Habitat 67, or simply Habitat, is a model community and housing complex in
Montreal, Canada, designed by Canadian architect Moshe Safdie. It was
originally conceived as his master's thesis in architecture at McGill
University and then built as a pavilion for Expo 67, the World's Fair held from
April to October 1967. It is located at 2600 Avenue Pierre-Dupuy on the
Marc-Drouin Quay next to the Saint Lawrence River. Habitat 67 is widely
considered an architectural landmark and one of the most recognizable and
significant buildings in both Montreal and Canada.
History Safdie's design for Habitat 67 began as
a thesis project for his architecture program at McGill University. It was
"highly recognized" at the institution, though Safdie cites its failure to win
the Pilkington Prize, an award for the best thesis at Canadian schools of
architecture, as early evidence of its controversial nature. After leaving to
work with Louis Kahn in Philadelphia, Safdie was approached by Sandy van
Ginkel, his former thesis advisor, to develop the master plan for Expo 67, the
world's fair that was set to take place in Montreal during 1967. Safdie decided
to propose his thesis as one of the pavilions and began developing his plan.
After the plans were approved in Ottawa by Mitchell Sharp, the federal cabinet
minister responsible for the exhibition, and Lester B. Pearson, Safdie was given
the blessing of the Expo 67 Director of Installations, Edward Churchill, to
leave the planning committee in order to work on the building project as an
independent architect. Safdie was awarded the project in spite of his
relative youth and inexperience, an opportunity he later described as "a
fairy tale, an amazing fairy tale". The development was financed by the
federal government, but is now owned by its tenants, who formed a limited
partnership that purchased the building from the Canada Mortgage and Housing
Corporation in 1985. Safdie still owns a penthouse apartment in the building.
Concept and design Habitat 67 comprises 354 identical,
prefabricated concrete forms arranged in various combinations, reaching up to 12
stories in height. Together these units create 146 residences of varying sizes
and configurations, each formed from one to eight linked concrete units. The
complex originally contained 158 apartments, but several apartments have
since been joined to create larger units, reducing the total number. Each
unit is connected to at least one private terrace, which can range from
approximately 225 to 1,000 square feet in size.
The development was designed to integrate the benefits of suburban
homes, namely gardens, fresh air, privacy, and multilevelled environments,
with the economics and density of a modern urban apartment building. It was
believed to illustrate the new lifestyle people would live in increasingly
crowded cities around the world. Safdie's goal for the project to be
affordable housing largely failed: demand for the building's units has made
them more expensive than originally envisioned. In addition, the existing
structure was originally meant to only be the first phase of a much larger
complex, but the high per-unit cost of approximately C$140,000 prevented that
possibility. The theme of Expo 67 was "Man and his
World", taken from Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's memoir Terre des hommes.
Housing was also one of the main themes of Expo 67. Habitat 67 then became a
thematic pavilion visited by thousands of visitors who came from around the
world, and during the expo also served as the temporary residence of the many
dignitaries visiting Montreal. In March 2012, Habitat 67 won an online
Lego Architecture poll and is a candidate to be added to the list of
famous buildings that inspire a special replica Lego set. Lego bricks were
actually used in the initial planning for Habitat; according to Safdie's firm,
"initial models of the project were built using Lego bricks and subsequent
iterations were also built with Lego bricks”.
Legacy As one of the major symbols of Expo 67,
which was attended by over 50 million people during the year it was open,
Habitat 67 gained world-wide acclaim as a "fantastic experiment" and
"architectural wonder". This experiment was and is regarded as both a success
and failure—it "redefined urban living" and has since become "a very successful
co-op", but at the same time ultimately failed to revolutionize affordable
housing or launch a wave of prefabricated, modular development as
Safdie had envisioned. Despite its problems, however, Habitat's fame and
success "made [Safdie's] reputation" and helped launch his career; Safdie has now
designed over 75 buildings and master plans around the world.
Even now, more than 40 years after Habitat, much of Safdie's work still
holds to the concepts that were so fundamental to its design, especially
the themes of reimagining high-density housing and improving social integration
through architecture that have become "synonymous" with his work.
Panorama See also
Architecture of Canada Brutalism
Metabolism References
External links Official website of Habitat 67
Official website of Moshe Safdie and Associates
Habitat 67 at the Moshe Safdie Hypermedia Archive of McGill University
Habitat 67: Then and Now Habitat 67 at Great Buildings Online
Habitat 67 at ArchiTravel