Le vieux magasin d’import-export Swatow, le nouveau complexe commercial Swatow. Photo prise le 9 septembre 2007. Lisez l’article par Christopher DeWolf paru sur Spacing cette fin de semaine passée (en anglais).
Photo du jour : de l’ancien au nouveau Chinatown
By Cédric Sam
Read more articles by Cédric Sam
4 comments
this development is disappointing. I wish it could be a more responsive design, accommodating the bustle that is china town. This abomination is sadly a generic solution, irrelevant to chinatown. development alone is not enough; it must include design and a responsible architecture.
I actually see it as a good thing in general, as it would bring in new money to Chinatown. I however hope that it would not become a white elephant, like perhaps the commercial center housing Ruby Rouge (and originally, the original (!) Kam Fung, before its demise) has become, before seeing some sort of maturation process in the past few years. In any case, I am not convinced that Chinatown is such a center of attraction for the Chinese community in Montreal – but I may be wrong, and I hope that I am.
I have to agree with jt comment, Chinatown does not need another interiorized mall. What is so charming about Chinatown to me (and probably all the tourists that are oddly fascinated by it) is that everything happens out in the open. Once it goes off the sidewalks, it might as well be anywhere.
Architecturally, it’s disappointing, but this isn’t a final rendering and the city has asked for some changes so that it will better integrate onto St. Laurent.
But I disagree with Michelle that Chinatown doesn’t need another mall. In a setting like this, a mall is a natural overflow of the activity on the street. Chinatown is hemmed in on every single side and its street activity has absolutely nowhere to go. There are no new streets for it to expand into, so they only way to keep it bustling is to densify, which means stacking retail onto second, third and fourth floors.
Already, most of Chinatown’s retail and community functions doesn’t actually happen on the street. There are supermarkets tucked into basements, cafés, restaurants and hair salons on second floors, family surname associations on third floors, etc. This mall would be a natural extension of that trend. Also, if you look closely its details, it will contain a floor or two of small boutique spaces. What that means, as far as I can tell, is that they’ll be the kind of tiny, independently-owned shops you see in Pacific Mall in Toronto, Parker Place in Vancouver or any of the “fashion malls” in Mongkok, Hong Kong.