeg Art Gallery building, Stephen Borys pauses for a moment.

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Luxuries, amenities put to many uses during life of Academy Road building

MIKAELA MACKENZIE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS
Winnipeg architect Max Blankstein’s design for the Uptown Theatre referenced the Moorish style, using architectural elements from the western Islamic world mixed with some Spanish forms.

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The Uptown Lofts, once the Academy Uptown Lanes and before that the Uptown Theatre, remind us that buildings can have long, varied and sometimes unexpected lives. The recent mixed-use renovation, which combines commercial spaces and residential apartments, is sleek, clean and contemporary, but it rests on layers of local memory and architectural fantasy.

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The Fort Garry Hotel hearkens back to a more glamorous time

The Fort Garry Hotel was one of the tallest buildings in Winnipeg when it was constructed in 1913. (City of Winnipeg archives)

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When you’re wedged into a middle seat on a packed airplane, sustained only by bad coffee and a packet of pretzels, glamorous travel can seem like an impossible dream.

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Curvy, confident Winnipeg Clinic appears to be reaching for a better tomorrow

ALEX LUPUL / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS
The Winnipeg Clinic with Its distinctive curved lines and layered canopies make it a familiar landmark in Winnipeg’s downtown.

Posted:

Nicknames can be a sign of fondness and familiarity, so it means something that people often affectionately call the Winnipeg Clinic “the Jetsons building.”

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Alison Gillmor

Alison Gillmor
Writer

Studying at the University of Winnipeg and later Toronto’s York University, Alison Gillmor planned to become an art historian. She ended up catching the journalism bug when she started as visual arts reviewer at the Winnipeg Free Press in 1992.

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Letters, Oct. 8

6 minute read 2:01 AM CDT

A call for digital revolution

Re: MPI on new path after Project Nova debacle (Oct. 6)

Computer scientist Melvin Conway once stated, “Any organization that designs a system (defined broadly) will produce a design whose structure is a copy of the organization’s communication structure.”

This is seen clearly in the Manitoba government’s online service. The Manitoba government has a “Data MB” portal to view government data sets, but data about vehicle collisions is only accessible from Manitoba Public Insurance’s Manitoba Collision Dashboard. If you need to find information on a Manitoba surgeon, that information is on Shared Health’s website, but if you need surgical wait times, that’s on the main government website.

Youth centre library cancellation baffles

Editorial 4 minute read Preview

Youth centre library cancellation baffles

Editorial 4 minute read Yesterday at 2:00 AM CDT

It’s difficult to understand why Manitoba Corrections would shut down a library program that cost taxpayers nothing, was popular with young inmates and was designed to help them learn.

But that is what happened at the Manitoba Youth Centre, where a volunteer-run pop-up library has been cancelled by the province.

The Prison Libraries Committee, part of the Manitoba Library Association, provided the program at no cost to Corrections. Once a month, volunteer librarians brought books into the youth centre, helped young people find reading material, assisted with school research and provided something that can be in short supply in a correctional institution — positive interaction with people from outside its walls.

The program became so popular that the youth centre asked for it to be offered more frequently.

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Yesterday at 2:00 AM CDT

See silver lining to your impossible crush

Maureen Scurfield 4 minute read 2:01 AM CDT

DEAR MISS LONELYHEARTS: I’m in love with my sister’s boyfriend, and neither one of them knows it. They’re both grad students and came back home from the province where they are studying to write and spend the summer in Manitoba.

Thankfully, they’ve gone back home because it was becoming too much for me to bear. My sister’s guy is perfect for me, but she already owns him and I’m too young to fight her for him.

Still, the two of them don’t realize the depth of my feelings. I don’t know how to behave when they get cosy around me and I feel so jealous I want to scream. I’m not sure what to do next.

This week I got an email from my artsy-fartsy sister with an invitation to come visit them in December and go to some fun plays and parties with them and their friends. They even promised my Christmas present from them will be my plane ticket.

Scheifele’s scoring ‘drought’ ends with pair of assists in win over Avs

Mike McIntyre 4 minute read Preview

Scheifele’s scoring ‘drought’ ends with pair of assists in win over Avs

Mike McIntyre 4 minute read Yesterday at 10:25 PM CDT

Mark Scheifele insisted he wasn’t worried.

But make no mistake: When a prolific point producer coming off a career-best offensive season puts up zeroes in his first three games, people are going to start talking.

Is this an ominous sign, some fans wondered? Is Father Time starting to catch up, others pondered?

Let the record show the so-called drought officially ended on Wednesday night in a big way when Scheifele assisted on Cole Perfetti’s second-period goal, then set up Kyle Connor’s dramatic game-winner with 60 seconds left in regulation.

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Yesterday at 10:25 PM CDT

Letters, Oct. 7

6 minute read Yesterday at 2:01 AM CDT

On diet and humanity

Re: “Maybe ASI will need us” (Letters, Oct. 5)

Mr. Martin, humans eating animals is not part of the circle of life. Many cultures with abundant plant resources, or for religious beliefs, have historically subsisted on largely or strictly vegetarian diets. Likewise, in extreme environments such as the Arctic, Inuit rely heavily on animal products due to the near-absence of arable land. Humans adapt locally to their environments and do not have a single ancestral diet.

Clearly vegetarian or vegan diets are not fringe, as evidenced by plant-based products on main-stream grocery store shelves. To suggest the Free Press is morally endorsing a fringe diet is rubbish, (the newspaper) merely gives the public a platform for diverse opinions, thus generating individual, thought-provoking ideas and conversations — a practice that is desperately needed these days.

Time for true count of COVID-related deaths

Dan Lett 5 minute read Preview

Time for true count of COVID-related deaths

Dan Lett 5 minute read Thursday, May. 5, 2022

It has often been said the first step in solving a problem is to admit you have one. If that’s true, governments around the world are moving further and further away from finding a solution to the challenge of global pandemics.

How can we both assess the response to date and plan the response to future pandemics if we cannot agree on how many people have died from COVID-19?

The death toll has been one of the stickier points of contention between medical and scientific experts, political leaders and governments — and that segment of the population that disputes the idea COVID-19 poses any significant threat.

The expert group tends to believe deaths are under-reported; governments that seek to evade accountability for their shortcomings and the COVID-19 deniers say they are overstated.

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Thursday, May. 5, 2022