calendario eventi  :: 

X

19/10/2004

Two exhibitions

Canadian Centre for Architecture CCA, Montreal

In the Main Galleries from 20 October 2004 to 11 September 2005

The 60s: Montréal Thinks Big
why the city was considered the prototype of the metropolis of tomorrow
National Archives of Canada, Ottawa
The Montreal Gazette

During the 1960s, the massive scale of the changes that transformed Montréal made it an archetype of the great metropolises of the Western world. As host of Expo 67, Montréal asserted itself on the international scene as a city of the future. Between 20 October 2004 and 11 September 2005, the CCA’s exhibition The 60s: Montréal Thinks Big will illustrate the processes that brought about these spectacular changes that were recognized all over the world.

The 60s: Montréal Thinks Big is the third exhibition presented by the CCA to draw public attention to formative periods in the history of this city. The first was Opening the Gates of Eighteenth-Century Montréal, mounted in 1992, and the second was Montréal Metropolis, 1880 – 1930, mounted in 1998. These projects collectively represent the CCA's continuing commitment to the larger theme of the urban phenomenon – how cities have been imagined and realized over time.

According to Phyllis Lambert, Founding Director and Chair of the Board of Trustees of the CCA, "The exhibition The Sixties: Montréal Thinks Big will highlight the striking capacity for sweeping change shown by the city in the 1960s. Its growth during this period was characterized by such large-scale projects as Expo 67, Place Bonaventure, and the Métro, all of which attracted a great deal of attention internationally. The exhibition will also call attention to the stand Montréalers took in the face of the massive demolitions these projects entailed, and consciousness raising of the need for social renewal, evident in citizens' action in the neighbourhood of Milton-Park and, on the part of the city, in regard to the Habitations Jeanne-Mance."

From gallery to gallery, the exhibition’s original models, photographs, press documents, and statements from influential figures, combined with film, video, and advertising from the period, describe – through the urban projects that were conceived as well as the architecture that gave them material form – the sweeping changes the city underwent and the excitement they generated.

For Québec as for the rest of Canada, the 1960s were years of major growth, setting the stage for equally significant development of the urban landscape. Montréal was the international standard-bearer for this growth. Many vast projects, some radically innovative, were undertaken. Skyscrapers and large complexes synonymous with economic power were designed and built, bringing with them the need for new infrastructures: superhighways, bridges, tunnels, and express lanes, as well as a subway system that, in the long term, made possible the development of a unique network of underground shopping galleries.

“Part of the originality of The 60s: Montréal Thinks Big will lie in its contribution to the broad history of architecture and thinking about the city,” notes André Lortie, curator and designer of the exhibition. “If Montréal was unusual among cities in the West because of the massive scale of the changes that transformed its skyline, at the same time, it is archetypal of such phenomena in North America, South America, and Europe.” Exhibition visitors will thus be made aware of the network of international exchange of ideas, and Montréal’s place within it during the period when Canada’s largest city was opening its horizons to the world.

Born in Montréal, André Lortie is an architect and teaches at the École d’architecture de Rouen, and also in the “Ville et environnement” doctoral program (Université de Paris-VIII). His research focuses on great cities of the Western world, their systems, constructions, and transformational dynamics, as well as on major architectural and urban-planning figures, and the many different angles from which it is possible to approach metropolitan phenomena and their effect on the architecture of cities. His research has resulted in several exhibitions and publications, notably at the Pavillon de l’Arsenal in Paris.

The exhibition is accompanied by a 208-page publication lavishly illustrated with colour and black-and-white images. This book, edited by André Lortie and published jointly by the CCA and Douglas & McIntyre Publishing Group, will be available at the CCA’s Bookstore at a cost of $55. It will also be distributed to other bookstores in Canada and abroad.

Parallel to the main exhibition, Site Specific_Montréal 04: Photographs by Olivo Barbieri will be presented in the CCA’s Octagonal Gallery. This exhibition comprises photographs commissioned by the CCA during the Summer of 2004, taken by helicopter, to show major projects of the city today.

The 60s: Montréal Thinks Big originated as part of a collaboration among seven museums across Canada, with the aim of bringing to light Canada's significant role in advancing innovative social and cultural agendas during the pivotal decade of the 1960s. Under the aegis of this larger project on the 1960s, between Fall 2003 and Winter 2006 exhibitions and public programs are also being launched by the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, McCord Museum of Canadian History, Vancouver Art Gallery, National Gallery of Canada, Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography, and Canadian Museum of Civilization.

The Canadian Centre for Architecture is an international research centre and museum founded on the conviction that architecture is a public concern. Based on its extensive collections, CCA is a leading voice in advancing knowledge, promoting public understanding, and widening thought and debate on the art of architecture, its history, theory, practice, and role in society today.

Image: Archives nationales du Canada, Ottawa
The Montreal Gazett
_________

Site Specific_Montreal04: 16 Photographs by Olivo Barbieri
20 October 2004 to 13 February 2005
Parallel to the main exhibition, this exhibition is presented in the CCA's Octagonal Gallery. This exhibition comprises photographs commissioned by the CCA during the Summer of 2004, taken by helicopter, to show major projects of the city today.

Olivo Barbieri
Site Specific_Montreal 04

You glue the doors into the walls next. You glue the walls into the foundation. You tweezer together the tiny bits of each chimney and let the glue dry while you build the roof. You hang the tiny gutters. Every detail exact. You set the tiny dormers. Hang the shutters. Frame the porch. Seed the lawn. Plant the trees. – Chuck Palahniuk, Lullaby: A Novel

I took my first aerial photo as a child, the first time I flew in a light plane. For many years after that, however, both airplanes and photos were infrequent. I took it with a twin-lens reflex camera, which I had to turn upside down in order to reach the airplane window. There were several black-and-white photos, and I still remember the amazement of the neighbourhood photographer who developed them when he saw the picture of the town square. In those days, it was normal to fly over historic city centres at low altitude, though I believe that taking pictures was forbidden. Never has there been so great a concern to talk about cities as in the past twenty years. We have been submerged obsessively in a flood of ideas and commentary from Europe, North America, Japan and, now, almost the whole of Asia. Since September 11, however, anything expressed before that time seems to have lost clarity. A veil of uncertainty has fallen between our thoughts and the world. With the Site Specific project, I look beyond this veil. The first constraint of representation is viewpoint; changing it opens a new drawer full of meanings. Adopting a fluid position has limited the risk of obligatory and predictable views. The world as a temporary site-specific installation, structures and infrastructures, the foundation of our sense of belonging and our identity, seen from afar, as a great scale model: the city as an avatar of itself. Site Specific is a work in progress that involves several regions of the planet.

Canadian Centre for Architecture, 1920 rue Baile, Montréal

stampa

permanent link