The future of Oakridge Centre: New renderings show surreal architecture

"The design of the planned redevelopment of Oakridge Centre is said to draw inspiration from medieval towns like San Gimignano, Italy, and it will become a hilltop town or “micro city” with a skyline of its own."

That is how the proponents of the redevelopment described the project in their recent development application to the City of Vancouver. A rezoning proposal for the project was previously approved in 2014, and construction is scheduled to begin by the end of this year."
Well, I don't know how it will all shake down but I am rather fascinated by the architecture.

https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/oakridge-centre-redevelopment-architecture-august-2018

I may quite like this new development in Vancouver but I don't think it will remind me of San Gimignano and the Tuscan Hill towns although I admire the clever marketing!

In 2002 we did a two week road trip of Italy and for three nights we based ourselves in Siena to go round to the Tuscan Hill towns. Siena was a wonderful place to base ourselves and we plurged so had a great view of the Tuscan hills from our room. We also took the breakfast and dinner plan and it was a wonderful restaurant so after a day of busy touring (not to mention the special joys of driving in Italy!) we came back to a wonderful dinner without having to go out looking for a restaurant.

Siena is very famous for its tower and for its crazy horse race called the Palio around the village square. Huxley wrote about it. This is Rick Steves:

"The Tuscan hill town of Siena is known both for its pride and for its independent attitude. And for five centuries, that spirit has shown itself in a crazy horse race — the Palio. Twice every summer, the entire community of Siena hurls itself into the traditional revelry of the event with abandon. "

Huxley on Siena and The Palio.
https://danassays.wordpress.com/collected-essays-by-aldous-huxley/aldous-huxley-essays-travel-the-palio-at-siena/

San Gimignano (below) is actually very beautiful other than I suppose we liked it the least because it had been scrubbed too clean and packed with tourists. The only "local" we saw was some old guy scuttling down an alleyway.

A little excerpt from Huxley's essay on Siena and the preparation for the Palio. Perhaps this explains the overly scrubbed look of San Gimignano.

More stones were brought down in those few months of weeding than had fallen of their own accord in the previous thousand years. But the Italians were pleased; which is, after all, the chief thing that matters. Their hatred of weeds is fostered by their national pride; a great country, and one which specially piques itself on being modern, cannot allow weeds to grow even among its ruins.

My blogpost was inspired by one Carol did and I can certainly sympathize with the person who altered the ad at the bus stop and Carol's views. I may feel the same way but for the moment I remain curious and interested to see the result.

Carol's blogpost:
http://mountdunbar.blogspot.com/2019/02/describing-new-oakridge.html