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Canadian Urbanism Uncovered

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10 comments

  1. À tout le moins on a conservé beaucoup d’éléments de la structure de la banque – mais ce que les images surdimensionnées sont vulgaires (tout comme la lingerie La Senza, de piètre qualité, mais passons…)

  2. Yes and no. Seems to me the key architectural details were facing Saint Catherine — the columns, the lovely balcony-like structure over the entrance, the front windows — have been obliterated. What’s been saved? A side wall?

  3. Shawn, I was trying to be at least a bit positive. I hate that thing too. So many nice buildings have been utterly destroyed.

    And what can one expect from La Senza – their lingerie and even nightclothes are utter shite.

  4. You know, in a way it’s the opposite of “facade-ism,” the practice of retaining only the fronts of buildings. I wonder what to call this? Back-ism?

  5. most of the building is pretty-well intact -except details on the front. This is certainly not facadism.

  6. Edward’s right, I was just walking past this building 20 minutes ago and I noticed that, behind the glass façade, the original pillars are still in place. The balcony is gone but I suspect that it was removed as part of an earlier renovation. The building’s original design was not very well-suited to the high-traffic retail street that Ste. Catherine Street became.

  7. There we go. I like the 1948 version. The original building feels stuffy and aloof. It would have worked better on a sidestreet than on Ste. Catherine (which is probably why it was renovated).

  8. Guillaume, that’s great. But I still prefer the original building. Chris may see it as stuffy and aloof; I like the intimacy of the small entrance, the little nook and cranny aspect of it, although I appreciate that commercial concerns needed to be met.

  9. the original front of the building still exists, it’s behind the giant glass window. u just can’t see it because a giant poster is covering it

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