Vers 1899-2009
Cette école construite vers la fin du 19e siècle fut démolie dans les années 1960 afin de permettre la construction de la Place Dupuis.
Source : Le diocèse de Montréal en 1900
Montage du jour : L’école Montcalm
Read more articles by Guillaume St-Jean
2 comments
Aaaaah, what an improvement. My favourite building in all of Montreal: Place Dupuis. So pretty, so harmoniously integrated into its environment, so inviting, so chic. A true chef d’ouevre of architecture that we can all be proud of. Not.
Its only redeeming feature is the ceiling inside the Banque nationale, wildly 60s.
Having lived near Place Dupuis for a number of years, I always considered it one of the more successful superblocks (if that’s possible). In other words, for its size it is remarkable that it isn’t worse; the *entire* complex does not consist of blank concrete walls, after all.
Place Dupuis concentrates a number of services and amenities, and really, it’s not as if the street life around the complex is exactly dead. The hotel and metro access ensure people are going in and out all day. If its street-level retail is the same boring collection of pharmacy/Couch-tard/chain restaurant, at least there is access directly from the street, not a berm in sight. The mall in the interior is awful. I would have liked to see a layout that could double as an interior passageway through the complex. Right now it is not intuitive to get from one side to the other.
The architecture itself is far from the most banal example from the time period. Aside from the main towers the scale is quite comfortable for the neighborhood. I don’t think it kills the area any more than a school building would.
The shame is not that Place Dupuis is a failure, I think the problem is that for its location there could be something better.