Thursday, June 7, 2007

Underground Parks

Montreal's sister city Shanghai has announced the development of an underground park that will be part of the city's large underground network. A fibre-optic network would 'wire' light underground, solving the issue of it being underground.

I am not familiar with the way the underground city in Shanghai is organised, but in Montreal the underground city (except for certain passageways) are private spaces. It would be very interesting to see the insertion of a lavish public space in an area that is normally the domain of private development.

It is no secret that Montreal's downtown is seriously lacking some public space. Save for Dorchester Square and the adjacent Place du Canada, the downtown has no public parks. An underground park, if considered by the city, would not only help create a much needed park but help balance the private-space dominance of Montreal's underground and allow some warmth-deprived Montrealers some greenery in the dead of winter.

Write to your local representatives!

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Although I would never argue that Downtown Montreal is ripe with public spaces, I don't think it's fair to say that the only public spaces are Square Dorchester and Place Du Canada. Downtown also has Square Cabot on the west end, Square Berri on the east end, Esplanade Ernest-Cornier (although I've been told this is only semi-public), Square Victoria, Phillips Square, as well as many public spaces in Old Montreal. But yeah, Montreal has a long way to go as far as public space Downtown goes. I'm not sure if underground parks could solve the problem but it would be interesting to look at.

Sarah said...

Shanghai is the sister city? really?