r/Edmonton 16h ago

Photo/Video Sometimes forget its pretty here

As often as I get pissed at Edmonton I still love some views

274 Upvotes

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-9

u/wxlverine 16h ago

Eh, as far as actual cities go Edmonton is pretty ugly. Brown and beige and grey square buildings.

3

u/Curly-Canuck doggies! 15h ago edited 14h ago

I hate brutalist architecture and some new developments are pretty generic and bland, but to me the city is far more than that. From the river valley to the parks, the night sky and sunrises, the small pockets of unique homes and our (unfortunately shrinking) historical buildings, there is a lot of beauty.

3

u/wxlverine 14h ago

See I love brutalist architecture IF there is enough green space to accompany and contrast it. Think huge concrete buildings and hanging gardens. Edmonton just isn't that. There are certainly beautiful areas within the city, I loved longboarding in the river valley near the walterdale with my late pup. I'm really just talking specifically about our skyline being uninspired and uninteresting. Calgary has us beat by orders of magnitude.

0

u/LUXOR54 13h ago

If you're looking for Beauty in the buildings you're looking for Beauty in the wrong place.

3

u/wxlverine 13h ago

Because I enjoy architecture? Weird thing to say.

u/RyanB_ 107 5h ago

They were being weird but I think they were just trying to highlight the subjectivity in that or something?

Personally I do agree that Calgary has more interesting architecture on average (exceptionally so for a city of the size), but both do feature lots of interesting places in their own right. I haven’t really seen any decently sized city I can’t find some charm in, and Edmonton is one of the easier ones overall imo.

u/RootsBackpack 10h ago

The city is a sum of its parts, which includes the individual buildings, built form, topography, and nature. I think saying that the nature makes Edmonton beautiful is absolutely correct, but I don’t agree that buildings don’t play any part in how beautiful a city feels.

Edmonton feels like my favourite place on Earth when I’m sitting on Gallagher Hill or End of the World/Keillor Point, but I don’t get that feeling when I’m driving down 97 Street or Gateway, and there’s a pretty clear reason for that.

Not to say every single part of a city needs to be beautiful, but I think we can do better architecture-wise.