Came across a very interesting series of drawings on the multitude of proposals for the Balmoral Block and what a new home for the OSM may have looked like. With a new concert hall going up at the Place des Arts, the Balmoral Block is slated for a different kind of development, and a fair bit of what you see in this space has seen recent development. This is an example of how very different a massive piece of the city could have been. Consider it the next time you walk to Place-des-Arts Métro. Still, its always nice to see what could have been. And besides, maybe these ideas will come back – we still don’t have a dedicated Opera Hall yet, and if the Montréal Symphony Orchestra ever makes it back to the level they were playing at in the 1980s and 1990s, we may need an upgrade sooner than we think. Either way – I think we learned our lesson – venue space is priceless.

This is worth knowing about. See how different your city could have been?