For a very long time I have felt that the edifice godin is the single-most over-rated piece of architecture in Montreal, and the hotel now attached to it is one of the low points in Montreal’s post 20th century architecture.
There are so many genuine masterpieces in this city, I just don’t get the appeal of this stucco blob.
Je ne trouve pas la nouvelle partie de l’hotel super réussi, non plus.
Bel éclairage dans la première photo, en passant!
I don’t think the Godin hotel is either under or over rated. Many different developers over a period of 20+ years tried to save the building and finally someone managed to pull their act together for long enough to see the project through. This, maybe more than the building itself, is why it appeals to people.
That the hotel is situated between one of Canada’s most popular neighbourhoods (Plateau Montreal) and Montreal’s downtown core doesn’t hurt either.
The building is pretty one and well-worth the preservation and reuse. That said, the addition is worse than awful. It is a cross between a suburban big box store and an airport hangar. It speaks poorly to Sherbrooke street and is simply uninviting from the perspective of the pedestrian. I just don’t get it.
I have to agree with Edward – while I don’t object to Modernist simplicity per se, the addition has zilch to do with the nice older building that the project thankfully saved (praise for that fact has nothing to do with the merits of the addition, if any.) The addition doesn’t pick up any of the vernacular of the older part, let alone its larger context of Sherbrooke. It’s just slapped on, and looks like it would probably have been designed that way no matter what the older part looks like. It’s essentially a big FU to the neighbourhood – the problem with the conception and implementation of a lot of modernist & post-modernist design.
That addition is very disappointing. It’s hard to pinpoint where it fails, but there’s a strong sense of detachment between the two buildings. The scale is slightly different and the double facade looks busy and out of place. A quality glass building could have worked better in simplicity. But this addition is not elegant simplicity.
Either do an elegantly simply addition connected through scale, colour, materials, or a common motif, or go bold like Libeskind and have a “crystal addition”.
I think it’s Dan Hanganu who did the addition? Same architect as HEC Montreal and the new wing of the archeological museum in Old Montreal? If so, I must say I’m not a particular big fan of his work.
Oh and if you can, try and take a closer look at the twisted metal grate-thing atop the old building, curled around the column. I think it’s an atrocious piece of work: really ugly.
Je suis bien contente de voir que la bâtisse n’a pas été détruite. Même en ruine, je trouvais ses balcons et détails très jolis.
Dites, c’est pas là que Dédé (avant la formation du groupe Les Colocs) avait élu domicile quelques temps avec d’autres locataires sur divers étages?
Whether you like the stuccoed blob-ness of the Godin building or not, it is really the only Art Nouveau influenced building in Montreal still in existence. (If there is another, let me know, I’d love to go see it)
Dan Hanganu did design the new hotel addition (as well as the HEC, the UQAM design building, the McGill Law Library and the Pointe-À-Callières museum). His love of inexpensive materials often betrays him — the perforated metal cladding of the escape stairs at the Godin are quite rusty already.
Thank you, Michelle, and for confirming that the old building was indeed Art Nouveau-influenced. It always struck me so.
The only other example of local Art Nouveau that I can think of, and you would well know, is of course the Victoria Square metro edicule by Hector Guimard.
I think the worst part about the addition is at the south end of the building where there is an empty blank wall (for the building in the next lot to connect to it). Why they left is bare with white stucco rather than build onto it I’ll never understand!
There’s another Godin building also inspired by Art Nouveau and also constructed out of reinforced concrete, on St-Denis, just in dreadful condition, sigh. And if you look at it in bird’s eye view on live.maps.com, for example, you see that it’s quite deep, and the apartments have windows facing each other over very narrow slits.
Hanganu did the HEC? That Centre Pompidou wannabe on Côte-Ste.-Catherine across from the hospital?
Il subsiste un autre bâtiment de Joseph-Arthur Godin sur une petite rue dont j’ai oublié le nom, juste au sud de Ste-Catherine entre St-Denis et Sanguinet. C’est un immeuble d’appartements et l’influence de l’Art nouveau y est très discrète.
Il est sur la rue Christin.
I find the addition works quite well! We need more modernist building in Montreal.
N’y avait-il pas une église, située juste à côté, à l’Ouest de la maison Godin? Wesleyan Church?
17 comments
For a very long time I have felt that the edifice godin is the single-most over-rated piece of architecture in Montreal, and the hotel now attached to it is one of the low points in Montreal’s post 20th century architecture.
There are so many genuine masterpieces in this city, I just don’t get the appeal of this stucco blob.
Je ne trouve pas la nouvelle partie de l’hotel super réussi, non plus.
Bel éclairage dans la première photo, en passant!
I don’t think the Godin hotel is either under or over rated. Many different developers over a period of 20+ years tried to save the building and finally someone managed to pull their act together for long enough to see the project through. This, maybe more than the building itself, is why it appeals to people.
That the hotel is situated between one of Canada’s most popular neighbourhoods (Plateau Montreal) and Montreal’s downtown core doesn’t hurt either.
The building is pretty one and well-worth the preservation and reuse. That said, the addition is worse than awful. It is a cross between a suburban big box store and an airport hangar. It speaks poorly to Sherbrooke street and is simply uninviting from the perspective of the pedestrian. I just don’t get it.
I have to agree with Edward – while I don’t object to Modernist simplicity per se, the addition has zilch to do with the nice older building that the project thankfully saved (praise for that fact has nothing to do with the merits of the addition, if any.) The addition doesn’t pick up any of the vernacular of the older part, let alone its larger context of Sherbrooke. It’s just slapped on, and looks like it would probably have been designed that way no matter what the older part looks like. It’s essentially a big FU to the neighbourhood – the problem with the conception and implementation of a lot of modernist & post-modernist design.
That addition is very disappointing. It’s hard to pinpoint where it fails, but there’s a strong sense of detachment between the two buildings. The scale is slightly different and the double facade looks busy and out of place. A quality glass building could have worked better in simplicity. But this addition is not elegant simplicity.
Either do an elegantly simply addition connected through scale, colour, materials, or a common motif, or go bold like Libeskind and have a “crystal addition”.
I think it’s Dan Hanganu who did the addition? Same architect as HEC Montreal and the new wing of the archeological museum in Old Montreal? If so, I must say I’m not a particular big fan of his work.
Oh and if you can, try and take a closer look at the twisted metal grate-thing atop the old building, curled around the column. I think it’s an atrocious piece of work: really ugly.
Je suis bien contente de voir que la bâtisse n’a pas été détruite. Même en ruine, je trouvais ses balcons et détails très jolis.
Dites, c’est pas là que Dédé (avant la formation du groupe Les Colocs) avait élu domicile quelques temps avec d’autres locataires sur divers étages?
Whether you like the stuccoed blob-ness of the Godin building or not, it is really the only Art Nouveau influenced building in Montreal still in existence. (If there is another, let me know, I’d love to go see it)
Dan Hanganu did design the new hotel addition (as well as the HEC, the UQAM design building, the McGill Law Library and the Pointe-À-Callières museum). His love of inexpensive materials often betrays him — the perforated metal cladding of the escape stairs at the Godin are quite rusty already.
Thank you, Michelle, and for confirming that the old building was indeed Art Nouveau-influenced. It always struck me so.
The only other example of local Art Nouveau that I can think of, and you would well know, is of course the Victoria Square metro edicule by Hector Guimard.
I think the worst part about the addition is at the south end of the building where there is an empty blank wall (for the building in the next lot to connect to it). Why they left is bare with white stucco rather than build onto it I’ll never understand!
There’s another Godin building also inspired by Art Nouveau and also constructed out of reinforced concrete, on St-Denis, just in dreadful condition, sigh. And if you look at it in bird’s eye view on live.maps.com, for example, you see that it’s quite deep, and the apartments have windows facing each other over very narrow slits.
From the city’s patrimoine website – http://patrimoine.ville.montreal.qc.ca/inventaire/fiche_zone.php?affichage=fiche&civique=&voie=179&id=1147 (under the section 1852-1918, immeuble de rapport). Here’s what they say about it:
1710-1714 rue Saint-Denis (Appartements Saint-Jacques)
Construit entre 1914 et 1916 selon les plans de l’architecte Joseph-Arthur Godin, cet immeuble de rapport est l’un des premiers immeubles résidentiels montréalais à structure de béton armé. Son architecture est d’inspiration Art nouveau. Il comprend oriels et balcons, geste audacieux pour l’époque.
©Ville de Montréal, 2007
Hanganu did the HEC? That Centre Pompidou wannabe on Côte-Ste.-Catherine across from the hospital?
Il subsiste un autre bâtiment de Joseph-Arthur Godin sur une petite rue dont j’ai oublié le nom, juste au sud de Ste-Catherine entre St-Denis et Sanguinet. C’est un immeuble d’appartements et l’influence de l’Art nouveau y est très discrète.
Il est sur la rue Christin.
I find the addition works quite well! We need more modernist building in Montreal.
N’y avait-il pas une église, située juste à côté, à l’Ouest de la maison Godin? Wesleyan Church?
Philippe