Ottawa reveals its Old Montreal building
The federal government has revealed a drawing of the court building it’s constructing between Notre‑Dame and St‑Jacques in Old Montreal. It’s not awful, but little effort has been made to harmonize with the area. No worse, I suppose, than the Édifice Chaussegros‑de‑Léry at the corner of Gosford.
Ephraim 14:07 on 2024-05-19 Permalink
We continue to allow ugly to be the defining attribute to new buildings. We need to do better. We need to think like Singapore
maggie rose 17:17 on 2024-05-19 Permalink
From a certain angle, it looks like jail bars. Charming.
Ian 17:55 on 2024-05-19 Permalink
At least it’s not a whimsical swoopy hunk of wow like Palais des Congrès …l wish we still built stuff like the Aldred Building.
Blork 20:53 on 2024-05-19 Permalink
I’d say the Chaussegros-de-Léry is much worse. What an incoherent mess that is. The fenestration is chaotic and for no apparent reason.
The court building is at least coherent and symmetrical (maybe too symmetrical), which is to say restrained. I feel like it’s designed to blend in, or even vanish, which is sort of what I was hoping for.
DeWolf 09:55 on 2024-05-20 Permalink
I think Blork is right on the money here: it’s designed to fade into the background. Which isn’t a bad thing in the location. Doing something flashy would be a needless distraction when you have the Aldred next door and lots of other landmarks nearby, and doing something neo-historicist would probably result in something that looks like it belongs in Disneyland.
The Notre-Dame façade is actually quite nice. A bit of a throwback to the international style of the 1960s. It certainly looks like a courthouse. The St-Jacques side is unremarkable.
Whether this is successful or not really comes down to the quality of the materials. Apparently it will be clad in greystone so that’s good.
Blork 10:56 on 2024-05-20 Permalink
There’s also the fact that it’s a federal building right in the middle of an historical district in Montreal. If the design were ostentatious it would be seen by some as a provocation and that’s the last thing we need right now.
Kate 13:44 on 2024-05-20 Permalink
Anyone know why they chose Old Montreal? Did they want it to be near the other courts in the area? Or was it just that the federal government happened to own a convenient plot of land there?
Ephraim 15:08 on 2024-05-20 Permalink
Modern architecture is aimed at using materials and construction in new ways. We can now curve windows, curve walls, we can make green areas where none have existed before. We can design buildings that are energy efficient and beautiful… but in Montreal we are still going for butt ugly. It reminds me of the fiasco of the mechanical traffic lights… we are the world’s centre for mechanical lights when the world want’s intelligent connected light systems.
Blork 19:35 on 2024-05-20 Permalink
Kate, I don’t know this, but I suspect it’s very useful for a federal court building to be in close proximity to other court buildings. I imagine there is a large overlap in terms of lawyers and other legal types inhabiting various courts on a daily basis and this avoids the problem of being constantly stuck in traffic if you’re bopping back and forth between buildings all day.
CE 22:19 on 2024-05-20 Permalink
Where is the federal government’s current court house in Montreal?
H. John 02:54 on 2024-05-21 Permalink
@CE The four courts concerned (Federal Court, Federal Court of Appeal, Court Martial Appeal Court of Canada, and the Tax Court of Canada) currently rent space at 30 rue McGill.
Margaret 08:21 on 2024-05-21 Permalink
I hope they don’t cover over the wall rooster.
CE 08:24 on 2024-05-21 Permalink
Thanks H. John. I’ve gone by that building hundreds of times and never really realized what it was for. The design and materials of the building on McGill was more or less what I was expecting for the new one on Notre-Dame/St-Jacques.
CE 08:28 on 2024-05-21 Permalink
Considering the rooster mural is on the party wall of the building next to the new one, it will definitely be built over. Any mural painted in an empty lot always has to be seen as temporary (such as the BIRDO rooster that is about to be covered by the new holocaust museum).