I had a nice time seeing old friends in Boston, but it really feels like vacation now that I am in Montreal. As soon as I got into the terminal, the change wasn’t only the French language. I could sense a more sophisticated design sensibility even in the grand daylit arrival hall. Nice detailing, careful restrained use of materials, interesting forms – everything said – “You are not in the U.S.!”
When I got out of the airport limousine at the central subway station, I decided to check my luggage and walk around the downtown neighborhood rather than zoom out to my university area hostel. I happened to see a big bold modernist building next store – Le Grand Bibliotheque : the Grand Library and National Archive of Quebec. Since the weather was nice, I walked past it and I was delighted to find an urbane street with little cafes, old renovated townhouses and beautiful street trees. Heading back to this modernist building, I was delighted to find a cool cafe in it. As I rounded the corner, my mouth fell open because I saw one of the most dramatic urban spaces ever: A three story corridor with a beautiful glass facade on one side and a well proportioned wooden screen climbing up with a bold long ramped form. Yikes, I chanced on a real architectural monument.
This image doesn't do it justice.
After prowling around and marveling at huge lightwell with playful stairs and glass elevators, finding wondering listening stations and dvd-watching stations, I found my way back to the information desk. Turns out that the building is designed by one of my favorite architects, Patricia Patkau, who I got to speak to at our Portland ACSA conference. She had emphasized experimental residential projects at her Portland lecture, and only gave a short glimpse of this project.
Whoa – it’s really great to be here, enjoying the subtlely different spaces, all unified with an incrediblely restrained palette of materials. Everywhere is a golden birch, typical for Quebec, used in heroic proportions with lovely quiet patterns. In soem areas, the spacing is larger to let in more light, other places, it is slanted like a venetian blind, but all on a strict module to give it unity and hold a rhythm. Echoes of Kahn’s Center for British Art but with richer, more complex spaces. NICE!!!!
I got spoiled staying at my friend Emily’s renovated Boston North End townhouse that reveals a similar quiet beauty. It is stunning to jump scale and find a building of such complexity that also holds together so well. And it’s great that it comes from the Pacific Northwest Patkau firm.
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