“Luminous” building?
Dezeen admires a “luminous” white triplex in what it calls “Rosemont‑La Petite‑Patrie, an up‑and‑coming neighbourhood in Montreal” (up and coming to what?). The windows in this thing remind me of Douglas Adams’ description of Arthur Dent’s house having “four windows set in the front of a size and proportion which more or less exactly failed to please the eye.”
Blork 12:21 on 2021-01-05 Permalink
That’s. Just. Weird. At first I thought it was a re-skinning of an existing building, but no; it was “built on the site of an old garage, which was torn down and replaced with the four-storey building.” So that weird and random selection of windows was a deliberate choice? Whaaaat?
There are some nice areas inside, and I like when architects put emphasis on light and “luminosity,” but it looks like a cheap do-over of a haphazardly build pile of boxes.
More: it looks like a place that was designed from the inside-out, with no consideration for what it would look like from the outside.
Kate 12:25 on 2021-01-05 Permalink
I have a feeling that architects are trained to feel that classical proportions and symmetry are weak bourgeois impulses, and that it’s better to embrace deliberate ugliness as signifying a more honest and down-to-earth intention.
Blork 12:30 on 2021-01-05 Permalink
Another tragedy of our current age.
Kevin 12:43 on 2021-01-05 Permalink
The lamppost designed to cast a shadow on the second floor window is bizarre.
azrhey 12:51 on 2021-01-05 Permalink
here’s 3 words I don’t want to see together ever again : golden aluminium frames
Bill Binns 13:25 on 2021-01-05 Permalink
It’s ugly for sure but it’s ugly in a very Montreal way. It does indeed look like an old plex that has been through dozens of renos over the years. That bright white brick has been a staple of Montreal architecture since the 50s or so (also a brave choice considering the rampant graffiti in that neighborhood).
They lost me with the internal steel staircase. I just know that whole thing rings like a bell when anyone steps on it.
Tee Owe 13:43 on 2021-01-05 Permalink
Best reason I ever heard for living in an ugly building was that you don’t have to look at it out the window.
DeWolf 13:50 on 2021-01-05 Permalink
I don’t mind the architecture at all. It’s weird and but Montreal is weird. I wouldn’t want it to become one of those prim and proper cities whose building codes requires everything to look like an Ethan Allen catalogue, like Boston.
Kate 13:55 on 2021-01-05 Permalink
I could somewhat forgive this thing if it had ended up that way because it was rebuilt over an older core, but it was built on purpose like that. DeWolf, you can do graceful modern architecture that isn’t faux colonial. This is not it.
js 14:09 on 2021-01-05 Permalink
It’ll be a ghetto’d out graffiti canvas before the contractors finish putting in the plumbing and electricity.
su 14:14 on 2021-01-05 Permalink
The question I have is , how and who aporoved the permit for the construction of something that so fails to fit in with surrounding patrimoinical style.
Kate 15:16 on 2021-01-05 Permalink
su, at a guess, the lot was exempt because it had been the site of a garage, not residential.
JoeNotCharles 16:03 on 2021-01-05 Permalink
Perhaps the previous garage looked like that and they were required to keep the look when replacing it?
Kate 16:11 on 2021-01-05 Permalink
JoeNotCharles, a garage wasn’t likely to be 3 storeys high. I had a quick shufti for the address to see what Streetview saw there previously, but can’t find it.
su 17:11 on 2021-01-05 Permalink
Even it’s height makes it totally incongruent with what appear to be surrounding plexuses. Or perhaps incongruence is a new trend in residential urban development these days.
Kate 20:37 on 2021-01-05 Permalink
Congruence is so bourgeois.
CE 20:51 on 2021-01-05 Permalink
I’ve seen this building, it looks worse in person. I feel bad for the neighbours.
Max 02:38 on 2021-01-06 Permalink
I’m kinda digging it. It’s not like you see golden aluminium window frames every day.