Tag Archives: Urban design issues

A modest proposal, History and Culture, Montréal Architecture, Montréal Landmarks, Perspectives on the City, Scenes from the City, Urban Redevelopment, What were they thinking?, Worth reconsidering

Vintage Pics – Industrial Little Burgundy

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View looking Southwest over Windsor Station with view of old Mountain Street Viaduct - not the work of the author, early 1960s(?)

I can’t get an exact date on this pic, but as you can see the Champlain Bridge is up but Nun’s Island isn’t much developed. Griffintown and Little Burgundy are clearly visible in this pic, though you can see there’s a considerable focus on new light-industrial activity centered on the old stockyard. As it happened, Mayor Drapeau re-zoned much of this area for exactly that purpose, driving residents out and leaving the area in its current state. Of course, what he wasn’t entirely counting on was CN and CP going through major downsizing and rationalization during the 1980s and 1990s. The end result was that all the track in this picture would be deemed excessive and ultimately destroyed. The nail in the coffin of sorts was when PM Brian Mulroney, as his last act in office, cut the ribbon at a dedication ceremony during the construction of the Bell Centre.

Here’s a link to a Wikipedia page with info pertaining to new skyscraper construction in Montréal. One of the only commercial property development projects not currently waiting for an anchor tenant or otherwise on indefinite hiatus, is Cadillac Fairview’s new Windsor Station Project, which aims to build several towers near the intersection of Mountain and St-Antoine. Cadillac Fairview had previously proposed a new train station to be built South of Windsor Station (but still integrated into the station as part of the Réso) with a viaduct crossing St-Antoine. Of course, we all know how good the Bonaventure Viaduct worked out for this area.

If it could be done in such a fashion that there was a major increase of diverse residential housing in the area, then I’d be more inclined to think that both of these new projects would be winners – that even a new viaduct could be done in such a fashion so as not to further dissect the urban core. However, that being said, I’m disinclined to think Cadillac Fairview will be interested in constructing anything but condos – someone will have to ensure that medium and low income housing is also provided, in addition to family-run small businesses and necessary community and cultural services. If the newly redeveloped parts of Griffintown and the Faubourg des Recollets seem to be lacking something – they are. They’re not communities yet, and they don’t feel like the rest of Montréal. Ultimately, you can’t leave city planning up to corporations from Toronto.

A modest proposal, History and Culture, Montréal Architecture, Montréal Landmarks, Perspectives on the City, Scenes from the City, Urban Redevelopment, Waddayoutink?, What were they thinking?

More on Boul. de Maisonneuve’s prior history as a massive parking lot

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View of Uptown Montréal (President-Kennedy & Aylmer near centre of pic) - 1970 from CIBC Observation Deck; not the work of the author

Man I love looking at this picture.

I mean I hate it as well – what a massive wasteland of parking lots. Look at it!

Today the area is considerably different. Boul. de Maisonneuve was literally carved out of existing cityscape back in the early and mid-1960s at the same time as the Métro tunnel was carved out of the bedrock almost directly beneath. I can understand the argument against this kind of destructive construction in general, but I feel that the city, and this sector in particular, actually benefited immensely from this development.

For one, Boul. de Maisonneuve now serves as a prominent link between diverse neighbourhoods – from NDG/St-Raymond through Westmount, Atwater, the Shaughnessy Village, New Chinatown, the Concordia Ghetto, Crescent Village right into Uptown Montréal, the area largely re-developed as a consequence of Boul. de Maisonneuve’s construction (back in the 1970s it was referred to as Place du Centre and I believe part of the Master Plan would eventually lead to McGill College’s redevelopment in the mid-late 1980s). Extending East, Boul. de Maisonneuve further links up with the Quartier des Spectacles, the Lower Main, the Habitations Jeanne-Mance & Quartier Latin etc. It’s a belt, and this city needs multiple East-West arteries simply to help move the millions of people who flood into the city centre each day.

It’s unfortunate that this sector was developed almost exclusively to serve the skyrocketing demand for retail corporate office space in the 1970s and 1980s, and I think a major fault in that plan – lack of residential housing – is at least partially responsible for the Tremblay administration’s aim to build residential buildings primarily in remaining parking lots in this area. Again, there’s a problem in that most of the new development is condominiums, while the area needs mixed housing and social-services (primary and secondary schools, cultural/community space etc) in order to be a viable neighbourhood with a distinct character, considerations which are vital to its long-term survival.

That being said, we’ve come a long way from above. I would have hated this area back then – I wouldn’t have been able to walk through it without obsessing as to why no one had put a park here (and I think we can all agree this area could use some more public green space). Today, it seems dynamic, clean and well-used. During the day it bustles and it’s pretty clear that the sector is of vital importance to the city’s economy.

What do you think about this picture? Have we been moving in the right direction? Let me know – I’d love to get a better understanding of what the readership honestly thinks about new development in Montréal.

A modest proposal, Montréal Architecture, Urban Redevelopment

A Modest Proposal { No. 3 } – Windsor Station & The Forum

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Windsor Station, with John A. Macdonald memorial in foreground, Place du Canada

The last thing Brian Mulroney ever did as Prime Minister was to officially break ground at the site of the Molson Centre, now the Bell Centre, current home of the Montréal Canadiens. It was one of those great photo-ops, as ‘the Chin’ heralded in a new era for his favourite city’s favourite sons. Progress, development, and a PM delivering a gift to the city (though of course he had nothing to do with it officially, but given his method of slime-based business practices, it wouldn’t surprise me if he made some backdoor profits). What he didn’t know is what it would cost us in the future, as Canadian Pacific would vacate Windsor Station, its home for over eighty years, four years later. In addition, the placement of the Molson Centre immediately to the west of the station severed it from CP track, which now stops at an open platform on the east side of the venue. I doubt Mulroney had any notion rail travel would be so important seventeen years later, and that if the city has any real interest in expanding service and operations, another station would be necessary. What makes the Molson/Bell Centre so infuriating is that it added nothing to its surroundings in terms of business development, as a stroll down the south side of St-Antoine will attest to. So we got a state-of-the-art venue, but we lost the functionality of a landmark, a major corporation, and by extension, the move from Atwater further led to the detriment of the neighbourhood (let’s face it, the Pepsi Forum is an eyesore and the whole western edge of the city has slowly eroded since 1996).

Pepsi Forum, an 'entertainment complex'...

There’s no doubt the Bell Centre is a success unto itself; it’s an excellent hockey rink which has sold out every game for the last four years – certainly the Habs have a lot to do with it, but if the building weren’t well designed and an experience unto itself, I’m certain more people would stay home to watch the game. Moreover, it’s also a half-decent music venue, attracting the overwhelming majority of the city’s big-name acts. This last point is contentious, as many hard-core concert goers have told me the acoustics could be better, but I digress. The question is – is the Bell Centre replaceable?

I’d argue that it is, that its probably already being discussed and that the further inconvenience of its placement is justification alone to demolish it and have the Habs play somewhere else.

Architecturally, I’d say it offers nothing to the cityscape. It is a purely functional building with a design and style thoroughly influenced by commercial concerns – it’s not a landmark, it’s already beginning to look dated, and has all the soulful expression as a highway 40 turnkey warehouse built by Broccolinni!

So perhaps its time to move hockey back to Atwater?

Montréal Forum, 1970s, from a postcard

There’s no doubt in my mind that the Atwater area is in dire need of a major overhaul and renovation, especially considering that this used to have a very different aesthetic and character – it was upscale, a prestige address. With the Montréal Children’s Hospital set to vacate their Cabot Square address in a few years when the Super-hospital is completed, the area is going to need a few new anchors to inject new revenue into the area. Recycling the existing Pepsi Forum into a new sports and entertainment venue seems logical, given the attachment the area has with such diversions. Moreover, the Forum block is a very large piece of property, one of the few within the urban core capable of supporting such a large building. Ideally, a new Forum would be built to accommodate some of the current tenants, while others could be moved to Place Alexis-Nihon, or integrated into an expanded Atwater Underground (why the Forum isn’t directly connected to the Metro never made any sense to me, this could be fixed).

Now, with the Bell Centre demolished, Windsor Station could be renovated into a fully functional train station, meaning that Central Station could move some of its VIA operations to make room for additional AMT operations, allowing for the expansion of Montréal’s rail capacity by having a segregation of services between two dedicated stations, each connected to the other, the Underground City and four Métro stations. The concentration of services, hotels, connections etc between the two stations is exceptional, and a fully functioning Windsor Station could provide the necessary localized economic spin-off an insulated building like the Bell Centre could never offer.

Food for thought – I think we had it right back in the day, and this is something worth reconsidering.