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On March 30th, 2017 I took advantage of another free concert offer from the good folks at the National Arts Centre, and if I’m not mistaken this was my first time sitting in the new Southam Hall configuration, though I am very much willing to be corrected on this fact (which might just be, in fact, fiction).
Way back when the NAC was being originally designed it’s obvious that Ottawa’s city planners had high hopes for the Rideau Canal. I say that because, despite the NAC taking up one of the most envious corners in the city – sitting kitty-corner across from Parliament Hill with just the War Memorial between the two – it was built with the front of the building facing away from these icons and toward the canal instead. Thus, one of the most picturesque views of Ottawa’s downtown core was being enjoyed by the backside of Canada’s arts centre.
And while the convoluted hexagonal building opened up very nicely onto the Rideau Canal, as far as I could tell the only other buildings that likewise took advantage of their locations along such a unique World Heritage Site is the old train station right next to the NAC (though I don’t know what – if anything – that building is used for in the modern era; even a local architecture buff like me has never been inside*), and the Ritz Cafe, a small and not great restaurant about three kilometres down the canal.
But taking in the old train building and the NAC together one can envision what those old city planners were going for. With a treed greenspace lining the Rideau Canal on both sides the waterway was ripe for a busy promenade spotted with shops, restaurants, and some of the city’s most iconic buildings (with the aforementioned two buildings providing a great headstart). This iconic potential (the city planners surely surmised) stretched all the way from Parliament Hill, winding through the downtown core and past Lansdowne Park up to Dow’s Lake and then past the future site of Carleton University and beyond. Imagine if this dream had come true, and in addition to walking paths and park benches the whole canalway featured pubs, tourist shops, and goodness knows what else?
But that’s not what happened, and with failure confirmed over several decades of non-development, here we had the National Arts Centre facing the wrong way. So they renovated.
And they kept renovating…for several years, in fact. They took the reno’s slow and gradual so that the arts centre could keep the doors open the whole time. Sure, their schedule was a bit truncated, but Ottawa was still able to enjoy their orchestra and ballet performances with hardly any notable interruption.
Come to think of it, I believe the first really noticeable change that they completed in their step-by-step renovation was the revamped seating in Southam Hall, which brings us right back to this concert.
The biggest and most obvious improvement was the addition of two aisles piercing the rows of seats. Previously there had been no aisles at all, so if you were seated dead centre and wanted to get up for whatever reason you’d have to go through at least thirty-six “excuse me’s” and “pardon me’s” to get out. In the new house you’re down to about eight or ten “excuse me’s” at the most, which is pretty good. Even we Canadians can tire of too much politeness.
Ah, but who cares. All this is preamble to save me from writing too much about Sibelius’ 2nd Symphony or the world premiere of a piece called From the Diary of Virginia Woolf by Canadian composer Gary Kulesha and all of it under the direction of conductor Olari Elts who, being Estonian, would likely have grown up with the music of Sibelius, born as he was just across the water from the country of Jean Sibelius’ birth (which was Finland).
It was a good concert.
*Since originally writing this missive I have been inside the old train station. I took a tour just after the House of Commons started using it while their old chamber in the Parliament Buildings was being renovated. It certainly was a grand train station and I’m sad that it isn’t one anymore. Though I guess I’m pretty thankful that the train tracks that used to line the Rideau Canal have long been replaced by recreational paths. I certainly use the paths a heck of a lot more often than I take the train.
Todd Man Out 