Details and maps of the extensive roadwork expected this weekend.
Updates from July, 2020 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
-
Kate
-
Kate
Death, taxes and the stadium roof: only one firm has made a bid to fix it, this time around. It’s clear that very few construction firms want to get entangled in the perennial shitshow that is the roof of the Olympic stadium.
Douglas
One of the worst real estate deals in North America. Is there anything worst than this building?
Kate
The stadium is a stunning thing, Douglas. Go stand right next to it sometime. It will do things to you.
I admit, it was a completely impractical design with a roof concept based on an engineering solution that didn’t exist yet, and probably still doesn’t, because that open top and tower is one of a kind and somebody will have to reinvent the wheel to make it work.
But if Drapeau had settled for something like the Maurice Richard arena writ large, we’d have a dull, hideous scar on that part of the city. Instead, we have that mad brutalist folly, and I love it.
Max
I fear you’re in the minority, Kate. Most of us Montrealers would be glad to see the corpse of Roger what’s-his-face swaying off the yard-arm of the Olympic tower. It’s an embarrassment to architecture, what he did. That ignorant puke did to our fair city much wrong. Rot in hell, M. Taillbert.
Dhomas
I like the Olympic stadium. There, I said it.
As impractical as it may be, it is a sight to behold. And since they renovated it for the new tenants, it looks even better with its new floor to ceiling windows.Faiz imam
I’ll put myself on the record too, The Olympic Stadium is one of the most beautiful structures in the city.
EmilyG
I like the Olympic Stadium.
It’s a nice design and I like how it can be seen from many places.dwgs
It’s pretty to look at and a complete failure in terms of what it is supposed to actually do.
Kevin
It’s our monument to corruption, and as long as it exists reminds us that our governments continue to get fleeced (and are fleecing us).
JaneyB
I also love the…entity. It’s a stunning piece of architecture that is wildly impractical and brazenly unfixable. It and its mad, mad history and the way it somehow continues to generate new improbabilities and outrageousness crystallize a lot of what could be called ‘Montreal-ness’, writ small. I could swear it is alive. Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia crawls toward completion like a glacier but the Big O, complete as a stadium aspires to express its true nature as…something else.
Ian
There is something exciting and frivolous about it, and its sheer immensity is pretty breathtaking. It also photographs well.
That said it was a ludicrous waste of money and a bit of a white elephant. When I first came to Montreal in the 80s when there was still an extra tax on cigarettes to help pay off the big O, my local guide pointed toward it and said “You see that building that looks like a toilet? That’s the Olympic Stadium. We call it the toilet bowl because so much money was flushed down it”.
Kate
Ian, if this article from 2005 is correct, the Quebec government has never stopped collecting the cigarette tax. Have you ever known a government to end a revenue source when they’ve become accustomed to it? Income tax was only supposed to help finance World War I…
DeWolf
I’m with Kate. It’s a spectacular building. And for all its faults, it will outlive every last taxpayer who grumbles about how much it cost.
Kevin
@Dewolf
Only because we keep spending $30 million each year on maintenance.GC
I also like the look of it. However, it sure would be nice if we could get a proper roof on it that only needs normal upkeep for the next forty years or whatever. And then maybe the stadium part of the stadium could get more use?
Francesco
More “Organic Modernist” than Brutalist. Roger Tailliberts got quite a bit of influence from Swiss architect and futurist HR Giger
Francesco
Max, I think you are in the minority. The design itself is a masterpiece and from all angles still looks avant-garde today. There is no argument that it’s a symbol of corruption and greed and narcissism, that is one big waste, and it is inherently a terrible civic structure with myriad problems. It was dank and uninviting even when new, and as a venue it was already outdated when it opened. Virtually every “multipurpose stadium” built from the mid-60s to the mid-80s has been decommissioned or demolished; Stade Olympique and SkyDome are among the exceptions, but only the Big O deserves to be left standing because of its architectural beauty. Stating that it is an “embarrassment to architecture” couldn’t be further from reality.
-
Kate
The Montreal casino is set to reopen only in August, with restrictions. Loto‑Quebec has laid off a lot of workers.
The Time Out food hall will reopen next week with distancing limits, plexiglas partitions and everything set to make it an unpleasant experience instead of the relaxed convivial open space it was designed to be.
The Grande Bibliothèque will reopen but not as a place to linger or browse. As with the city libraries, you’ll need to reserve an item in advance and pick it up at a counter. Returned items will be put in quarantine for three days.
DeWolf
Maybe it’s just me but I kind of like the plexiglass partitions? I’ve gone out twice since restaurants/bars reopened, both times to have a beer and snack on a terrasse. In both cases there were attractive wood-framed plexiglass barriers between tables that made the experience feel much calmer and more intimate than it normally would. It’s like having your own private booth.
Blork
I agree with DeWolf, but I’m a cranky old man so that should come as no surprise. One of the things that has always bothered me about the popular restaurants in town (aside from the unbearable noise limits) is the snug fit of the tables. How many times have I sat at a line of tables where the stranger on my left and the stranger on my right are closer to me than my companion on the other side of the table?
To be fair, most of the time it only bugs me for a couple of minutes and then I tend to forget about it. Partly because when both you and your date are bellowing at the top of your lungs just to hear each other you tend to tune out the bellowings of your neighbours.
-
Kate
The city’s state of emergency was renewed Wednesday for another five-day stretch.
-
Kate
The annual musical chairs of Moving Day have left at least 173 households without a new address. Some tenants, with nowhere to go, have refused to be evicted.
MarcG 11:36 on 2020-07-03 Permalink
Some of it started last night. There are tons of long-ass noisy trucks being routed from the highway down my street today.