EXPO – 16 Curious Beauties: The Architecture of Montreal in 2108

By Jelena Porovic

Conscious of the difficult undertaking they are about to commit to, determined not to plunge into a nostalgic futurism, and willing to anticipate the most difficult of questions, 16 future architects, fresh out of OUPROPO (OUvoir de PROjets POtentiels, www.oupropo.umontreal.ca) masters programme at Université de Montréal, are taking you on a unique visit of Montreal in the year 2108. Models, objects, texts and images will offer “tourist stills” that will seem surprising yet critical of our future metropolis.

The students ask: What form will Montreal take in 100 years? It is almost impossible to predict a future this remote with assurance and precision, but nothing can prevent us from imagining the transformations which might take place once we are all long gone.

On the menu: densification, pollution, eco technologies and post-humanism. The densification of the city seems inevitable and capable of entailing the creation of new forms of communal living. The pollution will have certainly transformed the essential vital elements forcing us to invent new human establishments closely linked to water, earth and aerial mobility. We can only hope that the new eco technologies and the newly discovered construction materials will compensate for our urban mistakes of yesterday. And with respect to the most pressing social questions, no one can doubt that they will trigger an avalanche of architectural responses which are hard to imagine today.

Beyond solely addressing the above mentioned concerns, the inevitably strange anticipated architectural propositions will hopefully propose new ways of seeing beauty – because a livable city must be beautiful as well.

It is important to note that the students chose to show that which, in their projects, constitutes questions rather than answers about the above mentioned issues. The ensemble will be presented like an “infotourism” campaign meant to attract the general public.

Future Architects: Ramzi Bosha, Marlène Bourque, Marc Despaties, Jordi Dupuis-Carbonneau, Jean-François Dupuis, Nathalie Héroux, Yihao Lan, Sylvain Lévesque, Jacques Martin, Alexandre Massé, Mélanie Ouellet, Jelena Porovic, Éric Potvin-Rémillard, Marie-Ève Primeau, Daphnée Touloumis, Jean-Benoît Tremblay.

Dates of the expo: January 25th to March 1st.

Opening: January 24th (6-10pm)

Gallery: Monopoli, Gallerie d’Architecture

181 St. Antoine Ouest (Metro: Place d’Armes)

PS. The expo will be part of the Montreal edition of the Nuit Blanche as well as of the Montreal en Lumiere festival.

For more information visit: www.oupropo.umontreal.ca, www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=7178682886, www.galeriemonopoli.com