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Habitat
Montreal, QC - jeeff - Tuesday, June 5th, 2007 : goo
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like last year i had one day off after the mutek festival to see a bit of montreal. i decided to see moshe safdie's habitat '67 building, one of the jewels of expo 67. it was originally conceived as an affordable housing solution, but now the units are packaged as elite condos. it is centrally located in the middle of nowhere (on Jetée MacKay, Av. Pierre-Dupuy). as far as i can tell, despite being well connected by roads and a bike path, there is no pedestrian link to downtown. i had to walk through the mud under an expressway, the wrong way along the bike path, and across a casino parking lot to get there. that is ridiculous.
habitat '67
the skyline from the Parc de la Cité-du-Havre at the end of the jetée.
a triptych of the Jacques Cartier bridge.
the lovely Parc de la Cité-du-Havre. there was not a single other person in it while i was there.
and a couple more from the area:
This article has been viewed 3601 times in the last 34 months
Chiamattt: 6th Jun 2007 - 00:42 GMT
I seem to remember being inside one of the units at Habitat67. I think an aunt or some sort of distant relative I don't see anymore lived there. They are cool. I wonder why more places like that aren't built?
jeeff: 6th Jun 2007 - 04:59 GMT
lucky you. there are lots of 'no trespassing' signs now, so i didn't get too close. i agree tho, i wonder why this type of design hasn't been pursued. you get high density without the stifling sameness and alienating anonymity (!) of traditional apartment buildings. computer modelling makes this kind of thing infinitely easier since 1967, and advances in materials/green technology mean that you wouldn't be limited to concrete boxes.
CE: 6th Jun 2007 - 05:17 GMT
The design proved too expensive to be produced on a mass scale and would therefore fail in its goal to make affordable housing. It takes a lot of material to make each one of those boxes.
jeeff: sure, with 1967 technology.
celeste: 14th Jul 2007 - 01:34 GMT
annnnd it's super expensive to heat them in winter. if i remember right the architecht is from israel (i think jerusalem) and there's another one there, and one in barcelona maybe? something like that.
they work better in warm places.
KTMTL: 24th Jan 2008 - 17:27 GMT
The architect, Moshe Safdie, was born in Israel but he grew up in Montreal. Habitat 67 was based his master's thesis at McGil..
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