City puts up $250K for winning Winnipeg General Strike design

The winner of a design competition commemorating the 1919 Winnipeg General Strike will receive hundreds of thousands of dollars to make their vision a reality, the city says.

Individuals or teams of local architects, landscape architects, heritage planners and historians will have a shot this spring to submit design ideas celebrating the roots of the labour movement in Winnipeg.

Three semi-finalists will receive $5,000 each for the development of their designs, while the big winner will have up to $250,000 for their project.

The designs will be propped up in the area of Lily Street and Market Avenue, a site where "some of the most intense clashes between the strikers and the police" took place, the city said.

• 1919: Remembering the Winnipeg General Strike

Submissions will be judged by a panel of experts in related fields, including Susan Algie, director of the Winnipeg Architecture Foundation; historian Esyllt Jones; union activist Paul Moist; environmental designer Alyssa Schwann; and artist Jordon Van Sewell.

Proposals are due April 1. Finalists will be announced June 1, with construction expected to start 2016.

More information about the competition is available on the city's website.