{"id":141,"date":"2007-10-27T15:51:08","date_gmt":"2007-10-27T19:51:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacingmontreal.ca\/?p=141"},"modified":"2013-01-21T11:37:16","modified_gmt":"2013-01-21T16:37:16","slug":"public-edifices-and-places-publiques-in-todays-devoir","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/montreal\/2007\/10\/27\/public-edifices-and-places-publiques-in-todays-devoir\/","title":{"rendered":"Public edifices and places publiques in today’s Devoir"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

This weekend’s edition of Le Devoir includes a couple of interesting articles on public space in Montreal. On the front page, St\u00e9phane Baillergeon pens a feature on the state of our public architecture<\/a>. The verdict is not good: today’s public buildings are mediocre and underfinanced, beholden to a public that views any sort of significant public investment askance. Dinu Bumbaru, the policy director of Heritage Montreal, who has an especially keen understanding of Montreal’s urban landscape, se d\u00e9sole<\/i>: <\/p>\n

\u00abLes lieux de repr\u00e9sentation du pouvoir parlent beaucoup\u00bb, commente \u00e0 la place du d\u00e9funt maire le bien portant Dinu Bumbaru, directeur des programmes du groupe H\u00e9ritage Montr\u00e9al, toujours pr\u00eat \u00e0 tirer des le\u00e7ons du pass\u00e9. \u00abTout projet un tant soit peu d’envergure semble maintenant condamn\u00e9 en partant. On entend toujours les m\u00eames reproches: “\u00c7a co\u00fbte cher, pourquoi on investirait l\u00e0-dedans?” L’h\u00f4tel de ville de Montr\u00e9al et le parc du Mont-Royal repr\u00e9sentaient de grandes d\u00e9penses pour de grandes r\u00e9alisations dont on ne voudrait pas se priver aujourd’hui. Ce n’\u00e9tait pas pompeux ou pr\u00e9tentieux, c’\u00e9tait de la qualit\u00e9, fait pour durer. Aujourd’hui, il y a combien de lieux financ\u00e9s par la Ville ou l’\u00c9tat qui ne valent pas plus qu’un bungalow avec garage double? \u00c0 la limite, la capacit\u00e9 d’enraciner la civitas dans un b\u00e2timent ne semble plus tr\u00e8s forte. On dilue l’id\u00e9e de l’architecture civique au nom d’un hyper-pragmatisme exacerb\u00e9. Ce qui int\u00e9resse maintenant notre soci\u00e9t\u00e9, c’est combien \u00e7a co\u00fbte, pas ce que \u00e7a repr\u00e9sente.\u00bb <\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Urban planner G\u00e9rard Beaudet, meanwhile, accuses Montreal of “imitating the most uninspiring suburban projects of the 1970s and 80s” by housing its borough halls in anonymous commercial or industrial office space. The borough of Ahuntsic, for instance, recently rented space in the Chabanel Street garment district for its 160 employees.<\/p>\n

(Contrast this with another Devoir article on the constant self-renewal of Tokyo’s urban landscape<\/a>: “Le paysage de Tokyo n’en finit plus de se transformer. La m\u00e9gapole se nourrit de nouveaut\u00e9 dans tous les domaines, et l’immobilier ne fait pas exception.”)<\/p>\n

Another article of note<\/a> in this weekend’s paper describes a few of the proposals for reshaping Place d’Armes, which you can see until next Wednesday<\/a> at the Monopoli Gallery on St. Antoine St. If you catch this in time, you might still be able to make it to the gallery for the exhibition’s vernissage at 5:30pm, at which designers from Montreal, Berlin and Buenos Aires will be present. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This weekend’s edition of Le Devoir includes a couple of interesting articles on public space in Montreal. On the front page, St\u00e9phane Baillergeon pens a feature on the state of our public architecture. The verdict is not good: today’s public buildings are mediocre and underfinanced, beholden to a public that views any sort of significantContinue reading “Public edifices and places publiques in today’s Devoir”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5008,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,7839,3537,7842],"tags":[93,691,690,9,484,695,693,486,697,125,78,49,5,696,692,689,694],"class_list":["post-141","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-architecture","category-neighbourhoods","category-parks","category-urban-design","tag-ahuntsic","tag-berlin","tag-buenos-aires","tag-development","tag-dinu-bumbaru","tag-director-of-heritage-montreal","tag-gerard-beaudet","tag-le-devoir","tag-monopoli-gallery","tag-montreal","tag-old-montreal-vieux-montreal","tag-squares-and-parks","tag-planning","tag-policy-director","tag-stephane-baillergeon","tag-tokyo","tag-urban-planner"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nPublic edifices and places publiques in today's Devoir - Spacing Montreal<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/montreal\/2007\/10\/27\/public-edifices-and-places-publiques-in-todays-devoir\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Public edifices and places publiques in today's Devoir - Spacing Montreal\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"This weekend’s edition of Le Devoir includes a couple of interesting articles on public space in Montreal. 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