Photo from the Chabanel district taken by ACRiley on Flickr.
If you’re looking to stretch your legs a bit this Saturday and expand your knowledge of one of Montreal’s lesser known quarters, why not join us for a stroll around the Sauvé/Chabanel area. I know relatively little about this area: its bordered by the massive, modernist hulks of the failed ‘Cité de la Mode’ fashion district and the northern limit of Montreal’s plex-scape, and dotted with other anomalies and curios typical of pretty much anywhere in Montreal.
In typical psychogeography style, no one will be guiding this walk, per se, so we’ll collectively determine the route we follow. This sort of group walking alone always turns out to be an interesting experience.
Where: Sauvé métro, NW corner of Berri & Sauvé east
When: Satuday, January 17, 1pm
You can confirm your presence for this event on facebook or join the Montreal Psychogeograhy group for info on upcoming walks. We’re hoping to make this the biggest psychogeography walk yet, so invite your urban-curious friends.
***
I’ve often been asked to define psychogeography or expected to explain some of its history or theory. Rather than mumbling something about the Surrealists or its origin in 18th flanêurs like Baudelaire or de Quincey, here’s a quotation I borrowed from wikipedia. Basically its about the theory of dérive, or getting a little lost:
In a dérive one or more persons during a certain period drop their usual motives for movement and action, their relations, their work and leisure activities, and let themselves be drawn by the attractions of the terrain and the encounters they find there… But the dérive includes both this letting go and its necessary contradiction: the domination of psychogeographical variations by the knowledge and calculation of their possibilities. (Knabb, Ken, ed. Situationist International Anthology, Berkley: Bureau of Public Secrets, 1995. pg 50.)
In other words, walking randomly allows us to lose our immediate control over our trajectory, while gaining a greater overall understanding of the possibilities inherent in [urban] space.
Hope to see you Saturday!
8 comments
We just had our first psychogeography walk in Windsor, with help from Shawn Micallef of spacing. It was awesome! We split into groups and were assigned a random “walking algorithm”
A couple groups put up a bunch of videos and photo in a google map:
http://tinyurl.com/9cgcbk
You guys should do the same so we can all experience new parts of Montreal!
Why “failed”? The area seems to be in operation. Were they expecting much, much bigger things in Chabanel?
Maybe “failed” isn’t the right word, but unsuccessful would be an understatement. I can’t find a date on the area’s inception, but La Cité de la mode was supposed to integrate the design, manufacture and sales of Montreal’s fashion industries in one building, close to the 40 and Marché Centrale.
It was exactly the wrong timing; textile manufacturing relocated and we’re left with these massive buildings that are very hard to use for other purposes and unpleasant for pedestrians, though I’ve never visited myself.
Dérive sounds like a method for serendipity, or alternatively, like the displacing subject(s)/agent(s) as determinant by environment as determinant. Of course the subject’s perceptions and judgments can’t be eliminated from the process, hence the contradiction mentioned. Or perhaps it’s just a balancing, making more room for objective factors. (Objective in the sense of the stuff out in the world, not in the sense of disinterestedness.)
I would say failed and unsuccessful are two very wrong words to describe the place. Maybe the building itself is unsuccessful, but the area continues to be were all the action in fashion is in Montreal. Stop by there on a Saturday and there are tonnes of people visiting and shopping in the area.
ps. There are many ‘plexes’ north of Chabanel.
Plus in the late 90’s when the city “created” the district, they could not have foreseen that federal govnt would drop textile import tariffs in 2005 that severely crippled the industry in Montreal.
Jacob, thanks for the walk.
I noticed on Saturday that the railway line which separates Chabanel from the Marché Central, linking to Park avenue would be perfect as an extension of the future very hypothetical tramway along Park Avenue. It could even serve Laval and perhaps link with the metro at Montmorency.
Tramways are more viable when they link suburbs to centres especially when they can piggyback on an existing rail line, and reach speeds of around 80kph. They did this in Montreal around 80 years ago)and now do it in Dublin and Manchester.
However, I believe that railway operation rules in North America forbid the use of light rolling stock on railway lines. Thats why AMT stock are built like tanks. What a pity
perfectly said