Nothing seems to get cities thinking “vision” like multiples of 25. Which is why, with 6 years to spare, the City’s Bureau du 375e anniversaire is busy planning for 2017. The anniversary is to be marked by both cultural celebration and a physical legacy: a party and presents, if you will.
But what to get the city whose resilience lies in a multitude of independent initiatives, and whose physical form often seems to be coming apart at the seams?
To answer that question, City Hall teamed up with the OCPM to host a massive brainstorming process called “carte blanche“: a series of roundtable discussions organized by key actors in civil society, the boroughs and civil servants. Spacing Montreal collaborator Joel Thibert was called upon to organize the roundtable on urbanism, and he invited me to take part in the discussion with 9 others.
The invitation from the Office of the 375th displayed a rare inkling of self-awareness from city hall: “Au-délà de la morosité ambiante, Montréal vit une relations très souvent passionelle avec ceux et celes qui y sont nés ou qui sont venus d’ailleurs pour s’y établir…” it began.
The underlying question that our group grappled with was whether to invest in a big production, or to focus on enabling creative Montrealers to take the reins for this occasion.
I think Montreal still has a tinge of lendemain de veille leftover from Expo-67, which marked Canada’s centennial the city’s 325th. Rather than advocating a structured, central production, our group suggested developing an overarching vision that could manifest throughout the city. Two ideas that came up were commissioning 1000 works of public art and planting 100,000 trees.
The representative from the Bureau du 375e anniversaire only spoke up once during our meeting: when I asked whether Montrealers could please have our street food back for the occasion, she pretty much stood up and cheered!
If ’67 was about celebrating a story-book kind of diversity while scrubbing the city clean, perhaps ’17 can make a little space for the glorious disorder – and even the dynamic discord – that so often leaves Montrealers feeling a little like foreigners rediscovering our home town.
5 comments
Maybe the city can re-install the famous missing 350 year birthday sculpture back at the bottom of place jacques cartier.
This should take 7 years of bureaucratic BS to get done.
Wolfy – I don’t know about this one! Just looking into some of the other prezzies we got on our 350th birthay in 1992. Not too bad a haul, i’d say:
• Major renovations to the Old Port (contributed by the Government of Canada)
• Opening of the Biodome (Contributed by the Government of Quebec)
• Pointe-à-Callière Museum of history and archeology
• Place Émilie-Gamelin (then called Place du 350e)
• Complexe Chaussegros-de-Léroy, a municipal building across the street from City Hall in Old Montreal, and renovation of the Champs de Mars.
• Renovation and re-opening of Marché Bonsecours
• A piece of the Berlin wall, from the city of Berlin
I am a HUGE proponent of the artist commissions plan. HUGE. Brining back street food vendors would also be in Montreal’s interest… as we have re-invented ourselves in the last 40 years or so as a festival city, this is a no-brainer.
Street food vendors would be great!
Of course, this would require granting them use of our public space for private profit; but in exchange, we get yummy food. But which public space to give them?
Instead of taking away sidewalk space, I argue we should reallocate car parking spaces for them. It could be done similarly to how terrasses are extended into parking spaces, and should of course be flush with the sidewalk.
Definitely street food, but not scraggly hot dog carts. I recently spent 3 months in Berlin where every public square, park, S-Bahn Station, the median down Unter den Linden etc. have little semi-permanent stands outside that sell food, beer etc. Think Muvbox style. They even have them on the platforms in U-Bahn and S-Bahn stations! So civilized. We could even use vacant lots until such time as they are developed.
Silo 5 museum please! No condos, no hotels that will limit activities in Vieux Port. Keep it public space.
Rebuild Place des Nations at Jean Drapeau. A spectacular 10,000 seat amphitheater could be (re)created there that would fill the gap between the 50,000+ capacity parterre and the 5,000 capacity Piknic site at l’Homme de Calder.
Commission works of art- both large and small- and sprinkle them anywhere we find room. Pine/Park and the new Bonaventure entrance are 2 spots where something magnificent could be placed.
Make Montréal a true 24hr city and get rid of last call. Arbitrary closing times make no sense and cause more problems than they solve. And while were at it, allow public consumption of alcohol. We already do this at all festivals and turn a blind eye (for the most part) on streets and in parks and the world has not come to an end! The current laws are childish and inconsistent, and 1,000’s of paper bags are being wasted!
And please, get going on metro expansion, tramway, airport link and AMT electrification.
That’s not too much to ask for is it?