There's something that most Montrealers don't realize that Montreal is famous for.
You hear about this from people living outside of Montreal, more than people living inside.
Montreal is a world capital of the most controversial architectural style in history.
The coldest, the most uncompromising, the Brutalism.
Brutalism is like the architectural abstract art.
Regular people hate the inorganic modernism, yet it's fans are often officinadoes with
quite sophisticated tastes.
Architects often like it because it's so interesting and special, and to be honest they're not
allowed to build stuff like it anymore.
No more concrete monsters for you Mr Architect.
In another way brutalism is like the architectural version of heavy metal.
Regular people find it harsh and strange
But it's fans relish it for that exact same reason.
Like an awesome riff there's a certain joy to coming across a brutalist building and
being like.
Yeah!
It’s so brutal!
Look at that concrete Orwellian nightmare.
So let me share a bit about brutalism so that maybe you can see what others see in these
buildings.
If you don't like brutalism at the moment, you probably think it's ugly.
But there is a very big difference between this which is plain and this which is heroic.
These iconic brutalist buildings in Montreal were actually hard to build.
They're not the cheap black brick condos pumped out to house Susan and Steve.
These things were lovingly crafted by masters, the people who made them gave a shit.
They thought they were ushering in a new era of honest long lasting buildings for an optimistic
future.
Brutalism whose name comes from “béton bruit” is a form of structuralism, the idea
being to show the structure and materials the building is made from, not try to hide
it.
That principle of honesty is why they're so often schools, libraries, housing projects,
hospitals, government buildings and public transit systems.
The French origins of brutalism is also part of why Montreal has so much of it.
The last great construction boom struck Montreal in the 1970s, right when the iron was hot
for brutalism.
The Montreal Metro, many of the buildings for the Expo and the Olympics were all built
in the style by the architectural greats of Montreal and the world.
In this era there was a pretty stupid idea of planning things and building things around
the car.
The worst was Faubough a m’lasse[1] the neighbourhood where around 20 city blocks[2]
were demolished to build the brutalist monument Maison Radio-Canada[3].
It wasn’t brutalism that demolished beautiful neighbourhoods to replace them with parking
lots.
It just happened to come along at the same time as that was a popular trend too.
But like any old crazy fads after just a short time it was gone.
And for Montreal many of these buildings now actually represent the high-water mark of
Montreal's power as Canada's preeminent city.
So Montreal offers a range of brutalism and I would argue that most of it works pretty
well.
Brutalism works in utilitarian public spaces.
So having no windows and giant concrete walls isn't going to make a nice building to live
in.
But in an underground subway station, it’s no problem at all.
The Montreal metro system is a masterpiece and it’s brutal as fuck.
Another place where brutalism has worked is when it has veered off the purist brutalist
vision.
Who wants to work in a concrete windowless room?
Let’s be reasonable guys.
Often brutalist buildings get altered over time, place Bonaventure for example has had
a lot of windows installed over the years.
The metro nails this again, many of the Metro stations have flourishes and dashes of colour
that contrast beautifully with the concrete.
I think that my favorite metro station, Prefontaine, gets everything right here.
It’s brutalism, there’s lots of light.
The color and the concrete enhance each other and are even more striking than when they're
alone.
And check out the circle motif throughout that matches the metro symbol.
Ths was built by people who really cared and it comes through.
Montreal is now experiencing a new bout of development.
Looking at some of the designs for new REM and subway stations recently I was a little
sad to see that it just didn't quite look like Montreal.
And that was when I realized it.
Brutalism has got me, because Montreal has got Brutalism.
It's joined the ranks of things that make Montreal special, I don't want to get rid
of it and in fact we may have to fight to keep some of it.
One of the worst things about what’s going on now is we’re in the period where people
are only just starting to appreciate this architecture but a lot of it is due for maintenance
and it’s at risk.
I’ve heard rumors about the Maison Radio Canada over the years saying that demolition
was being looked into as a possibility.
I think that it’s in the clear now, but it seemed like a bit of a tragedy.
On the same site that we demolished a neighbourhood that we didn’t appreciate the value of until
it was too late, we would then demolish a building that we didn't appreciate until it
was too late as well.
I hope that we don’t make that mistake before taking some time to notice
“You know, what? that building is actually kind of cool”