MONTREAL – When it comes to emblematic architecture, Quebec City can hold its own against any city in Canada. An image of the Château Frontenac, built more than a century ago on a cliff overlooking the St. Lawrence River, instantly evokes the city’s charm.

But a Quebec City real-estate developer, prodded by Mayor Régis Labeaume, has decided the provincial capital needs a signature building that is a little less down-to-earth.

Last week, Groupe Dallaire announced plans for a 65-storey tower that it boasted would be the tallest Canadian skyscraper outside of Toronto — nearly twice the height of Quebec City’s current tallest building.

“Over a year ago, the Mayor of Quebec City called on us to create a flagship building at the city’s western gateway – a new symbol of our beautiful city that would be highly recognizable,” Michel Dallaire, the CEO of Groupe Dallaire, said. “Today, we are answering that call and delivering this one-of-a-kind project whose distinctiveness will become synonymous with the city itself and resonate far beyond our borders.”

The artists’ drawings show a steel and glass construction towering above the surrounding suburbia of Sainte-Foy, with swooping shapes at its summit intended to conjure the sailing ships that once plied the St. Lawrence. An accompanying promotional video, set to stirring choral music, says the city — “carried on a wave of pride” — will be given a new iconic symbol.

Mr. Dallaire told reporters he sees his Le Phare complex, to be built on the site of a demolished hotel near the bridges that link Quebec City to the south shore, as nothing less than Quebec’s own Rockefeller Center. There will be an observation deck up top and a skating rink in the plaza, but with malls and bungalows in its shadow, nobody is going to mistake the scene for Manhattan.

The prospect of leaping ahead of Montreal in the tallest-building contest appeals to some in the capital, but others are warning that the maritime-themed project will be more like a ship out of water.

In an open letter published Wednesday in Le Soleil, 325 young architects — the majority from the Quebec City region — accused the city of pursuing an outmoded form of development more suited to Dubai than Quebec.

“The Le Phare project, as it now stands, shows incredible contempt for its urban context,” the architects wrote. “This giant appears to have been designed to be seen from the greatest distance, as the bird flies; it should have been conceived to be lived on a human scale, to be sensitive, to be innovative.” In approving the project, the city “is closing its eyes on a comprehensive vision of development,” the authors wrote.

In addition to the skyscraper, the $600-million project is planned to include three “sister” towers of between 25 and 30 storeys. The complex will combine office, retail and residential space, with room for more than 2,500 workers and 2,000 residents. Plans call for construction to begin next year and last a decade.

Writing this week in La Presse, François Cardinal warned the Quebec City skyscraper will be a repeat of Paris’s Montparnasse, the 1970s office tower that is a blight on the landscape. “Paris and Quebec enjoy strong personalities, signature heritage and magnificent buildings,” he wrote. “They are two elegant cities for whom skyscrapers resemble clunky jewelry, a big golden brooch that throws off the balance.”

Gérard Beaudet, a professor at the Université de Montréal’s institute of urban studies, is well aware of the rivalry between Montreal and Quebec City. His criticism of Le Phare has been dismissed by some as skyscraper envy. (And it is true that under Montreal’s current rules, no building could overtake Le Phare’s 250 metres, because construction cannot be higher than Mount Royal.)

But he says his opposition has nothing to do with jealousy. He objects to the notion that Quebec needs a skyscraper to enter the big leagues. “When the developer says, ‘Quebec City has arrived there,’ as if there is some sort of natural law that a city absolutely has to have a skyscraper at some point in its history, it’s a little bizarre,” Mr. Beaudet said.

“In almost all cases of skyscrapers, they are much more to do with a fantasy than with an actual response to market conditions,” he added. “It is very hard to justify a 60- or 80-storey building by market conditions.”

But then in Quebec City, people are no strangers to fantasies. The finishing touches are being put on a $400-million, taxpayer-funded professional hockey rink set to open in September with no team on the horizon. Mr. Labeaume, who has recently come under fire for his failure to deliver on an NHL team, seemed only too happy to adopt a new “signature” project.

“This building, all modern cities in the world would be proud to have it on their territory,” he said last week as Le Phare was announced.

National Post

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