Almost every other day, I walk into a room of complete strangers, remove all my clothes, move my body around vigorously for about 40 minutes, take a shower with more strangers, put my clothes back on, and then leave.

This event takes place in one of the few places left in western world where such actions do not seem odd: a recreational facility.

The place in question is the Centre Sportif de la Petite-Bourgogne on Notre Dame, just up the road from our house. The building's authors, Saia Barbarese Topouzanov Architects (the same people who designed the Palais des congrès), won a Governor General's Award for the project in 1998. And for good reason. It fits remarkably well into its neighbourhood; it is beautifully detailed; and its seemingly simple form is a deft working of the building's programme (community centre, gym, and swimming pool). These uses - like the building itself - are split down the centre by a long, double-height corridor which connects the building to the street at the front and, at the rear, with a small park and residential area. Punctuated with several large occuli, this passageway brings light and people into and through the building.




I like (...read more...)

The Big Shuffle will soon begin. With many apartment leases starting on the 1 July, and with most people giving two months notice, we can expect to see lots of à Louer signs popping up around the city any day now...a sure sign of spring.

Below is a list from today's VOIR of places currently avaiable, sorted by neighbourhood. We'll check back in about ten days to see how the numbers change.

Book your location camion now!

AHUNTSIC:26
ANJOU / ST-LÉONARD: 2
CENTRE-VILLE: 21
CENTRE-SUD: 56
CÔTE-DES-NEIGES / SNOWDON: 34
CÔTE ST-LUC/VILLE ST-LAURENT: 3
HOCHELAGA-MAISONNEUVE:86
LACHINE / LASALLE: 2
NOTRE-DAME-DE-GRÂCE: 16
OUTREMONT: 5
OUTREMONT ADJACENT:4
PLATEAU MONT-ROYAL: 170
QUARTIER LATIN: 10
ROSEMONT / PETITE-PATRIE: 96
VIEUX-MONTRÉAL: 3
VILLE MONT-ROYAL: 2
SAINT-MICHEL: 4
VILLERAY: 4
WESTMOUNT: 1
EST DE L'ÎLE: 1
MONTRÉAL-NORD: 6
OUEST DE L'ÎLE: 1
SUD-OUEST: 54
RIVE-NORD: 0
RIVE-SUD: 2

Our man in Ottawa

Well here's a first; a Reading Montreal post about politics.

Our new federal government has repeatedly ducked questions from the press and in the House of Commons about what they plan to do for the arts. There was almost nothing in the throne speech to indicate that culture matters to Canadians.

We have learned that in the tiny window of time between April 6th and today, the government is asking for input from the public about the upcoming budget.

They have been quite quiet about it, but it's all on line. To find out more go here.
http://www.fin.gc.ca/activty/consult/prebud_e.html

Comments are accepted from anyone who wants to participate.

You can email your comments directly to

If you think arts funding is important (we have a sneaking suspicion that it might not be a big concern for them), you might want to drop them a line.

Image

Usually cities are defined by what they have.

Think Paris and street-side cafés and the Louvre jump to mind. These visual clues to 'place' become object-like clichés - suitable stand-ins for the city as a whole. Want to make Toronto look like New York? Just litter the streets with a few yellow cabs and you're done.

Perhaps it is symptomatic of how cities have always operated - a kind of bravado that manifests itself in visual symbols of extreme pride. Contemporary manifestations of this effort often take the form of allegiances to professional sports teams, for example (even though it's very rare to have someone on that team who is from that city).

The Italians perfected the idea of city-as-self-actualized-entity in the 12th, 13th and 14th centuries when they went to war with other cities and announced their victories by dragging back actual bits of the conquered places. Think of those famous columns at the entrance to Piazza San Marco. Ah, Venice. City of canals, vaporetti, and stolen merchandise.

This recent post over on RT got me thinking about this idea of an object-oriented view of a city; it made me realize that, on the whole, Montreal does not have (...read more...)

The France pavilion, now the Montreal Casino

Last week while having dinner with an acquaintance our conversation turned to the withdrawal of the plan to move the casino form its site on Île Notre Dame to the pointe. This person likes to spoil pleasant evenings with statements that are controversial.
Sensing the mood a little too amicable, he lobs his first attack; “It’s too bad that they cancelled the Casino plan for the pointe. I think that it was a good idea”

His half-baked attempt to start a row has made me think a little more about the project. While the idea of moving the Casino to the pointe is currently shelved, it is worth discussing further the idea that the Casino needs to relocate. Here are a few of my ideas on why the whole idea should have never left the drawing boards.


The Quebec pavilion from expo 67

First, the images presented of the project were very ambiguous and unprofessional. A sketchy aerial perspective of the proposed building gave no scale or context of the building. How would the building look from Wellington St? Would the building be visible from the river? How would the Casino relate to the (...read more...)

At the western end of Centre Street is an impressive sculpture in the middle of the roundabout. I really like this sculpture, titled “monument a la Pointe” by Gilles Mihalcean. The title of the work is a play on words, referring to Point St. Charles, but also the roundabout, called a rond-point in French.

The monument terminates the visual axis of Centre Street, and is an excellent visual cue for drivers leaving the autoroute 15 and entering Centre St. or St. Patrick St. An impressive 14 metres high, the sculpture is fun and full of visual allegories.

The sculpture is divided into three vertical strata. The lowest, green section is composed of three pilotis, similar in form to tree trunks. These trunks symbolize the Irish “roots” of the Pointe. The middle section is a brick mass, triangular in plan. The brick recalls the principal building material of the Pointe’s characteristic worker’s row housing. The triangular shape also recalls the hundreds of canal barges that passed by this spot on the canal, 100 metres to the north. The overall impression of the monument is that of an ocean liner. The triangular shape also forms an arrow that “points” down Centre St., the (...read more...)

Now that the warm weather has returned I am now working again in my workshop in the garage in the back alley. I really enjoy working there in the afternoon because the warm afternoon sun pours into the space through the open door.

The problem with working with the door open is that I get unexpected or unwanted visitors. T dropped by today, wanting to borrow a wrench and a bicycle pump, and spent 45 minutes instructing me in the finer points of paint stripping. T also wanted to sell me a girls mountain bike, which he guaranteed was “not hot”, his friend’s 1993 Oldsmobile (which has been sitting in the lot at the end of the alley all winter with flat tires), and a heat gun which would make my paint stripping go faster.

Last summer T popped in and out occasionally, offering various words of wisdom, deals, and sketchy business propositions. The strangest occasion was around 11 pm on a Saturday night. I was working late because I didn’t get a lot done in the day when T showed up, case of beer and intoxicated women in tow. T wanted something or other, and the women wanted to go (...read more...)

Exploded view drawing from my office, Morelli Designers.

For most people, products are not created, they just exist. People have no idea the amount of energy and effort that is expended to bring an idea to market in the form of a desirable and useful product. Generally people that I talk to think that engineers create products, which is partially true. A successful product requires a cooperative team of marketing experts, ergonomists, engineers, and designers, working together to bring the idea to fruition.

Designing a product is both boring and intriguing. All aspects of even the simplest product must be carefully studied to ensure that no problems can result from its manufacture. A tea kettle with a hollow handle can result in burns due to steam entering the handle. A poorly shaped spout on a gravy boat can result in spilling gravy on Grandma’s heirloom tablecloth.

Industrial design is interesting because of the scale of production of the product. Designing a building is impressive because of the huge scale of the final result, and also because of the amount of money involved in constructing the building, but a building only has impact on a finite scale- the building exists only in (...read more...)