McGill University Landscape

McGill University Landscape

1B) The McGill downtown campus has not one but many symbolic sites and places. They contain various crucial elements concerning history, architecture, and specified locations. The first site is the Redpath Museum located on the downtown campus, and it stands near the grand Arts building. The museum is a property of the school and located in the university at 859 Sherbrooke Street West in Montreal, Quebec. It derives its name from the sugar baron Peter Redpath who presented it as a gift in 1882. The importance of the Redpath Museum is that it contains materials with interest in ethnology, geology, paleontology, and biology. The museum is the oldest building in Canada, and its exterior and interior have been used as movie sets and commercials (Ashworth,2016). The museum is generally free for anyone to enter.

The other symbolic site on the campus is the Birks library, located in the religious study building on the Eastern side of the downtown campus on university street. The Birks library supports religious studies teaching programs and is also a section of the humanities and social sciences library. The unique feature of the library is that it is very old and beautiful; to walk in the amazing hardwood inside it, one has to remove their shoes and climb to the loft. The history of the birks library dates back to the Construction of the Religious Studies Library.

The other important site on the campus is the McGill ghetto. The McGill Ghetto is also known as the Milton Park Montreal. It is a neighborhood in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It derives its name from the two major streets neighboring it, Milton street and Park avenue. The McGill Ghetto is an important site, as this is where most of the students live(Ashworth,2016). Another factor making it an important site is the historic townhouses endowing the neighborhood that constructed in the 19^th century. The McGill ghetto not only houses students but many families as well. Small businesses operate in this area, such as The Word bookstore, Café lolarosa, and many other convenience stores as well as third place hangouts..

The other place of symbolic importance in McGill university is the birks heritage Chapel, located in birks building. It is a two-storied building, and it has galleried chapel seats that can make carter for 150 people. Initially, the chapel reflected the different dominations of the pioneer colleges and the ecumenical purpose of Divinity Hall.

1C) my understanding of the landscape of Mcgill is, in a way, different from other people’s views, most especially outsiders. Outsiders have the perspective that the landscape at Mcgill is modern and comprises of up to date technology. Some have gone to the extent of modernizing the architecture and stating the buildings and the overall landscape and facilities as new. My view of the entire landscape is that it is endowed with a lot of history. The refurbishing of the buildings and the constant arranging of the landscape makes the entire university landscape seem new. The buildings in the university have an ancient history in regards to the type of architectural design and the materials used to build them. The university buildings and landscape designs were all made in the 1800s; some of the buildings include the Redpath museum, the faculty club, Chancellor Day Hall, Meredith house, and the list continues. The buildings constructed in the 1900s have a different style from those in the 1800s; the buildings include Thomson house, Donner building, Peterson Hall, Douglas Hall, among many others.

1D) Construction of a building or current situation may become symbolic only if it means something to a group of people. By giving people meaning means that the given factor is responsible for giving a certain group of people an identity. Conditions and events affect a place’s symbolism as they are most likely to be associated with those places. When buildings are built in a certain way  depicting an urban place or town, it will affect most of the young people as they are attracted to the buildings and overall features of modanization

Part 2

A history of a neighborhood is basically the culture practiced or upheld in a neighborhood; thus, history does not comprise of only buildings and present artifacts but also the culture practiced that propelled their making or design. In the period of rampant urbanization and technological advancement, it is common to observe history and cultural heritages being ignored. Change of history in recent times mainly occurs without the notice of any person. It significantly occurs when a group of people inclines to the more popular culture they observe on social media or admire in other neighborhoods(Tweed,2007). Furthermore, with the current generation, not seeing the importance of their history, they are most likely not to preserve their history or even pass them to the next generation.

Another factor that may propel the people to ignore the history of their neighborhood is basic ignorance. With modernization, neighborhoods might give up their history as they don’t see the use or importance of them in the current world. Multicultural neighborhoods are more common in this generation than ever before, and this has come about because of population pressure, ease of travel, job opportunities, businesses, and education. By a neighborhood being multicultured, it will be difficult to uphold the initial history present in that neighborhood. Most often, a multicultured neighborhood will see families concentrate on their own history rather than trying to adjust to the present history in the area.

Migration is another factor that makes neighborhoods ignore their history and flow with urbanization. The effect of migration is in two ways, the generation that should pass and teach their history to the next generation often move from their neighborhood in search of job opportunities and education. Then the other way is when other people move in the neighborhood and are not familiar with history and are rigid to the history in existence.

Poverty also makes people ignore history in a neighborhood. People will accept money to survive the economic strain and allow investors to distort the history present in their neighborhoods. Poverty also makes people concentrate more on escaping poverty rather than focusing on maintaining and upholding the history in organizations(Nobre,2004). Another factor that may make neighborhoods to ignore their history is the government’s role. A government of a given nation may either support or be against a given culture practiced by a neighborhood. For example, in China, the government is against the Islamic religion; as a consequence, Islamic communities will refrain from practicing their culture and venture into other existing and acceptable cultures.

A neighborhood will be able to embrace its history if the existing government does not interfere with the existing neighborhood in the area. Most often, government intervention is the major cause of the destruction of the history of a neighborhood. For maintaining a neighborhood’s history, the government should be sensitized on the importance of a neighborhood’s history, how to maintain a neighborhood’s history and the dangers that come with destroying a neighborhood’s history.

Another way to embrace the history of a neighborhood the owners or dwellers should be against any form of distraction in their historical monuments. The dwellers should thus form groups that fight for the history of their neighborhood. Demonstrations should be held in case investors or governments try to change the history of the neighborhood by destroying buildings or monuments.

The dwellers in a neighborhood instead of focusing on other ways of making money, which leads to them ignoring neighborhood history, should focus on how to make money from the history present in the neighborhood. The dwellers can do this by promoting the neighborhood as a tourist attraction site, through social media or even through government intervention(Gracia, 2004). By tourists visiting the neighborhood, they will promote the existing small businesses, thus benefiting the dwellers who own business in the area. The appreciation of the neighborhood’s history will also give the dwellers a sense of pride, and they will embrace the history their neighborhood has.

A neighborhood that has embraced its history from long ago to current times is the Cottage Hill neighborhood in Alabama, and it is the oldest community in Montgomery. The historic cottage hill neighbors the Alabama River and most part of the city of Montgomery. The neighborhood dates back from the 1830s, when land surveyor Edward Hanrick designed it, and it is home to over 100 houses built in the architectural style of queen Anne. The homes in the community were popular until the 50’s and60’s when people migrated to leave in the suburbs. The ’70s, however, saw the neighborhood filled again with dwellers. Even though cottage hills are still a historic home, other neighborhoods built at the same time with it were replaced with buildings by the government, businesses, or interstate.

The common architectural styles in the Cottage Hill neighbourhood include the Victorian townhouses and cottages that are dated from 1870 to 1910. Cottage Hill is a locally designated historic neighborhood and has also gone down the record in the National Register of Historic Places. Cottage Hill was named after the first public school in the neighborhood that opened in 1891. The structure, however, has undergone much refurbishing from the initial small red schoolhouse, and the school functioned until 1963 when it closed.

The example of neighborhoods that ignore or have not taken measures to preserve the history of their neighborhoods is Shangai(Gracia, 2004). Economic benefit has always led to the development of urban areas; in China, the situation is not different. Cities are building skylines of metal and glass towers at an incredible speed. The effect of urbanization, however, affects the old neighborhoods that many people for generations have referred to as their home.

Shangai is one of the neighborhoods affected by urbanization. The neighborhood is a network of lanes filled with low houses, vegetable markets, and noodle shops. The neighborhood of Shangai depicts an amazing kaleidoscope of the past and present. The dwellers comprise of older Shanghainese while the young generation seeks the comfort of modernized high living. It faces the same predicament as the city of Laoximen.

Laoximen was the location of the western gate of Shangai’s sold wall city nibbed away bit by bit for many years(Della,2016). Due to the problem of housing in shangai and overall Chinese cities, the highest bidder got their way with developing whatever they wanted, and they did these with no general urban planning in mind. The result of the developers was lack of historical preservation, which was initially endowed the neighbourhood. The unplanned quest for economic growth has minimized historical preservation.

References

Ashworth, G. J., & Tunbridge, J. E. (2016). Multiple approaches to heritage in urban regeneration: The case of city gate, Valletta. Journal of Urban Design, 22(4), 494-501. doi:10.1080/13574809.2015.1133230

Della Lucia, M., Trunfio, M., & Go, F. M. (2016). Heritage and urban regeneration: Towards creative tourism. Tourism in the City, 179-191. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-26877-4_12

Nobre, E. A. (2002). Urban regeneration experiences in Brazil: Historical preservation, tourism development and gentrification in Salvador Da Bahia. URBAN DESIGN International, 7(2), 109-124. doi:10.1057/palgrave.udi.9000066

Tweed, C., & Sutherland, M. (2007). Built cultural heritage and sustainable urban development. Landscape and Urban Planning, 83(1), 62-69. doi:10.1016/j.landurbplan.2007.05.008

García, B. (2004). Cultural policy and urban regeneration in western European cities: Lessons from experience, prospects for the future. Local Economy: The Journal of the Local Economy Policy Unit, 19(4), 312-326. doi:10.1080/0269094042000286828