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ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit
(11-02-2015, 02:19 PM)BuildingScout Wrote: Original questionable premise:

Also one of the reasons Besançon is so much nicer is because over the centuries they have never been afraid to take down their ugly buildings while defending the nicer ones.

End of laborious process:

But surely such a modern looking building would be out in the 'burbs right. Never allowed anywhere near the historical parts right? Keeping the old historical town intact, right? 

Wrong:

[Image: Dezeen_Besancon-Art-Centre-and-Cite-de-l..._ss_2a.jpg]

I undertake that these will be my final relections on the saga of Besançon, France, the City with a new LRT system.

My reflections are no longer on the City itself, though it is worthy of study, but on the laborious process of creating a factual dog to be wagged by the tail of a questionable premise.


It struck me as curiously coincidental that the city referenced by Canard for its attractive LRT system should also have achieved a unique reputation premised by BuildingScout for “taking down ugly buildings”.
 
Some cursory research seemed to verify, however, that - contrary to the premise - Besançon’s “delightful urban environment…has survived more or less intact”. I so reported, as a matter of interest, and because the premise was obviously designed to be applied mutatis mutandis to Waterloo Region.
 
However, BS claimed as a fact, without citation, that the description of the city’s “old streets … lined with houses and buildings from the Renaissance to the early twentieth century” was irrefutable confirmation of the original proposition, now described as “judicious demolition”.


Of course, it is not difficult to imagine other paths by which an ancient city could end up with a range of architectural legacy, but I did in fact make the further effort to find citation for BS’s claim for Besançon’s subtle demolition renown. Still, I kept coming up with citations for its conservation renown. Well, OK.

Yet the laborious thesis process proceeded to additional bolstering by BuildingScout in the form of proof of the falsity (?!) of a straw man claim (?!) that “somehow they stopped [building] in the early twentieth century”. Huh?

And the refutation of this straw man claim involved a modern building with a further straw man claim that “surely such a modern looking building would be out in the 'burbs right. Never allowed anywhere near the historical parts right? Keeping the old historical town intact, right? 

Wrong:”

In any event, photos followed of “one Besançon's better known buildings by Japanese architect Kengo Kuma”. So here we had, with this admittedly interesting modern supplement, the culmination of the legacy of Besançon, The Town that “Culling of Heritage” Built - and were back full circle to the original premise. We were left to assume that some inferior Renaissance chateau, perhaps, had yielded to the prudent process of “judicious demolition” and replacement.

Research of the building shows that the project sits on a 2 ha brownfield site, in a former industrial area, and that - ironically for the purveyor of the original thesis - the new structure “wraps an old brick warehouse, creating a glassed-in box”. So we leave our examination of the wagging factual dog with an unintended illustration that this town preserves in juxtaposition even its least remarkable heritage – a 1930’s brick warehouse.


As promised, enough with Besançon. At this point, it’s catch-and-release, and back to fishin’ in Waterloo Region.
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RE: ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit - by eizenstriet - 11-03-2015, 12:04 AM
[No subject] - by Spokes - 08-28-2014, 04:16 PM

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