What makes a good monument and praise-worthy public art? This is the question that CBC’s Cross-country Checkup posed to its listeners on Sunday, June 8. The question was prompted by the recent controversial proposal for a towering Mother Canada statue on the coast of Cape Breton as well as the Monument to the Victims of Communism in Ottawa.

Associate Professor David Lieberman was a featured speaker on the program. He talked about the cultural significance of art in the public sector and in our collective and cultural memory.

Also joining the conversation were artist Dereck Revington, who designed the Luminous Veil on Toronto's Bloor Viaduct (which was lit up for the first time since on Saturday, July 4), and Eshter Shalev-Gerz, the Paris-based artist of Hamburg's Monument Against Facism. The topic drew phone calls and comments from across the country facilitated by CBC host Harry Forrestal.

The full program is available on the CBC’s website.

Lieberman was also recently interviewed for a National Post article on the design of the new Union Pearson Express.

“The winter and the wood offer a sense of warmth,” says David Lieberman, architect and associate professor at the University of Toronto’s John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design. “The uniforms, colorization and the interiors in particular offer this incredible nostalgia for the great era of trains. There’s a refined sensibility.”

However, Lieberman isn’t quite sold on the Canadian aesthetic.

“It’s very safe, mute and restrained; it’s disappointing. This is a rail line based in innovation, and this is just indicative of the past. It’s old-fashioned without a sense of connectivity.”

The full article “Union Pearson Express design team tips its hat to the golden age of rail” is available on the National Post's website.