Originally broadcast on CHED Radio, Edmonton, Alberta Canada. Undated.

In an article in the Edmonton Journal Saturday evening, City Planner William Hardcastle stated that there exists in Edmonton “an extremely low standard of design in many downtown buildings.” He named the new Empire Block and the new Bank of Montreal classic examples of bad design. Here, here Mr. Hardcastle. All the Empire Block needs is bars on the windows and it could pass for a jail. The Bank of Montreal, with its bile green exterior is an eye sore on the face of the City. Mr. Hardcastle stated that City Council never took seriously his objection to the designs of some buildings on which his department wanted to withhold development permits. What a pity. We have to face it. This growing city IS ugly. There is filth and dirt everywhere you look. For eight months a year we are faced with mountains of snow and in spring and fall with thousands of acres of mud and slush and muck. And then we compound all these natural conditions by allowing companies to put up monstrosities like the Empire Block and the Bank of Montreal. Why do so many Canadians feel it’s a little “sissy” to have an appreciation for beauty? Is it that too few of us have ever seen beautiful buildings, parks in the City Centre, malls filled with flowers, boulevards lined with trees? These things can be done if enough people care. We don't have to have a city of tall, grey, bleak, ugly, boxes like the Empire Block. There is nothing we can do about the buildings that have now been built. We’re stuck with them for another hundred years, but for heavens sake let’s give Mr. Hardcastles department some support from here on in. We’re building for tomorrow, so let’s build for beauty not for ugliness.