AC2 by Architecture | Concordia

Thank you to Concordia Council on Student Life (CCSL); Concordia Faculty of Fine Arts; Concordia Fine Arts Student Alliance; Concordia University Alumni Association; Concordia Department of Art History; Daniel SĂ enz from CUJAH; Michael, Nima and everyone at the Topological Media Lab at Concordia University; Braden Scott; our ever generous Faculty Advisor Dr. Cynthia Hammond; Harley Smart and Takeshi Mukai at Anteism; Michael Ryan for design support; and of course all of our contributors, participants and speakers this year.

All efforts have been made to contact the owners of the images printed in this journal. If your are the copyright holder of images that we were not able to secure permission for, please contact architecture. concordia@gmail.com for further inquires.

Author

Light at the Museum: Skylights & Architecture in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City

The definition of skylight is twofold. Most commonly, it is known as a light emitting tstructure of windows that composes all or a portion of a structure’s roof. On the other hand, skylight is the scattered light that falls away when light travels through the atmosphere, forming the blue light of the earth’s sky. Skylight and sunlight combined make daylight. To maximize the viewer’s experience with the work, museum technicians rise to the challenge of harnessing natural light, in tandem with artificial light sources, to pull out the hues particular to the works contained within a space.1 Lighting is crucial to the viewing experience, but the apparatuses that enable this privileged viewership are kept invisible. Circumstances at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City — the diversity in medium of the works, the expanse of time covered by the collection, and the fact that the museum is composed of multiple structures built at different points in history according to the design of several architects — render the lighting of works challenging. Unpacking the history of two western pavilions of the Met, the Charles Engelman court and the Robert Lehman collection, combined with a phenomenological recalling of my own experience within the architecture of these skylights renders the functionality of these structures visible.

The central focus of the Charles Engelman court is the facade of the Branch Bank of the United States by architect Martin F. Thompson (fig. 1). Completed in 1824, the facade is exemplary of mid-eighteenthcentury English Palladian tradition. The building was located between Nassau and William streets until 1915 when the building was demolished. However, the facade was salvaged and was incorporated as the entrance to the American Wing, designed by architect Grosvenor Attenbury in 1924. Originally a standalone building in Central Park, northwest of the museum, the facade, along with the American Wing, was subsumed into the Charles Engelman court in the 1970s by Irish architect Kevin Roche of Kevin Roche John Dinkledoo and Associates.2 Roche was tasked with creating a cohesive design for the entire western elevation - emblematic of that design is the expanse of slanted glass roofs over the west wing of the museum. On the ground, swarming visitors orbit around highlights of the museum’s collection. Classical sculptures establish the legacy, longevity, and international significance of the Met’s collection. Two beaux-arts lampposts designed by Richard Morris Hunt — the architect of the first major addition to the Met — flank the path to the steps of the bank facade, a pilgrimage rooted in New York’s urban history. Succumbing to the pull of the pavilion cafe, visitors gravitate languidly to the dining area, where I speculate the prices are sophisticatedly high. Through the skylight, natural light soaks the space, casting a shifting, structured grid over the entire court (fig. 2). The openness of the space is contained by this spectral structure, demonstrating the limitation of the vastness of the pavilion. The space is open, but restrained. The Robert Lehman collection is located on the first floor, at the western extremity of the museum, protruding into Central Park. The wing is an end game of a hunt beginning in the sixties with the Met’s 4

Laura Josephine O’Brien

Matthew Kroger-Diamond

heated pursuit of Robert Lehman’s art collection, culminating in the construction of a separate wing to house his collection in 1975.3 The collection contains objects spanning seven hundred years of European art. Fourteen rooms showcase paintings, drawings, glass, sculptures and textiles, organized around the central axis of the skylit atrium. Opposite from the Charles Engel pavillion, the skylight is made up of cross-hatched, overlapping roofing that allows minimal skylight into the gallery. The herringbone pattern of the ceilings in the Robert Lehman collection lets in a diffused light that illuminates the hall adequately for visitors but disperses the light, reducing harm to the artworks, allowing them to be lit by warm artificial light sources. Skylights are an under-appreciated aspect of museum architecture, an apparatus crucial to the viewing experience that visitors take for granted. By simply looking towards the sky, these structures can be admired on their own, emancipated from the objects that they irradiate, as structures that are beautiful, functional and illuminated. 1. Christopher McGlinchey, “Colour and Light in the Museum Environment,” The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 51, no. 3 (1993-1994): 44. 2. Morrison H. Hecksher, “The American Wing Pavillions at the Metropolitan Museum of Art,” Winterthur Portfolio 46, no. 2/3 (2012): 69. 3. Hecksher, “American Wing,” 67.

Laura Josephine O’Brien

Matthew Kroger-Diamond

Author

Ascending Towards The Heavens : Musings on Alien Rock 1, Edinburgh & The Conversion of The Church

Rock climbing gyms are strange creatures. Like hermit crabs donning the shells of other critters, the majority of these sports centres are forced to carve out homes in spaces not made for them. This is because would-be climbing entrepreneurs have trouble convincing investors to lend them enough money to construct new facilities that, due to their necessarily large scale and specific safety requirements (not to mention their steep insurance fees), are quite costly to build from scratch. It’s much easier for fledgling climbing businesses to renovate spaces that already exist. In Montréal, we are most likely to find rock gyms squatting in old industrial spaces like immense warehouses (Horizon Roc) or storage garages (Shakti, Bloc Shop.)1 The location of these spaces in commercial non-neighbourhoods, paired with the “hardcore” nature of the sport, has undoubtedly contributed to the image of the urban climber as bad boy and outskirt rugrat.2 Even when rock gyms are lucky enough to occupy constructions that were designed for climbing purposes, they still court the industrial aesthetic — a look which undoubtedly suits the edgy vibe their clientele goes for. This is the case for Allez Up, which, after leaving its home of sixteen years in the Nordelec buildings in Pointe-Saint-Charles (now slated for condos), settled down the road in an impressive new complex that is, nevertheless, firmly anchored in the historic Redpath Silos (graffiti and all.) Although the situation is not entirely different in the United Kingdom — here, too, you find a fair share of classic storage garage gyms and even a facility housed in a nineteenth-century water pump station (The Castle, London) — an entirely different type of building is also avidly pursued by home-seeking climbers: the disused church.

Perhaps this is where I should drop a disclaimer that I am myself a rock climber and even worked in a gym for a few years. For these reasons, I am not only familiar with this type of re-cycled architecture, but am always on the lookout for it, not just for scholarly reasons, but precisely to get away from my books — something I have failed to do this time around! My fascination with the church as rock gym began with my arrival in a new town and my ritual hunt for a climbing centre. Climbing isn’t nearly as popular in the UK as it is at home in Canada, and I had long ago made my peace with the fact that I wouldn’t find anything in Scotland comparable to my Montréal gym. But Edinburgh is supposedly the Scottish capital of climbing—as it is the self-professed “capital” of so many things — so I had some hope. I rapidly found out that the place to climb in Edinburgh was a gym duo called Alien Rock 1 and 2: the first for long routes (seven meters and up), the second for bouldering (low walls, no ropes). Alien 2 is your typical boulder gym camping out in a middle of nowhere commercial depot, which makes evening comings and goings a little eerie, but Alien 1 has set up shop in a church. Neither of the gyms are in Edinburgh proper, they are located in Leith and Newhaven respectively. To get to there, you must bike or take a painfully slow bus. So bike I did. I checked out Alien 1 on an uncharacteristically sunny day. Having looked it up online, I knew the gym would be in a church and I was 10

excited; seeing as this was the first church converted for climbing that I had ever heard of. How novel, I thought. As I rode along the blue Firth of Forth up to the gym, the church seemed rather smaller than I had expected. Squat. But much taller than the university’s climbing facilities and I rallied around this fact as I locked up my bike and walked through the stoney archway into the gym within. Going inside was like walking into the ’90s (1994 to be exact, the date Alien Rock opened.) Here was a gym that hadn’t yet moved on, at least aesthetically, from climbing’s dirtbag and dreadlocks days — and I mean this in the best of ways. The walls were full of earth browns, carrot oranges and sky blues with “tribal” marks painted on some of them. A dinosaur fossil relief reared its head at the base of the lead wall. Plaster features and artificial pockets had been moulded on the walls in an attempt at natural rock — moulded by hand, it seemed, because I could make out fingermarks. And above all the cries of “take!” and “climb on!” the vaulted roof soared. I smiled, the place was taller than it looked from the outside. I approached the arrête of a wall and touched the deep finger grooves in the plaster. I could imagine them making the place, going at it for weeks, carefully shaping the wet plaster into bumps and holes that will remain fixed until they tear the whole thing down. Most gyms avoid doing this now, because it makes for frozen patterns that are more difficult to change up and impedes proper route setting. But in the ’90s this was a very groovy (heh!) way of referencing real rock face. An employee came up to me. “Hiya, just checking things out?” Yes, I told him and how wonderful it was that their gym is in a church. He waved his hand. “Oh, you’ll find loads of them in the UK. It’s very common.” Despite advertising myself as a total UK noob, I was quite intrigued by his response. And he was right, too. A quick Internet search revealed at least a dozen gyms that boast ex-sacred sites as their home turf, some sporting irresistibly clever names like Altar Rock in Derby. All these finds raised some questions in my art historical brain and I made the crossover from athletic to aesthetic curiosity. Why is it that the British have deemed it fit to parcel out so many of their churches to climbers when it is practically unheard of in Canada? (Or so I thought. Turns out there’s a Sherbrooke climbing centre that calls l’église Christ Roi its sanctuary. But it is advertised as unique in Canada.) While there is an obvious poetic appeal to setting up a climbing gym in a church, especially if you happen to do business in Newhaven — think secular ascent to paradise, dramatic whiplash Falls, appurtenance to a congregation of sorts — ecclesiastic buildings are far more difficult to

Stéphanie Hornstein

StĂŠphanie Hornstein

convert into usable climbing gyms than the sturdy relics of the industrial epoch. First of all, they are old and, in Britain, really old. Before they can be renovated, they must be gutted and safety-proofed, both lengthy and expensive processes, which could involve entirely replacing walls and installing structural support. Churches are also heavily protected by heritage policy and their plot status as “spaces of worship” means that developers have to get their plans okayed by conservators and municipal leaders before they can do anything — something which is far from being free of controversy in more religious regions.3 Lastly, while churches may represent some of the tallest buildings around, their height is far from even. So although the Alien 1 steeple stands at thirty-seven meters, inside, only a few climbs sneak up to ten meters. The other routes, due to the slanted roof, have to remain content at eight or even seven meters. This makes no small difference to a climber. As such, the distinctive shapes that make churches so recognizable inside and out can be rather limiting if you happen to be a rock wall designer (and Lord knows there are some.)4 But these difficulties still don’t explain the lack of church gyms on this side of the ocean or indeed why hardly any sacred spaces are converted in Canada at all. The States seem to be less squeamish about it than us. In Montréal’s history at least, when a church ceases to function as a religious space its structure is rarely preserved; instead, it is knocked to the ground to make way for new building endeavours. Numerous Montréal examples exist (or rather, no longer exist) in Pointe-SaintCharles and in the old Dorchester (René Lévesque Blvd) stretch where steeple after steeple was felled along with other buildings in the 1960s urban “renewal”. There are rare exceptions, of course; we can think of the Dawson College library or the Concordia Grey Nuns reading room (however, it must be noted that both are — strictly speaking — chapels that were attached to larger convent complexes). We also must not pass over the Montreal Museum of Fine Art’s Bourgie Hall, which has brilliantly transformed a church from hull to (concert) hall. But all three of these projects are in some way state-funded and devoted either to quiet study, or to the experience of music, which is, perhaps, not so far removed from spiritual contemplation. Privately owned instances also exist in Canada: Toronto has a church-cum-condo complex called Victoria Lofts and the apartments at 315 Prince Arthur Ouest are housed in what used to be the First Presbyterian Church, but these are still rather unique cases.

I do think there is value in engaging with our built heritage in different ways: possibly as a café, a library, an arts centre, a performance space, a recording studio, or a mishmash of all of the above! Such a project already exists in Little Burgundy. Having just officially opened its doors in November 2015, Le Salon 1861 consists of a community events space, a “co-working” centre, a green energy laboratory and a locallysourced restaurant all brought together under the roof of what used to be the Église Saint-Joseph. Why not take things one step further and let those homeless climbers into our churches, as they do in the UK? But, perhaps before we do so, we need to consider the potential adverse effects that the transformation of more churches into climbing gyms might have on the urban climber’s bad boy reputation. I think that, despite the all too literal ascent towards the heavens, the enshrining of the sport, the weekly pilgrimages, our rock climber will be left less alter boy, more urban explorer — intergalactic explorer, even, if we put faith in Alien Rock’s snappy name. 1. Zéro Gravité, which occupies an old cinema in the Mile End, is a noteworthy example of a gym appropriating a non-industrial, non-ecclesiastic building. 2. For an all too literal instance of the climber taking on the urban landscape check out the B. Bro’s attempts on the Van-Horne viaduct: https://vimeo.com/35531440. 3. For instance, as this columnist remarks, “the Church of England isn’t wild about this.” See “Churchgoing,” The Economist, 20 October 2005, http://www.economist.com/node/5056498. 4. As interest in rock climbing has been steadily on the rise, more and more people can build careers as rock wall designers. Look no further than Walltopia for a case and point. 5. Cotterell & Co, Edinburgh really milk their locale—a fact highlighted by their promo video which touts their converted Salisbury church as a “stunning place to visit,” making shopping into cultural tourism. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPcYdJRcGZM. 6. An interest for these kind of projects are already beginning to appear in Montréal. I went to a public municipal meeting in January 2015 about the revamping of a church in Little Burgundy to a community centre with small shops and studios. See also Xhurches, a website devoted to recording ex-churches and their new vocations: http://xhurches.org/. Their data, however, is far from extensive: they only show two converted churches in Canada and two in the UK

The British, on the other hand, are continually finding new — and might I add — commercial vocations for their ecclesiastic architecture. In Edinburgh alone, I have seen renovated churches take on the guises of coffee shops, concert venues, nightclubs and even a posh interior lighting store.5 Are the British less troubled with architectural legacy? Hardly; the UK is at the forefront of heritage preservation battles and you can bet that every new owner of these churches had to fight tooth and nail to put up their business there. Is it possible that they are just less prude about commercializing these spaces than Canadians are? Their relationship with history is different from ours after all. Maybe the overbearing power, that the clergy exerted over the Québec population until the ’70s, is still too present in public memory and encouraged a destructive attitude by the time quiet revolution came around? Who knows. The reality remains that we knock down churches while the British renovate. Yet so much can be — and is — done with derelict churches. The Spanish town of Llanera, for instance, permitted a group of skateboard enthusiasts, the aptly-named Church Brigade, to makeover a Romanesque structure with a halfpipe, ramps and murals galore, showing that there is no need to put a wrecking ball to a soul that can still be saved. This statement has huge implications for cities like Montréal where, as Mark Twain famously noted, you can’t “throw a brick without breaking a church window.”6 Maybe we should stop throwing bricks. I’m not advocating for the über-commoditization of churches into sleek and inaccessible upper-class housing developments — far from it. But 12

Stéphanie Hornstein

StĂŠphanie Hornstein

Author

Oversight

In the Engineering Pavilion of Concordia University’s EV (Engineering and Visual Arts) Building are stacked atria connected by spiral staircases. While studying the movement of bodies on the staircase between the 11th and 13th floors, I was drawn to a piece of foam taped along the glass edge, at head-height. It was presumably there as temporary means to protect users against bodily harm. Though striking and imposing in design,the spiral structure’s threat to the body is ultim-ately made visible by the foam’s aesthetic incongruities. A staircase functions to direct movement, and is a transitional space, but this three-floor section of stair receives little traffic. Oversight examines and challenges functionality in design and architecture as it relates to users’ bodies in stillness and motion. If utilitarian architecture such as this is meant to protect, facilitate, and direct, what happens when we need to protect our vulnerable bodies from it? What if we get lost because our human understanding of space does not correspond to the architects’ logic? Oversight responds to the EV Building’s clean, corporate design by infiltrating it with a visceral tangle of fleshy materials. The installation emphasizes, with humour, the body’s awkwardness in relation to sleek architecture. The space is humanized by employing uncomfortable, decaying materials which allude to bandaging, caging, protecting and softening. Oversight was on view on the 11th floor of Concordia’s EV Building, Engineering Pavilion, from October 29th to November 3rd, 2015. This project was undertaken for the undergraduate course “Drawing from Sites and Actions” (DRAW 399), taught by Francois Morelli, fall 2015 semester. Huge thanks to David Kruse and Tereza Tacic.

Sophia Borowska

Author

La Grande Bibliothèque du Québec: Institutional Identity

In the past century, library architecture has undergone significant changes that have mirrored the shifting perceptions of this contemporary public institution. Although the accessibility of knowledge is seemingly inextricable from the very concept of public library, early design practices revolved predominantly around storage and classification. Functions that consequently shaped this institution into a knowledge repository rather than an “engine of intellectual life”.1 Up to mid-20th century, library buildings were predominantly Neo-Classical, projecting an “austere and forbidding”2 image, though the democratization of these public facilities was stimulated as early as 1850s.3 A new wave of library architecture arose at the turn of the century. These designs rejected heavy embellishment in favor of transparency and simplicity carried out through a curtainwall façade and an open-plan interior. Inaugurated on 30 April 2005, Bibliothèque National du Québec (BNQ), also known as Grande Bibliothèque du Québec (GBQ) or Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec (BAnQ), is a perfect instance of such architecture for it incorporates aspects of both “traditional” and “contemporary” library design that are manifested in the two separate bodies of information held in one structure — central Public Library and National Collection of Quebec. In order to trace the identity of this institution derived from the symbolism of the two housed collections, the following paper examines the Grande Bibliothèque du Québec in relation to the two architectural concepts that became the basis of “new” library architecture — open plan of the interior and transparency of the material. These notions, in turn, will be partially associated with the theoretical accounts of French designer and architect, Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, most commonly known as Le Corbusier, where the architect articulates the “correct” plan manipulations. Interestingly enough, the latter aptly coincides with the requirements imposed on the architects and listed in the interview with the library’s CEO, Lise Bissonnette.4 Thus, for the sake of coherence, this discourse will be divided into sections according to the three main conditions: a distinct sense of cultural institution; engagement of the diverse public; and a clear spatial distinction between the two libraries within a single structure. Cultural Authority & Appeal to Broad Audience La Grande Bibliothèque was conceived in 1997 as a merger of the Bibliothèque Saint-Sulpice (then already the National Library of Québec) and Bibliothèque centrale de Montréal; Archives nationales du Québec were introduced to the project at its final stage, thus resulting in the name BAnQ.5 The history of this institution extends well beyond 1997 and is, in fact, a rather complex topic due to the particularity of provincial context. As a result of strict religious patronage, Québec does not have an extensive record of public libraries, even though it is the only province with a national library.6 Therefore, as the library’s CEO Lise Bisonette says, it was crucial for the building to project a clear image of a cultural institution.7 Since La Grande Bibliothèque maintains a special bond with the province of Québec, the competition for its design was the first international architecture competition in Quebec.8 However, due to budget restrictions, the number of submissions was relatively scarce — the competition only received thirty-seven proposals. While discouraging to some, the conservative budget arguably ensured resourceful 20

and sincere proposals. The winners, John and Patricia Patkau, who together run the Vancouver based firm, Patkau Architects, received the commission as their proposal intricately conveyed the complex nature of the library’s collection and its potential to accommodate future expansions;9 the couple worked on the project together with two other Quebecois architects. Historically, Québec has had a unique relationship with public libraries. The Catholic Church maintained strict censorship on the majority of literary works even when the two public libraries, those that would later merge into one Grande Bibliothèque, were established: the Bibliothèque Saint-Sulpice (1915) and the Bibliothèque de la ville de Montréal (1917). Having worked efficiently for several years, the Bibliothèque Saint-Sulpice was forsaken in the late 1920s and stood inactive for almost a decade. Meanwhile the Bibliothèque de la ville de Montréal was operating as the first municipal public library in Montreal. Bibliothèque Saint-Sulpice was subsequently revived under the office of George Cartier in 1960s when the Quiet Revolution liberated the province from the Catholic protectorate, and in 1965 a report was issued to appoint status of a national library to the Bibliothèque SaintSulpice. Finally, in 1997, the Richard Committee, chaired by Clement Richard (the minister of cultural affairs from 1981 to 1985) proposed to consolidate the collections of Bibliothèque Nationale and Montreal’s municipal library into one space.10 Of interest for this paper, however, is the fact that the Bibliothèque Saint-Sulpice and the Bibliothèque de la ville de Montréal were located in close proximity, in Montreal’s Latin Quarter: the Bibliothèque SaintSulpice — at 1700 St. Denis; the Bibliothèque de la ville de Montréal — 1210 Sherbrook East. Public hearings were held to determine the location of the future GBQ, and finally the site of the Palais du Commerce, situated at the heart of the neighbourhood was chosen. Though some criticize the demolition of the Palais which structural capacitates were not evaluated for their potential to serve as a library,11 Lise Bissonnette says that the construction of the BAnQ has functioned to revitalize the area that had previously been loaded with urban problems.12 Indeed, glass architecture could be a powerful engine of urban self-discovery.13 Standing as Québec’s intellectual separation from the old regime,14 the Bibliothèque has embraced the spirit of the contemporary library while also exhibiting its cultural authority in Québec. In this respect, its glass façade is both symbolic and functional. The glass skin functions to mediate between the exterior traffic and interior tranquility, while its simplicity and literal transparency project an image of intellectual omnipotence.15 The glass plates used for GBQ were specifically manufactured in Québec and had never been used in North America before this project.16 Not only is this ceramic glass opaque but it also is louvred at an angle to conceal the interior yet reveal the exterior — or, in other words, the exterior is entirely composed with layered glass plaques. Its transparency, however, is only reserved to the strips of

Elena Ugarova

regular glass windows running across the façade. Similarly, the walls, merely space partitions,17 are not restrictive: their louvred structure creates sense of freedom, simply establishing a certain view. Both glass and wooden elements are arranged to expose just enough of the interior to ensure visibility and accessibility to its collection. This interplay between the indoors and the outdoors of the library is afforded by its plan, which, as Le Corbusier dubs it, is an architectural generator. The plan “proceeds from inside out; the exterior is the result of the interior.”18 The Double-Yolk19 Patkau’s design has been frequently described as “profiting from the financial restraints”20 for it is spatially concise yet dynamic. Since one of the requests was to assert the prominence of Quebecois Collection,21 the Patkaus chose to establish two complementary spaces inspired by Anne Heber’s Les Chambres de Bois (1958)22 and described by John Patkau as “an egg with two yolks”.23 Being wrapped in the louvred curtain-wall façade, the interior is divided in two envelopes partitioned by louvred walls of yellow birch - the layered wooden plaques adjusted with a slant to admit light and air. In this manner, the structure of the glass façade parallels that of the interior partitions. Surrounding its bookcase aisles with casual studying areas located against the glass exterior wall, the Public Collection occupies twothirds of the interior. The National Library (Québecois Collection) is a reversed space. The study zone is enclosed in the multi-story archival collection, approachable by the staircase. In this manner, it takes the form of a traditional library layout with an almost panoptical configuration.24 Through its circulatory nature, such “traditional” designs were meant to evoke a sensation of “universal knowledge […] in a universal space.”25 Although, technically, the space of National Collection is rectangular, it does emulate a very similar experience. Bookcases enclose singular study areas, limiting the circulation system to the space amongst them. Meanwhile, the design of Public Collection remarkably combines premises of contemporary and traditional library architecture: although heavily dependent on the open floor plan of the modern edifices where the study areas are spread over the perimeter, it allows the patron to observe the collection from its center (the staircase), once more recalling the panoptical layout. This distinctively double nature of GBQ becomes particularly captivating once one considers the library as an institution. As a public building, the library occupies a virtual middle ground between “the archival and the exploratory” it offers a body of already established information to encourage further investigations.26 La Grande Bibliothèque, however, is also a mediator between the two provincial communities: the anglophones and the francophones. In fact, the first francophone-oriented library, the predecessor of GBQ, Bibliothèque Saint-Sulpice was founded over a century ago due to the resistance of conservative French-speaking religious leaders towards the library movement spurring in the rest of Canada.27 This multilayered functional Elena Ugarova

and conceptual character is translated to the visual language via complex yet effortless architectural promenade — the idea developed by French architect Le Corbusier on the onset of the 20th century. Spatial Experience The concept of architectural promenade emerged out of Le Corbusier’s interest in the physical experience of space, which he contended was best manifested through a succession of dramatic views.28 Furthermore, according to the architect, the views should be meticulously guided by regulating lines, resulting in a perfect rhythm of the interior.29 Although seemingly abstract, this approach neatly resolves the library’s intent to be a place of discovery rather than an educational resource.30 In fact, in her introductory essay to the interview with John Patkau, Lise Bissonnette dubs the GBQ’s spatial arrangement as architectural promenade. This “new” library architecture makes great use of the meandering interior promenade made possible by virtue of the open plan. The emphasis is subsequently shifted from archival preservation to audience engagement; visitors are invited to wander off and find the most comfortable study space.31 The GBQ building begins on the metro level and extends four storeys above the ground. The ground level has multiple entry points to the large hall accommodating the areas with major crowd density: cafe, auditorium, exhibition hall, and conference room.32 The entrance hall is separated from the collection by the louvred wooden wall that extends two storeys high. Thus, the only access point to the library itself is a grand opening at the end of the corridor, at the corner of Boulevard Maisonneuve and rue Berri. Passing through the high archway, one is immediately faced with the choice: either to progress straight to the reception or to turn right and ascend via the ramp, the stairs or the elevator. The routes are not only meticulously articulated via the interplay of volumes and surfaces but they also intermingle. The space is organized around lateral and longitudinal axes. According to John Patkau, due to budget limitations, the agreement was to keep the structure as cubic as possible and to introduce a major circulation system for the finer spatial experience as well as for the facilitation of library services.33 Indeed, the entrance point places the visitor right in the middle of Public Collection. The service stations are located along the elevator shaft, thus, in the middle of each floor as well. One of the inspirations for the central staircase and elevators was Will Bruder’s Phoenix Central Library that has, according to John Patkau, a very efficient central circulation system.34 Clear axial geometry between the diagonal stairs, the vertical elevator shafts and the horizontal floor planes result in a smooth transition between interior levels and balances the peripheral flow. The perimeter circulation, in fact, is described by Patricia Patkau as a “donkey trail.”35 The journey begins with the ramp, leading to the National Collection somewhat in a manner of a processional axis. Having arrived to the second floor, visitors are faced with the choice yet again: to proceed to a very secluded space of “traditional” library setting or to turn left and ascend alongside terraced reading room.36 The path then transforms into a peripheral reading area on the perimeter of the library, where the inner balconies thrust through the wall, as if to ensure a dramatic view against a more secluded plane, at the end of which one could find another terraced level being a mirrored imaged of the first one. The trail culminates with the open study area right on the third floor. The last storey is accessible via the central staircase or elevators. This perimeter circulation is made possible due to the curtainwall that is now so often used in modern libraries. Yet it is a unique feature of GBQ:37 although reading spaces are frequently shifted to the well-lit perimeter, they are not necessarily developed as one continuous promenade.38 Le Corbusier states that volumes and surfaces are “the elements through which architecture manifests itself.”39 Indeed, observing the interior from 22

the uppermost studying level (the apex of the “donkey trail”), one could notice a rather peculiar structural feature. Transitioning from a bookcase aisle to the reading sections, the visitor becomes aware of the spatial discrepancy of these two places. However, a significant difference in the height of these spaces is revealed only when the eye wanders down the staircase shaft while simultaneously leveling with the floor plane of the third storey. Only at this moment does one fully perceive that not every floor offers a peripheral reading zone. In addition, the storeys with this peripheral configuration have the ceiling twice as high as the collection floors. In other words, the height of the uppermost studying area on the side of rue Berri incorporates two levels of collection spaces. As Lise Bissonnette says, “in some modern libraries, there’s such a sense of everything being equal [but] here you get the feeling that the world is a varied place.”40 It is clear that through choice of material, interior design and attention paid to the library users the Patkaus were successful in achieving a democratically designed library for the 21st century. Not only did the architects successfully consolidate the democratic spirit with the institutional authority but they also managed to highlight important historical and cultural features. The structure fully lends itself for the patrons’ visual and physical encounters, acknowledging the value of the audience’s engagement, while simultaneously maintaining its archival functions. In fact, it effortlessly introduces the book repository into the overall architectural experience. Although highly distinctive, the bookcase aisles are not isolated, but are gracefully integrated into the library. The Quebecois Collection becomes the apex of this scheme: not only is it the first stop of the visitors’ architectural promenade but its asymmetrical placement to the main axis aptly contrasts this thematic archive with the rest of the general public collection. Meanwhile, the intricate network of louvred partitions manipulates one’s spatial awareness, managing to blend yet distinguish the outside and the inside, in order to truly emphasize the weight of this cultural institution; any public library is an important cultural symbol for its hometown yet the GBQ also bear a historical value so treasured in the province. The timeless materials used stand as the embodiment of omnipotence and freedom of knowledge, making this building indeed the Grand Library of Québec. 1. Lise Bissonnette, “A Space of Freedom,” in Logotopia: The Library in Architecture, Art and the Imagination, ed. Sascha Hastings and Esther E. Shipman (Cambridge, ON: Cambridge Galleries Design at Riverside, 2008), 38. The author cites the report on the expectations from la Grande Bibliothèque. 2. On date of the “stimulation”, the Public Library Act in England see Ken Worpole, Contemporary Library Architecture : A Planning and Design Guide (New York: Routledge, 2013), 42. 3. On austere “old” fashioned architecture see Liz Greenhalgh, Ken Worpole and Charles Landry, “Part 3: The ‘Libraryness’ of Libraries,” in Libraries in a World of Cultural Change (London: UCL Press, 1995), 52. 4. Sofia Galadza, “Two for One,” Contract 48, no. 2 (2006): 76-77. 5. Birdie MacLennan, “The Library and its Place in Cultural Memory: The Grande Bibliothèque Du Québec in the Construction of Social and Cultural Identity,” Libraries & the Cultural Record 42, no. 4 (2007): 350. 6. Ibid., 349. 7. Ibid., 76. 8. David Lasker, “Opening the Ivory Tower,” Building 51, no. 1 (2001): 30; David Theodore, “Competing Visions,” The Canadian Architect 45, no. 10 (2000): 22. 9. Lasker, “Ivory Tower,” 31. 10. For a general overview, see William Weathersby Jr., “Patkau Leads a Team of Canadian Architects to Create a Cultural Beacon at the Grande Bibliothèque in Montreal,” Architectural Record 194, no. 10 (2006): 39. 11. On the libraries’ opening see MacLennan, “Cultural Memory,” 356-7. 12. On Bibliothèque of Saint Sulpice’s revitalization see ibid., 363. 13. For the proposal and the development see ibid., 373-377. 14. Theodore, “Competing Visions,” 24. 15. Lasker, “Ivory Tower,” 30. 16. Hisham Elkadi, Cultures of Glass Architecture (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2006), 38. 17. MacLennan, “Cultural Memory,” 368. 18. Elkadi, Glass Architecture, 39. 19. MacLennan, “Cultural Memory,” 377.

Elena Ugarova

20. Wall are no longer required to be the supporting elements due to the columns and the curtain wall structure. 21. Le Corbusier, Towards an Architecture, trans. Frederick Etchells (Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute, 2007), 88. 22. Sascha Hastings, “Grande Bibliotheque du Quebec, Patkau Architects with Croft Pelletier and Menkes Shooner Dagenais Architectes Associees,” in Logotopia: The Library in Architecture, Art and the Imagination, ed. Sascha Hastings and Esther E. Shipman (Cambridge, ON: Cambridge Galleries Design at Riverside, 2008), 47. 23. Ibid., 25 24. Theodore, “Competing Visions,” 24 25. Trevor Boddy, “Les Chambres De Bois,” The Architectural Review 219, no. 1312 (2006), 74. 26. MacLennan, “Cultural Memory,” 377. 27. Hastings, “Grande Bibliotheque,” 47. 28. On the link between the “old” fashioned circular library interior with the panopticon structure see Ken Worpole, Contemporary Library Architecture: A Planning and Design Guide, 45. 29. Ibid., 45. 30. Ibid., 38. 31. MacLennan, “Cultural Memory,” 341. 32. Flora Samuel, “5 Elements of the Architectural Promenade,” in Le Corbusier in Detail (London: Architectural Press, 2007), 128 33. On the lines see Le Corbusier, Towards an Architecture, 112. 34. On the rhythm see ibid., 119. 35. Galadza, “Two for One,” 77. This is clearly a reference to Le Corbusier’s chapter, “The PackDonkey’s Way and Man’s Way,” in his 1929 book, The City of Tomorrow and its Planning. 36. Worpole, Contemporary Library Architecture, 48. 37. Technically, the latter two are on the metro level but, since the entrance in on the ground floor, here they are referred to as being on the RC. 38. Hastings, “Grande Bibliotheque,” 47. 39. Weathersby, “Grande Bibliothèque,” 39. 40. Hastings, “Grande Bibliotheque,” 48. 41. Ibid., 47. 42. Ibid. 43. Worpole, Contemporary Library Architecture, 83. 44. Le Corbusier, Towards an Architecture, 102. 45. Galadza, “Two for One,” 78.

Elena Ugarova

Haberdasher

Damien Smith

We live from our bodies: from because human perception and action extend outward from the materiality of the flesh and organ and bone to items and sources of sensation that exist outside the boundaries of the skin. From because the body is the center of human experience... Our relationship to all else is structured from the position, location and attributes of our bodies.1

Sensorial Mapping of the SaintJoseph’s Oratory in Montreal: Examining the Relationship Between the Senses, Spirituality & Architecture Through Illustrations and Words

I sit on the concrete rise of a circular monument filled with colourful plants. My sense of smell picks up the aroma of flowers; delicate, calming, rejuve- nating. My vision extends from my outstretched feet — dirty boots — along a concrete path that stretches to the base of a towering staircase. It follows the staircase up — observing the people ascending, either on foot or on knee — a sign of dedication and devotion. My gaze continues. Like the people, it climbs slowly until it reaches an arched maroon door at the top of the stairs. From here it moves more quickly, first left and then right, following the contours of a massive building, resting on the hundreds of ant-sized people that gather on a lookout. It continues climbing. Up another staircase, up massive columns, up and up, and observing, and up, until it takes in the sight of an immense, muted green dome; pausing on a cross lit from the backdrop of the sky. I begin drawing. My hand touches the concrete beside me. It is rough, and warm from the sun. A gentle breeze comes in contact with my skin, sending shivers up my arm. My hairs stand erect. My ears are filled with the sounds of people talking, the ringing of bells, the squawking of seagulls, the clicking of cameras. I taste the aftermath of my coffee on my tongue. I close my eyes and begin drawing.

The building I am seeing, touching, smelling, hearing is Saint- Joseph’s Oratory in Montreal: a catholic church primarily founded by Brother André, who looked to Saint Joseph for spiritual guidance. Frère André praised Joseph, believing him to be a pivotal component of his own supposed healing powers. My motivation, however, is not to reassemble the Oratory’s history (although it is very interesting.) For my purposes, the only story of relevance is the profound connection between the Oratory’s architecture and the power of healing. I am here on a more personal mission: to map out my sensorial experience of the Oratory. To give precedence to my bodily sensations in order to feel, understand and communicate with it directly and honestly. Through this embodied understanding, my aim is to think about the ways in which the senses play into my overall experience of the Oratory, and to ask: how intimate is the connection between my sensorial experience and the facilitation of spiritual health? What kind of relationship exists between the material architecture of the Oratory, and my immaterial senses of perception? While walking through the space, I paused to draw my immediate surroundings: the following pages are a chronological documentation of my journey. In addition to writing, these illustrations became a key way to express my sensorial experience. Through the sense of sight, I

drew what I saw before me: I call these drawings visual illustrations. For example, figure 1 (opposite) was drawn while sitting on the concrete rise (as described in the previous page.) Remaining in the same location, I closed my eyes and drew again – allowing my marker to move in relation to the sensations of sound, touch, taste and smell. I call these drawings blind manifestations. For the sake of congruency, I have rendered them at a lower opacity, and paired them with their corresponding visual illustrations.

Standing at the mid-point of the Oratory’s grand, exterior staircase I pause on the concrete steps, watching people climb past me. The sound of panting and heavy breathing not only becomes a symbol of physical endurance but to many, a sound of devotion. Reserved for those ascending on their knees, the middle staircase is made of wood as opposed to concrete: a material physically softer, but still unforgiving. I listen as the sounds of panting become supplemented with moans and prayers that bare testament to devotion more physically grueling. I observe an old man on his knees slowly pull his body upwards, stopping at each step, whispering, praying, eyes closed. He is exhausted but determined, and eventually he reaches the top – touching his forehead to the ground. For the duration of the climb, we all move together — moving farther and farther away from noise and messiness of the city, and to many, moving closer and closer to god. The heavy breathing, the feeling of concrete, the view; all are products of the architecture of the staircase — each has a profound influence on the overall sensation of space. I continue climbing until I reach the top. Looking behind me, the verticality of my ascent sinks in. I find a seat at the side of the staircase and begin drawing the intimate details of the concrete. Worn from the millions of visitors, it

Katrina Jurjans

has begun to erode; a physical imprint of devotion and curiosity. I close my eyes and run my fingers across its uneven surface. I feel its history in my fingertips. There is a strong link between the material body and the spiritual body, which is increased as the devotee’s love intensifies...While the spiritual body normally exists separately from the physical body, at times they may interact or even merge together. The spiritual senses come to be merged with the physical senses, and the deity and heaven may be sensed with the material body.2 Opening the doors to the Basilica is like pushing through into another world. Its volume is not the only thing to inspires a deep breath: the spatial positioning of the Oratory is also striking. The structure sits on top of the spiraling, often dark, labyrinth I have already climbed, like a magnificent, colourful bird perched on a crooked stick — its radiant wings spread open, projecting beams of coloured light through the air; its song a deep organ vibrating off the walls, further accentuates the feeling that the Basilica is a world of its own, disconnected from the messy chaos of the streets far below. I walk straight through a hallway of space created in-between rows of pews until I am about half way to the front altar. I sit down on the hard, dark wood, and commit myself to remain seated for an hour to take in the orchestra of senses all working together to create a feeling of sacredness. Humanistic geographer Yi-Fu Tuan states, “a key to the meaning of place lies in the expressions that people use when they want to give it a sense carrying greater emotional charge than location or functional node.”3 The emotional charge in the Basilica is palpable. I watch as people flock to the alter, kneel down and pray. A woman waves her arms frantically, grasping onto something felt but not seen. I watch symbolic gestures animated with devotion. Watery-eyes. The constant touching of self: hands to head, hands to heart, hands to shoulder, hands to lips; drawing an imaginary line that connects these body parts, I watch people form a constellation of hope: faithful and genuine. It is said that “repeating the divine name leads to a real and palpable sense of seeing an inner light”, and this is what I hear: a choir of people talking to God.4 People using the action of speaking and listening in order to visualize something that exists beyond the physical body. In other words, I observe people using bodily experience to connect to something entirely out of body. The body is a conduit: giving and receiving information. Profoundly influenced by the space of the Basilica, individual experiences become acutely affected by the physically tiring act of ascension, the height of the Basilica’s ceilings, the feeling of the pew’s cold wood on sensitive hands, the light pouring in through the stained glassed windows; transformed into a canvas of colour only when it penetrates into the Basilica’s interior and the spatial affordance of finding peace in an area of filled with people — a corner to be alone. Our bodies become actively engaged with the myriad of spatial dialogues that surround them, and as all of these things come together like words in a sentence, they create a distinct sense of space fully dependent on their cohesion. I close my eyes and listen. A triangular relationship: body, architecture, spirituality is forming. 1. Karen Franck and R. Bianca Lepori, “From the Body,” in Architecture from the inside Out: From the Body, the Senses, the Site, and the Community (Chichester: Wiley-Academy, 2007), 46. 2. June McDaniel, “Introduction: Spiritual Body, Spiritual Senses, Past and Present,” in Perceiving the Divine through the Human Body Mystical Sensuality (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), 7. 3. Yi-Fu Tuan, “Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience” in Philosophy in Geography, eds. S. Gale and Gunnar Olsson (New York: Springer Science & Business Media, 2012), 409. 4. Joseph Molleur, “A Hindu Monk’s Appreciation of Eastern Orthodoxy’s Jesus Prayer: The ‘Inner Senses’ of Hearing, Seeing and Feeling in Comparative Perspective,” Religion East & West 9 (2009): 73.

Katrina Jurjans

Author

- Il y a encore du monde dans ce building? - Mmm, oui. Il a le 25e étage, où vous êtes, le 16 et le 17 il a Cofely. Il y a la Serbie aussi, mais ils ne sont jamais là. - La Serbie? - Le commerce, oui.

Bruxelles Capital

Je discute à l’entrée de la tour I du WTC (World Trade Center) avec le gardien de sécurité. Nous sommes à Bruxelles, en plein cœur de Manhattan : c’est ainsi qu’on a dénommé le quartier des finances. Ce n’est pas pour rien, il arbore plusieurs passerelles aériennes, fontaines, centres d’achats, mais surtout plusieurs gratte-ciel recouverts d’un verre teinté noir permettant de voir sans être vu. Mais lorsque la pénombre s’installe, on peut très bien apercevoir les lumières au néon qui resteront allumées toute la nuit, semblable au cerveau de ceux qui quittent le boulot beaucoup trop tard pour atteindre quelconque quiétude.Ceci est ma deuxième visite et je suis toujours aussi fascinée par la faible quantité de lumière qui émane de ce colosse de 28 étages. Contrairement aux autres gratte-ciel qui le bordent, il n’a que quelques fenêtres illuminées à son actif; surtout au 25e étage. Mundus receptio Dans le hall d’entrée on se retrouve nez à nez avec la réception. Un large tuyau descendant du plafond comme s’il traversait les étages supérieurs se déploie en un dôme terrestre englobant le réceptionniste, lui-même absent. Absence encapsulée par cette Terre de cuivre sous lequel jonche un bureau au vernis acajou serti d’un combiné téléphonique à lignes multiples. Seul le gardien s’assoit parfois derrière le comptoir lorsqu’il se fatigue d’être debout. Sur les quelques étages accessibles par ascenseur on retrouve cette même présence fantomatique; le temps semble s’être arrêté depuis la fin des années 80. Le rouge vibre de partout : dans les fauteuils capitonnés en cuir rassemblés par petits groupes, aux plafonds en cubes de plastique, même dans les tuiles du plancher et sur les murs où on le retrouve décliné en différents tons. La foire alimentaire s’avère déserte. Plusieurs de ses commerces affichent des avis de fermeture et des panneaux «TE KOOP» Cartes du monde World Food Canadian Sundae Ice Cream Une flèche nous emmène à Brasiliva «Au 25e étage il y a vous»

Non, il n’y a pas moi. Il y a plutôt une bande d’artistes ayant repris ces lieux abandonnés pour y créer de nouveaux espaces de travail, de réflexion, de création. C’est grâce à eux si j’ai pu découvrir l’endroit. De longs couloirs avec de multiples bureaux, tous recouverts d’une moquette grise poussiéreuse, de grands murs blancs séparés par des plafonds suspendus, on décèle peu d’activité. Néanmoins, on remarque parfois des câbles ou un modem internet, un extincteur placé attentivement au coin d’un mur, plans de salle, affiches et annonces scotchés dans les fenêtres et sur les murs. En octobre dernier, le collectif JUBILEE organisait notamment en ces locaux une série d’évènements, conférences et projections répondant au contexte d’agitation sociale contre le « Projet Européen » en traitant notamment des questions d’économie néolibérale et de démocratie.

Anne-Marie Trépanier

Anne-Marie TrĂŠpanier

Dans sa conférence intitulée Brussels and the Urbanization of Finance Capital, le géographe de formation David Bassens nous présente le Quartier Nord de Bruxelles, zone où le capital financier s’est imprégné physiquement et dans lequel se manifeste le désir de construire une ville européenne mondiale (European World City.)1 Le WTC I est en quelque sorte la pierre tombale d’un projet mort-né qui n’aura jamais su s’attirer le prestige et les retombées économiques espérés.

reflets de lumière d’ambiance trop éblouissants. À gauche des deux tours, il y a un avion qui plane. Là aussi, le temps s’est arrêté.

La poignée d’artistes maintenant installés dans ces lieux s’approprie les ruines des grands joueurs. Sans eux, ces locaux seraient probablement voués à un abandon permanent. Tous rassemblés dans une grande salle bien fenestrée, nous écoutons notre locuteur décrire en détail le Manhattan de Bruxelles. Il suffit de tourner la tête pour témoigner de l’ampleur des dégâts.

1. David Bassens, « Brussels and the Urbanization of Finance Capital », (présenté dans le cadre de The Cost of Wealth un projet organisé par JUBILEE et le Goethe-Institut, Bruxelles, Belgique, 15 octobre 2015).

Bruxellisation Phénomène émergeant dans les années 60 - 70, la bruxellisation désigne la destruction du patrimoine architectural bruxellois à des fins de modernisation. Le procédé donne parfois lieu à des horreurs architecturales qui détonnent drastiquement avec leur environnement. La bruxellisation se perpétue encore aujourd’hui, mais à un rythme plus contrôlé. Elle se manifeste principalement dans la permanence des chantiers et zones de construction ainsi que par certaines manœuvres d’aménagement urbain considérées comme absurdes et arbitraires.

4. Eric Timmermans, « Le suicide de Ruysbroeck, entre réalité et légende », Bruxelles anecdotique, 31 août 2012, consulté le 11 novembre 2015, http://bruxellesanecdotique.skynetblogs.be/ archive/2012/08/31/le-suicide-de-ruysbroeck.html.

Dans cette grande tour de 28 étages, en plein cœur de Bruxelles, persiste le rêve d’un néolibéralisme mondial. Mais que reste-t-il d’effectif? À l’intérieur? Un bureau d’accueil en forme de globe terrestre qui demeure toujours vacant. Et à l’extérieur? Le mirage miroite toujours.

2. Thierry Demey, « Le Groupe Structures », dans Des gratte-ciel dans Bruxelles – La tentation de la ville verticale (Bruxelles : Badeaux, 2008), 84. 3. Georges Lebouc, « Architecte », Dictionnaire de Belgicismes (Éditions Racine : Bruxelles, 2006), 98-99.

Groupe Structures L’atelier d’architecture et d’urbanisme Groupe Structures est à l’origine des tours du WTC (1969-1974). Fondé après la Deuxième Guerre en 1949 par Jacques Bosseret-Mali, Raymond Stenier et Louis Van Hove, le groupe est ancré dans le courant fonctionnaliste à qui l’on doit quelquesunes des pires infamies architecturales de la bruxellisation. Le collectif opte pour une rationalisation excessive du mode de conception et de construction architectural. Matériaux usinés et structures préfabriqués, ils partagent avec le mouvement moderne une philosophie industrielle de l’architecture qui les mène à travailler sur des complexes administratifs et des infrastructures publiques.2 Fonctionnalisme, fonctionnaires: administration. Schieven Architek! À Bruxelles, le terme architecte porte en lui de lourdes connotations péjoratives. L’insulte date de l’érection du Palais de Justice par l’architecte belge Joseph Poelaert (1817-1879) entre 1866 et 1883. Cette construction grandiose, élaborée par un homme aussi ingénieux que mégalomane, donna lieu à une vague d’expropriations et de démolitions de logements populaires situés dans les Marolles, forçant leurs résidants à s’exiler dans les lointaines communes d’Uccle et de Saint-Job. L’expression schieven architekt [architecte de travers] provient de la rage des citoyens déracinés qui ont vu leur quartier être littéralement écrasé par ce géant de pierre. L’architecte lui-même, à qui on avait confié d’autres projets d’envergure tels que l’église Sainte-Catherine et le Théâtre de la Monnaie, mourut d’une « congestion du cerveau » avant d’avoir pu terminer sa dernière oeuvre, son génie l’ayant emporté dans la folie. La légende veut que ce soit un sort lancé par une sorcière des Marolles qui l’aurait rendu fou.3 L’architecte du XVe siècle Jan Van Ruysbroeck connut une fin tout aussi tragique. Il s’élança de la flèche de l’Hôtel de Ville de Bruxelles lorsqu’il constata avec stupeur qu’une des fenêtres de la tour gothique qu’il avait construite était décentrée. Il vint s’écraser contre les pavés de la Grande Place.4

Les tours jumelles En me dirigeant vers la sortie, je m’arrête devant un amas de clichés encadrés, des World Trade Centers des quatre coins du monde. Les cadres ont fini par perdre leur axe avec les années. On remarque facilement leur décalage en se servant de leur disposition en trio comme outil de mesure ou en observant les hautes tours comme s’il s’agissait de niveaux à bulle. Les photographies aux tons délavés dépeignent des zones urbaines aux allures utopiques sur lesquelles seront plus tard calqués les plans de revitalisation du Quartier Nord de Bruxelles, alors qu’on balayera la région, d’un revers de la main, pour y implanter quatre pieux de verre scintillant. Seule une image détonne radicalement avec les autres. En la remarquant, je ne sais pas si je dois retenir un soupir ou un ricanement. Isolée du reste, elle semble siéger sur toutes les autres ou se tenir silencieusement en retrait. Je l’observe longtemps, sous différents angles pour éviter les

Anne-Marie Trépanier

Anne-Marie TrĂŠpanier

Author

Yes, But How Much Water Does It Displace

Yes, but how much water does it displace? is an installation piece which explores ideas of place though material traces. The installation is comprised of hardwood flooring that was formerly used in a residential home, and that has been repurposed and inserted into a gallery. The composition results in a visual and historical layering of materials that adapt and fit into the space. They are however worn in and marked by stains, sun damage, and other remnants of its former life. The title alludes to a contradictory viewpoint of understanding materiality — in this case in a reductive way of thinking about materials simply as forms occupying volume (which can be measured by water displacement.) This installation raises questions of material history and the capacity for abstract narratives to embed themselves in materials — histories that reveal themselves in the material’s marks of wear. Interested in how place and movement are made visible through these materials, Terrance Richard has reinstalled these floorboards differently from their previous layout, creating striking juxtapositions of light and dark in the noticeable stains and sun damage. These memories of local movements and arrangements of furniture, footsteps and spills, all function to recall its past domestic life. However, these markings remain unable to tell an unmediated story, as they have been removed from their original setting. The maple hardwood used in the installation was of Canadian origin, sourced in Southport England though a Gumtree post (England’s popular free classified-ad website), and re-displayed in March 2015 in a gallery space in Leeds, England.

Terrance Richard

Author

Wavespace

Wavespace invites you to play and explore. With the goal of redesigning an existing memorial to create a mimetic public space, a playful landscape emerges to replace the memorial to sailors in the Old Port. The space features an abstracted sea; granite wave slices peel up to form a tiered and undulating landscape. The wave slices can be used for sitting, eating, playing, or skateboarding. By removing the solemnity of the original memorial play and curiosity are encouraged, drawing the users into the subject matter of the memorial, namely waves and the sea. The nearly flat waves are intended as a soft edge, inviting all ages and abilities into the space.

Hannah Materne

This image is actually an object. See it by downloading and using the Anteism Press AR App on a smart phone or tablet.

Hannah Materne

Living River

Living River transforms an empty lot in downtown Detroit into an oasis. This redesign aims to combat both the human and environmental water crises occurring in Detroit. Despite water being a human right, water is repeatedly shut-off to residents unable to pay their bills. The water table continues to lower due to the widespread use of impenetrable surfaces such as concrete, which blocks the Earth’s natural water filtering systems. Living River provides clean drinking water, via taps located under the lip of the illuminated boulders. Their lights increase safety in the park at night. The boulders, as well as dispensing water, are intended as play structures and benches, inspired by the designer’s time in Mossman River, Australia. By using pervious concrete and native ground cover, Living River represents a one hundred percent pervious park, allowing water to flow through it freely. This prevents harmful run-off and allows rainwater to pass through the park and re-enter the water table, filtering naturally in a process most other forms of concrete do not facilitate. Living River acts on the understanding of water as both a necessity and a pleasure, providing a calming, nature-inspired water access point.

Hannah Materne

Author

Exceptional / Exceptionable Spaces

Symptomatic of the conditions of increasing migration flows, urban densification, shifting socio-political climates, war, disease, natural disasters, population growth, and market forces of global capital — exceptional spaces are springing forth globally in scale and form. The spatial fixities and topographies of urban space and their relation to shaping, inhibiting, aiding and transforming migration remain essential to understanding migration flows and diaspora patterns. Studying these patterns in relation to the urban environment affords the possibility of not only fostering interdisciplinary research, but also unpacking the conditions for an emerging network of methodologies for examining contemporary exceptional spaces. We will proceed by looking at four typologies to help us approach exceptional spaces: the parasitic and informal, resistance and survival. The “framing” of exceptional spaces in this context proceeds on the understanding that reference remains dynamic. In no way do we presuppose a categorization or fixation on a particular feature or quality of what is under investigation. Parasitic + Informal   Spaces exist because of the relations between (sites) places at which events and objects (things) are located, occur, and expressed - the occurrence of these two relations is what manifests space(s). Invariably, alongside changing environmental conditions, spaces are shaped and constructed through social and material practices of people and things. Since, according to Agnew, space provides the resources and frames of reference in which places are constructed, and people are an inherent part of how spaces take shape and become defined — exceptional spaces are specifically identifiable places that bear uniquely dynamic architectural and urban features, often connected by common struggles.1

Exceptional spaces cannot be identified as standalone entities. Identification occurs relationally, through that which they remain juxtaposed to, namely the exceptionable. Spaces also function as “suppliers” and “by-products” of production, action, and exchange, as, for example, satellite settlements, “pop-up” villages and business and factory parks on the outskirts of cities. These remain dynamic and fluid within the landscape, yet inevitably parasitic to it. These spaces evolve from meeting the demands of the population in these urbanized areas while benefiting from alternative resources provided by the urban environment they are situated in. They remain, however, excluded from the urban from which they are fuelled and fuel. The relationship between thriving urbanized cities and their byproducts is symbiotic rather than parasitic. The question remains: are the excluded suppliers and by-products parasites of the urban spaces or is the urbanized city a parasite of its suppliers? Moreover, the intimate transactions and exchange of physical material, information, and even populations between the included and excluded areas of the urban make the parasitical conditions reversible and conditional. Who is the parasite? What are the indicators of a parasitic space? Shenzhen In Shenzhen, China, the term “urban villages” is familiar and often associated with cheap rent, over-crowding, substandard housing, and a variety of safety concerns. However, to renters and landlords, these highly centralized clusters of “urban villages” are goldmines. Being a special economic zone almost entirely reliant on migrant workforce, Shenzhen has a disproportionally huge demand for affordable housing as yet unfulfilled by city-initiated projects. Here the ‘urban villages’ 48

intervene in the system. Evolved from remaining agricultural land and transitioned to residential use over the long period of Shenzhen’s development, the building regulations of these sites are often vague. Landowners are able to intensify and increase property value by building in-between existing apartment buildings, taking advantages of loose regulations long before the city establishes any official documentation. The “urban village” phenomenon also betrays a unique economy. Landowners became landlords with a handful of rental units as a result of un-regulated infill projects. Due to the huge demand for affordable housing by migrant workers, the annual income of a typical landlord in an “urban village” can hike up to billions of yuans. The landlord communities also have the option to incorporate their entire “urban village” teaming up with bigger real-estate investments for more return. Renters are usually migrants with no permanent addresses, from hukou in Shenzhen. They favor the villages not only because of affordability, but also their proximity to CBDs and transportation nodes, and, inevitably, the vibrancy inside the high-density fabric. These villages may be eyesores at first glance, but there are no shortages of amenities, services and facilities. Ranging from a community health center to narrow streets filled with restaurants and shops, these “urban villages” are as well equipped as newer communities in their vicinity, only less expensive to live in. Density and quality of housing are a major concern, again as a result of unregulated residential infill, yet the “urban villages” have become too costly to clean up. The amount of affordable housing units provided by “urban landlords” far exceeds the amount of units the city provides despite their poor quality. It seems fair to say that the problematic “urban villages” are parasitic. They feed off the city’s infrastructure and business districts, and in return they are the hosts of countless migrant workers who are actively constructing the future of cities like Shenzhen, whilst desperately needing homes that are affordable and livable. Exceptional spaces, then, can be seen as parasitic to the conditions of global urbanization. What then is the exceptionable? Is it not that which is outstanding and even offensive to the status quo? In Shenzen, it is ultimately the exception to law, code, social and cultural standard. In the case of the urban we might then be speaking of spaces of resistance and dissent that are considered unlawful. Resistance + Survival In contradistinction, we might say that the exceptionable is the comparative unit of analysis, the exclusive ‘authenticating extension’ that reveals something about the exceptional. It is this outer boundary of the exceptional that consequently reveals both the exceptionable and the exceptional space in question, as distinct and yet interrelated parts of the same whole, namely space and place. In this sense, upon careful inspection, exceptional and exceptionable urban spaces reveal something quite unique. How should we do this? One way to identify an exceptional space would be to turn our focus towards global sites that remain “resistant” in some way. These sites retain common, yet dynamic features depending on the surrounding economic, socio-political or environmental conditions. For