montreal sainte-marie
smart city smart community
thesis program - cAMILLA siggaard andersen - autumn 2014
program montreal / sainte-marie - smart city / Smart community The Royal Danish Academy of Arts School of Architecture Urbanism and Societal Change Autumn 2014 Supervisor: Charles Bessard Student: 4346, Camilla Siggaard Andersen Stud4346@edu.kadk.dk Camilla@Siggaard-Andersen.dk
montreal sainte-marie
smart city smart community
"
not a lot of people know about the place [southern Sainte-marie, montreal] although it is actually really close to the centre of montreal (...) from this place you can touch with your eyes every important thing in montreal. marie-claude plourde / l’association du design urbain du quÊbec interviewed august 5 2014
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introduction
1
View of Montreal from Saint Helen’s Island. Sainte-Marie is at the right of the picture and downtown Montreal is at the left.
thesis program - cAMILLA siggaard andersen the royal danish academy of arts school of architecture - autumn 2014

introduction
contents 1
1
introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 03 Abstract . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 07 Thesis Statement. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 09 Motivation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
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CONTEXT. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Montreal: City of Spectacles. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Quartier Sainte-Marie: A Divided Neighbourhood . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 The Jacques Cartier Bridge: An Icon in a Wasteland. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
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BACKGROUND. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 Event Architecture as a Momentum for Change . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 From Smart Cities to Smart Communities. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
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Project description. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 Vision
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Framing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 Target Groups. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 Scope
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
Suggestive Spatial Requirements. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 Deliverables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67 Schedule . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
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references . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71 Acknowledgements. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 Selective Bibliography. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
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appendix. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
thesis program - cAMILLA siggaard andersen the royal danish academy of arts school of architecture - autumn 2014
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overview of central montreal
1:50.000
introduction
ABSTRACT
1
In 2017, Montreal celebrates the 50th year of Expo67, Canada’s 150th birthday, and its own 375th birthday; 375 years of development, population growth, industrialisation, modernisation, progress and regress.Today, Montreal is the second largest city in Canada, a UNESCO City of Design and a strong commercial centre in the world economy. However, the physical expansion of the city into a world metropolis has not been without serious costs in some local communities. In Quartier Sainte-Marie, one of the oldest neighbourhoods in Montreal, the ambivalent impacts of large infrastructural systems are very present - both in the appearance of the urban fabric, and in the minds of its residents. During the industrial era, the neighbourhood was among the most densely populated quartiers in Montreal - an environment where the working-class residents lived shoulder-to-shoulder with the factories that employed them. In the second half of the 20th century, the de-industrialisation meant a loss of this activity, as well as the disappearance of the factories as strong social anchors in the community. In continuation of the de-industrialisation, the modernisation of the city required new types of infrastructural upgrades, which in SainteMarie was marked by the construction of the Jacques Cartier Bridge (connecting automobile traffic to the States), road expansions and clearances of land for parking areas.These changes were necessary for the city as a whole, but at the local level they fragmented Sainte-Marie’s identity and physical environment. Today, Sainte-Marie is one of the lowest density neighbourhoods in central Montreal and vast areas of land are characterised as underutilised or vacant, especially along the post-industrial riverfront and surrounding the bridge. At the end of this year (2014) Montreal hosts North America’s first Smart City Conference, heralding the beginnings of ”Smart Montreal”; the city’s next big (soft) infrastructural advance. Unlike the transportation networks of the 20th century, the networks of ubiquitous computing are likely to be practically invisible in the physical urban fabric. However, that does not mean that they will not have large phenomenological impacts, both on the city as a whole and in smaller communities like Sainte-Marie. For better and for worse, the project investigates what these impacts might be, and explores how to turn them into a potential redevelopment strategy for the neighbourhood. This project aims at redeveloping the urban fabric which was fragmented by the Jacques Cartier Bridge in Sainte-Marie. This redevelopment will contribute to creating and consolidating a renewed and long term community identity. The project proposes to combine the momentum of the 2017-triple celebration with Montreal’s smart city ambitions, in a Smart City Expo. In the post-event phase, the basic structures from the Expo will have made the foundations for SainteMarie’s new Smart Community Centre - the hub of the area’s long-term revival plan. The project will comprise a timeline-strategy for the implementation of these elements, a sketch-plan of the Expo landscape and a thorough development plan for the Smart Community Centre and its surroundings.
thesis program - cAMILLA siggaard andersen the royal danish academy of arts school of architecture - autumn 2014
introduction
thesis statement
1
THE PROJECT
The project “Montreal: Smart City / Smart Community” will be implemented in the neighbourhood Sainte-Marie, Montreal, on and around the vacant lands beneath the Jacques Cartier Bridge. The main aim of the project is to re-appropriate the empty spaces for the benefit of the local environment. This regeneration is themed around a bottom-up use of technology in the urban realm that mirrors Montreal’s Smart City ambitions from the perspective of the local community. The project’s short-term kick-starter is the creation of a Smart City Expo addressing all of Montreal, while the anchor of the long-term regeneration will be a Smart Community Centre for the residents of Sainte-Marie. The project’s two stages of implementation are: phase 1: the smart city expo
For the triple-celebration in 2017 (Montreal’s 375th anniversary, Canada’s 150th anniversary and Expo67’s 50th anniversary) Sainte-Marie will host a “Smart City Expo” with the aim of informing and teaching the population of Montreal about the possibilities of smart technology. The Smart City Expo serves as a kick-start for the rebranding and upgrading of Sainte-Marie, and will comprise both an indoor exhibition and an outdoor exhibition area. phase 2: the smart community centre
Following the year 2017, part of the structure(s) built for the Expo will become the focal point(s) in a new “Smart Community Centre”. The Centre offers a new social gathering place in Sainte-Marie, comprising incubator office facilities for small startup tech-businesses, learning and teaching facilities, and public indoor and outdoor meeting places. The Smart Community Centre will inhabit the former indoor exhibition spaces, while the Expo’s outdoor areas are transformed into an attractive urban environment that can be appropriated by both the users of the Centre and by the residents of Sainte-Marie.
thesis program - cAMILLA siggaard andersen the royal danish academy of arts school of architecture - autumn 2014
introduction
Motivation
1
The project is motivated by... ... the possibility of contributing to a future in which the user of the urban realm also has the power and skill to interact with, adapt and improve it. ... the opportunity to propose a different and progressive program on the unclaimed land by the Jacques Cartier Bridge. ... the ability to envision a revitalised Sainte-Marie where the progress of the city is in a mutually beneficial relationship with the advances of the community and its local environment.
thesis program - cAMILLA siggaard andersen the royal danish academy of arts school of architecture - autumn 2014

"
modern towns which have arisen little by little can only be understood by the study of their history.
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steen eiler rasmussen as quoted in montreal in evolution, p. 20
context
2
View of plot next to the Jacques Cartier Bridge, bird-view from the bridge.
thesis program - cAMILLA siggaard andersen the royal danish academy of arts school of architecture - autumn 2014
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montreal meTROPOLITAN AREA Source: Ville de Montreal, 2013 METROPOLITAN AREA quARTIERS ON THE ISLAND OF MONTREAL quARTIER SAINTE-MARIE
1:500.000
montreal: city of spectacles montreal metropolis
context
Montreal was discovered by the French explorer Jacques Cartier in 1535, but the city was not officially founded until 16421. In the 19th century, the city established itself as an important infrastructural node in the North American transportation network, attracting both trade and residents2. Between 1883 and 1918, Montreal doubled its population by absorbing the many industrial and residential suburbs that had grown outside of the old town3. In the late 19th century and early 20th century, Montreal was the undisputed financial and industrial metropolis of Canada4. In the mid- to late 20th century, the city restructured itself for the growing service industry by modernising its downtown core, destroying 1/3 of the existing built mass in the process5.The result was the creation of a business district with massive super-complexes embodying offices, car parks, underground malls and cafés. In the recent couple of decades, Montreal has seen a return to a more vernacular tradition and the current architectural trend is a contextual approach to urban planning and architecture6. Today, the city is the second largest city in Canada with 1.6 million inhabitants7. The current urban policy is to focus less on the direct profits of attracting business and trade, and more on the indirect branding value of being an attractive, green and lively metropolis8.
2
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My colleagues and I, we based our entire careers around reconstructing the city from where it was left after the 1970’s and 1980’s demolitions (...) we want montreal to be a network of public spaces. wade eide / ville montreal interviewed july 15 2014
1. Marsan, Jean-Claude; Montreal in Evolution; McGill Queen’s University Press, 1981 2. Wolfe, Joshuia; Grenier, Cécile; Discover Montrel; Libre Expression, 1991 3. Rémillard, Francois; Montreal Architecture: a guide to styles and buildings; Meridian Press, 1990 4. Charney, Melvin; “The Montrealness of Montreal”; The Architectural Review, 167, May 1980 5. Ibid. 3 6. Dunton, Nancy; Malkin, Helen; A Guidebook toContemporary Architecture in Montreal; Guérin, 2008 7. Statistics Canada, 2006 census. The appendix of this document also includes an overview of the city’s population growth and density. 8. Ville.montreal.qc.ca, referenced August 30, 2014
thesis program - cAMILLA siggaard andersen the royal danish academy of arts school of architecture - autumn 2014
montreal EVENT CITY Source: Tourisme-Montreal.org QUARTIER SAinte-MARIE POPULAR AREAS FOR EVENTS selected major events / month and location
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montreal event city
context
Possibly, the two largest events for which Montreal is remembered are the International and Universal Exposition in 1967 (commonly referred to as Expo67) and the Olympic Games of 1976. Both events left legacies that are still physically and mentally present in the city. The main urban development that was undertaken for the Expo67 was the creation of the subway system, which opened in 1966 with three lines and 26 stations to accommodate the expo’s 50 million visitors1. The Olympic Games had a different impact on the city, because the short-term planning of the event as a whole left Montreal with a debt that it has taken thirty years to pay off2.
2
In 1992, Montreal celebrated its 350 years birthday, and the city used this event to kickstart a series of urban development and redevelopment projects3. Some of the legacies which have been left from this year include the redevelopment of Old Montreal and of the Old Port, which was opened up for public use following its de-industrialisation. The island which had hosted Expo67 was equipped with new facilities4 and several museums were established or updated, including the Museum of Contemporary Art, the Montreal Museum of Fine Art and the Montreal Biodôme. Today, hundreds of events are organised every year in the event city, attracting hundreds-of-thousands of Montrealers5. The majority of these events take place in the centre around Saint Catherine Street and on the cultural plaza Place des Arts, but there are also several activities in Old Town and in Jean Drapeau Park on Saint-Helen’s Island, as the diagram on the opposite page suggests. In 2017, it is Montreal’s 375th birthday, Canada’s 150th birthday and the 50th year of the Expo67. For this, Montreal has appointed a committee to undertake the task of creating a new series of legacies that can live up to the status of the celebrations in 19926. So far, they have planned the construction of an Aboriginal Cultural and Artistic Centre, a new pavilion for the Museum of Fine Arts, the foundation of Saint-Michel Environmental Complex and a new exhibition room for Montreal’s Archaeological Museum7.
1. Marsan, Jean-Claude; Montreal in Evolution; McGill Queen’s University Press, 1981 2. Smith, Andrew; Events and Urban Regeneration; Routledge, 2012 3. 375mtl.com, referenced August 31, 2014 4. The transformation of the American Pavilion (now the Biosphere or ”Buckminster Fuller Dome”) took place as part of the regeneration of Jean Drapeau Park where Expo67 was hosted. 5. Tourisme-montreal.org, referenced August 30, 2014. For this project it is worth mentioning the Fireworks Festival, which takes place in the entertainment park on Saint Helene’s Island, to which the Jacques Cartier Bridge connects. For several saturdays in a row, the bridge and the surrounding streets are shut off from traffic for a couple of hours in the evening to accommodate for the masses of pedestrians that spill out on the roads to get the best view of the spectacle. 6. Ibid. 3. Referenced September 2, 2014 7. Ibid.
thesis program - cAMILLA siggaard andersen the royal danish academy of arts school of architecture - autumn 2014
montrealers are great at participating in city events At Place des Arts during the festival ”Just for Laughs”, 2014
"
We must (...) be master of our technology and of our economy if we want to organize and control our urban environment. the conversion of energy in itself is neither good nor bad: it is a mere tool. whether it is put in the hands of a blind anonymous techno-economic system or put at the service of an authentic urban society dedicated to the quality of urban life should mean the difference btetween the decay or fulfilment for the city. jean-claude marsan montreal in evolution, 1981, p. 381
smart montreal
context
One of the newest trends in Montreal’s city planning is a drive to establish Montreal as a Smart City1. In December this year (2014) Montreal will host its first Smart City Conference, which is mainly aimed at urban planners, government employees and business developers2. One of the themes of the event is how to create a smart city that is open and inclusive to the public. So far, the city has made a public online database that shares information about traffic, the urban environment and public partitions3, but this is just the beginning of a larger development plan, which is to be completed during the year 2014. To perform this task, Montreal has established the “Smart and Digital Office”4, which in turn has comprised its agenda in four parts5 that are summarised at the bottom of this page. The office also has the responsibility to make Montreal a recognised international leader of smart cities, and a yearly budget of $500.0006 to achieve this.
2
1: To free up masses of data and develop ways for people to access and display it.To collect and analyse data to enhance control over and optimisation of public resource use.
2: To develop a web portal and mobile apps that transmit information to residents in real time.To create learning centres and local technology sites.
montreal’s four-part approach7
3: To develop smart transportation infrastructure, security, energy, water and environmental management systems.
4. To assist private and institutional stakeholders in creating a network of technology incubators/accelerators. To support the needs of technology start-ups. To promote the use of public space as a laboratory for testing ground-breaking solutions for municipal challenges.
1. Deakin, Mark; Creating Smart-er Cities; Routledge, 2013 2. Smartcityexpomtl.com, referenced September 3, 2014 3. Donnees.ville.montreal.qc.ca, referenced August 30, 2014 and Bruemmer, René, ”Montreal’s Mapping Database to be made Publicly Available”; Montreal Gazette, June 11, 2014 4. Ville.montreal.qc.ca, referenced September 3, 2014 5. ”Presentation of the Four Axes of the 2014 Montreal Smart and Digital City Strategy”;Ville Montreal, 2014 6. Ibid. 7. The diagram and diagram text of Montreal’s four-part approach to becoming a ”Smart and Digital City” is a free representation of the data provided in the municipal document: ”Presentation of the Four Axes of the 2014 Montreal Smart and Digital City Strategy”;Ville Montreal, 2014
thesis program - cAMILLA siggaard andersen the royal danish academy of arts school of architecture - autumn 2014
montreal year 1801
Map by Louis Charland, Plan de la Ville et Cité de Montréal
É
~ 1:15.000
quartier sainte-marie: a divided neighbourhood FROM A SUBURB TO A QUARTIER
context
In the very early stages of its lifetime, Sainte-Marie was a cluster of houses outside the city fortifications, residing along the road that connected the eastern areas of Québec to Montreal1. This thoroughfare, Sainte-Marie Street, was the lively transportation spine of the neighbourhood, which benefitted from Montreal’s prosperity by engaging with the trade going in and out of the city centre2. The rural land surrounding it was organised in long orthogonal strips, rangs, to provide every landowner with equal access to the streams of water running through the landscape3. This system, though never an act of conscious planning, was so strong that the expanding village persistently abided its demarcations4. Therefore, the original rangs can still be traced in the contemporary street grid. By the middle of the 19th century, and as a result of the suburb’s fortunate location, the built mass had spread northwards, and Sainte-Marie Street could no longer contain the multitude of activity; a series of parallel streets developed, including Saint Catherine Street (the current main commercial street in Montreal), Ontario Street and Sherbrooke Street5. Sometime in the mid-19th century, the expansion of Sainte-Marie and Montreal melted together, and the suburb was renamed a quartier6.
2
1. Map by Louis Charland; ”Plan de la Ville de Cité de Montréal”; 1801 2. Benoît, Michèle; Gratton, Roger; Pignon sur Rue: les Quartier de Montréal; Guérin, 1991 3. Charney, Melvin; “The Montrealness of Montreal”; The Architectural Review, 167, May 1980 4. Marsan, Jean-Claude; Montreal in Evolution; McGill Queen’s University Press, 1981 5. Map by Chas. E. Goad; ”Atlas of the City of Montreal”; 1881 6. Ibid.
thesis program - cAMILLA siggaard andersen the royal danish academy of arts school of architecture - autumn 2014
montreal year 1881
Map by Chas. E. Goad., Atlas of the city of Montreal
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THE INDUSTRIAL NEIGHBOURHOOD
context
By the time Sainte-Marie had been encompassed by Montreal, the city was becoming increasingly industrialised. Sainte-Marie’s proximity to both the city centre, and the convenient transportation opportunities by the river, marked it as the ideal location for the establishment of industrial activity1. In the late 19th century, hundreds of factories were founded in the neighbourhood, including the industrial giant Molson’s Brewery, which still occupies part of the quay. The main trades were tobacco, textiles, shoes and foods, but many more were represented2. Naturally, the industry attracted workers too, and in the decades following the 1870’s, the population in Sainte-Marie increased fivefold, rising from 16.000 in habitants in 18713 to 80.000 inhabitants in the early 1900’s4. In order to cope with this dramatic population rise, many houses of varying standard were erected in a very short time5.
2
Approaching the 20th century, Sainte-Marie Street had become a corridor for commercial trade, and it had changed it name to Notre-Dame Street, as it is known today6. The rapid urbanisation of the quartier resulted in a sodden and noisy environment, where a massive working class clustered around the factories in two and three storey houses7. The milieu was so harsh that Sainte-Marie colloquially adopted the name “le Faubourg à m’lasse”, referring to the strong smell of molasses that emanated from the industry on the docks8.
1. Lewis, Robert; Manufacturing Montreal; The John Hopkins University Press, 2000 2. Ibid. 3. Benoît, Michèle; Gratton, Roger; Pignon sur Rue: Les Quartier de Montréal; Guérin, 1991 4. Collections at Écomusée du Fier Monde, July 2014 5. Ibid. 6. ”Programme Particulier d’Urbanisme, Quartier Sainte-Marie”;Ville-Marie, January 2012 7. Ibid. 4. 8. Dunton, Nancy; Malkin, Helen; A Guidebook to Contemporary Architecture in Montreal; Guérin, 2008
thesis program - cAMILLA siggaard andersen the royal danish academy of arts school of architecture - autumn 2014
workers at textile mill (circa 1900) Available from Musée McCords Online Image Library.
view of montreal and quartier sainte-marie (1892)
context
Available from Musée McCords Online Image Library.
2
"
acquaint yourself with the cleanly, modest homestead that cluster around the busy hives of industry in the great manufacturing outskirts of the canadian metropolis. ernest chamber 1895 as quoted in manufacturing montreal
thesis program - cAMILLA siggaard andersen the royal danish academy of arts school of architecture - autumn 2014
Foundations for the jacques cartier bridge (Late 1920's) This image has kindly been provided from Écomusée du Fier Monde’s Private Collection.
bridging / dividing
context
In the 20th century, the automobile revolution had taken hold in Montreal1, and in 1925 the city decided to build the Jacques Cartier Bridge to connect the metropolis to the existing and expanding infrastructural network, which had come to rely on motorised traffic2. The bridge was inaugurated in 19303. The steel truss cantilevered construction instantly became a monumental part of Montreal’s landscape, and significantly increased Sainte-Marie’s position on the thoroughfare towards Montreal4. However, the foundations were established with little regard to the existing environment, and several housing blocks were demolished and their working-class residents were expropriated5. Physically, the limited number of pathways that were left beneath the bridge separated the neighbourhood into an east and a west side. Furthermore, the vacant lots - the result of the housing demolitions - created a gap in the natural street life, which was further challenged by the masses of cars exiting the bridge onto the surrounding roads. In a way, Montreal’s physical expansion, represented by the construction of the Jacques Cartier Bridge, phenomenologically separated the community in Sainte-Marie6.
2
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in many ways you can argue that the jacques cartier bridge just stepped all over sainte-marie - and still does so today. nancy dunton / lecturer mcgill university interviewed july 7 2014
1. Guillet, Edwin C.; The Story of Canadian Roads; University of Toronto Press, 1966 2. Gourney, Isabelle; Canlaethem, France; Montreal Metropolis 1880-1930; Article by David, Hanna B.; ”The Importance of Transportation Infrastructure”; Stoddart Publishing Co., 1998 3. Wilson, L.R.; The Montreal South Shore Bridge: Fabrication and Erection of the Superstructure of the Montreal-South shore Bridge; Dominion Bridge Company, 1930 4. ”Programme Particulier d’Urbanisme, Quartier Sainte-Marie”;Ville-Marie, January 2012 5. Ibid. 6. Ibid.; This view is also expressed in the interview with Nancy Dunton that can be referenced in the appendix of this document.
thesis program - cAMILLA siggaard andersen the royal danish academy of arts school of architecture - autumn 2014
dorchester boulevard (today rene levesque boulevard) in the 1950's Available from Musée McCords Online Image Library.
THE IMPACTS OF MODERNISATION
context
After the Second World War, the local industry in Sainte-Marie was unable to compete in an increasingly globalised economy1. The factories were forced to vacate the area, removing the anchors around which the community had originally emerged2. Sainte-Marie was now an industrial neighbourhood without a body of industry. The closed factories accelerated unemployment, and the once humble working class neighbourhood became a slum at the edge of the city3.
2
In the mid-20th century, the city of Montreal saw a need to breathe new life into the demising Sainte-Marie. In order to do this, 28.000 residences were demolished between 1957 and 19744, to create more space for auto routes, boulevards and car parks, and to establish massive buildings imbedding numerous functions, such as offices, car parks and commerce5. Notre-Dame Street was no longer a lively transportation hub, but the backdrop for high-speed conduits between the metropolis and the hinterlands. Together with Dorchester Road, which was widened into the eight-tracked René Lévesque Boulevard6, it created a double-infrastructural barrier between Sainte-Marie’s residences and the riverfront.
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serious and conscientious administrators must not permit the very heart of our city to be eaten away by cancerous slums (...) it is vital that the centre of montreal be decongested, that it be permitted to breathe freely, that its arteries be englarged. lucien croteau / chairman, municipal sanitray housing bureau ”croteau’s view on dozois’ plan” 1957
1. Collections at Écomusée du Fier Monde, July 2014 2. Ibid. 3. ”Réinventer le Faubourg à m’lasse”; Le Devoir, December 13, 2008. The characterisation of the neighbourhood as a slum is also evident on the map published by Service d’Urbanisme in 1949, entitled Plans d’utilisation du Sol de la Ville Montréal, which is available in the Bibliothèque et Archives Nationales du Québec. The map identifies large areas in Sainte-Marie as deteriorating housing. The report carried out by the borough of Ville-Marie in 2012 (Programme Particulier d’Urbanisme, p. 12) also comments on the negative state of the neighbourhood in 1950-1975, during which time the city undertook great renewal campaigns in the area that resulted in the demolition of many of the old worker’s housing. 4. Ibid. 1. 5. ”Programme Particulier d’Urbanisme, Quartier Sainte-Marie”;Ville-Marie, January 2012 6. Marsan, Jean-Claude; Montreal in Evolution; McGill Queen’s University Press, 1981
thesis program - cAMILLA siggaard andersen the royal danish academy of arts school of architecture - autumn 2014
many working class houses were demolished to build the iconic cbc tower. This picture was taken in the summer 2014 looking east towards the Jacques Cartier Bridge.
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montreals telecommunication centre
context
When Jean Drapeau was elected mayor in 1954, he envisioned a “Cité des Ondes”; a telecommunication centre in Sainte-Marie1. Montreal had been sufficiently connected to the transportation infrastructure and it was time to wire it into the expanding worldwide instant-communication movement as well. The main pull in this direction was manifested by the construction of Maison Radio-Canada (CBC) in 19732; a massive complex that required the destruction of several housing blocks.The demolition began in the fall of 1963, and it affected 678 homes, 12 grocery shops, 13 restaurants and 12 factories3.
2
In the years following the comprehensive developments, the businesses that were anticipated to move in around Maison Radio Canada stayed absent, and the properties all around suffered from the devalutaion4. The urban fabric was weakened and disintegrated by the many tears, which in most cases were not patched up by the intended new projects, leaving the area in fragments.This approach continued into the 1970s5. As a result, Sainte-Marie approached the end of the 20th century in pieces; a perforated ghost of a once dense and lively urban tissue.
1. Dunton, Nancy; Malkin, Helen; A Guidebook to Contemporary Architecture in Montreal; Guérin, 2008 2. Collections at Écomusée du Fier Monde, July 2014 3. Corriveau, Jeanne; ”Réinventer le Faubourg à m’lasse”; Le Devoir, December 13, 2008 4. ”Programme Particulier d’Urbanisme, Quartier Sainte-Marie”;Ville-Marie, January 2012 5. Wolfe, Joshuia; Grenier, Cécile; Discover Montrel; Libre Expression, 1991
thesis program - cAMILLA siggaard andersen the royal danish academy of arts school of architecture - autumn 2014
artists on saint-catherine street in the heart of the gay village In front of Beaudry Metro Station.
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new initiatives
context
During the last fifteen years, the western part of Sainte-Marie has benefitted from the reuse of vacant industrial buildings, as well as from the revitalisation of the neighbouring Quartier Latin in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s1. In the 1990’s the gay community took an interest in Saint Catherine Street between Saint Hubert Street and Papineau Street, and with that followed cafés, commerce and even more residents2. Unfortunately, this development has not yet reached the neighbourhood east of the bridge (below Ontario Street). In 2012, the mayor of Ville-Marie signed a report commenting on the state and action plan for Sainte-Marie3. The report focuses on redeveloping the public domains to improve usability of arteries, as well as improving the environment that frames the streets. Most telling for the recent development of the quartier are the boundaries which have been set in the report4. Interestingly, SainteMarie has been marked as an area situated far east of previous history’s definitions.The limits encompass the Hochelaga rail yards to the east, but do not go further than rue De Champlain to the west, leaving out Amherst Street and the CBC Radio-Canada site. This division echoes the rift created by the Jacques-Cartier Bridge, but it also recognises the natural positive impacts that private initiatives have had on the western neighbourhood.
2
1. Collections at Écomusée du Fier Monde, July 2014 2. Interview with Nancy Dunton, July 7, 2014. See appendix for full interview transcript. 3. ”Programme Particulier d’Urbanisme, Quartier Sainte-Marie”;Ville-Marie, January 2012 4. The different demarcations of Sainte-Marie are illustrated in the appendix.
thesis program - cAMILLA siggaard andersen the royal danish academy of arts school of architecture - autumn 2014
QUARTIER Sainte-Marie Source: City of Montreal, 2012
parking, wasteland or industry
1:15.000
the current status
context
Today, the borough of Ville-Marie identifies 200.000m2 of underutilised or vacant land in Sainte-Marie1. 45% of the population is considered low income, and only 16% are home owners2. Notre-Dame Street, the original core of the quartier, is now surrounded by vacant sites and its primary function is to convey high-speed conduits between the Jacques Cartier Bridge ramps and downtown Montreal. 96.600 vehicles cross the bridge on a daily basis3, creating congestion on all local roads during peak hours4.
2
Saint Catherine Street has become the new commercial artery in the neighbourhood, but the gentrification of its western end (surrounding the Gay Village) has not yet made it passed the bridge5. The Saint Lawrence River is cut off from the areas of residence by several industrial train tracks (owned and run by Canadian Pacific), the seven-lane Notre-Dame Street and the eight-lane René Lévesque Boulevard. In addition, the land surrounding the bridge between Sainte-Catherine Street and the river is dotted with vacant lots and parking areas. One of the few green spots in Sainte-Marie’s eastern part, the Bellerive Park, is wedged in between Notre-Dame Street and the train rails, which makes it highly inaccessible. Molson’s Brewery (one of the few survivors of the deindustrialisation) still occupies a large portion of the quay west of the bridge, but the business has become introverted and the buildings are inaccessible. The vision for a “Cité des Ondes” has actually materialised, but the many telecommunication industries that moved in after the rebranding are not adding much to the street life6. On the site owned by Canadian Broadcasting Company, the masses of land that was razed to build the iconic CBC tower now serves as parking for the employees of the complex. All of these rifts in the urban fabric have turned Sainte-Marie into a fragmented neighbourhood - separated from the river, separated into east and west, and separated from an identity.
1. ”Programme Particulier d’Urbanisme, Quartier Sainte-Marie”;Ville-Marie, January 2012 2. Ibid. 3. Information from the Official Annual Federal Bridge Report 2006-2007, which is available from The Jacques Cartier and Champlain Bridge Incorporated. 4. Ibid. 1. 5. Personal registration during field trip, July 2014 6. Interview with Nancy Dunton, July 7, 2014. See appendix for full interview transcript.
thesis program - cAMILLA siggaard andersen the royal danish academy of arts school of architecture - autumn 2014
today sainte-marie is being branded as montreal's creative hub Street sign on Ontario Street by the Jacques Cartier Bridge exit.

The future is an open plot of land
context
Although the infrastructural and programmatic challenges in Sainte-Marie seem endless, there are also great aspects to consider. Besides the redevelopment that has been proposed in Programme Particulier d’Urbanisme in 20121, the neighbourhood boasts a large percentage of residents working within the sector “Art, culture, sport and leisure”. In Montreal, there are 5,7% working in this sector, but in Sainte-Marie that amount is 10,5% 2.
2
In a reflection of this, the neighbourhood has recently been rebranded “Pôle de Création des Faubourgs”3, which roughly translates to “Creative Hub Suburb”. The area also has a great strength in its proximity to downtown, to the Jean Drapeau Park on the island of Saint Helene and to the Saint Lawrence River. But more than anything, the vast majority of empty land wedged in between these great assets, offers itself to dreams and aspirations of a new golden era for Sainte-Marie.
"
(...) l’émergence de l’industrie culturelle donne un souffle nouveau au secteur. (...) l’établissement de nombreaux lieux de création et de diffusion a contribué à cette émergence culturelle. ville montreal programme particulier d’urbanisme, 2012
1. ”Programme Particulier d’Urbanisme, Quartier Sainte-Marie”;Ville-Marie, January 2012 2. Ibid. 3. Ibid. and Lesfaubourgs.ca, September 4, 2014
thesis program - cAMILLA siggaard andersen the royal danish academy of arts school of architecture - autumn 2014
the jacques cartier bridge stretches 700 meters into sainte-marie View from an adjacent parking area looking east.
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the jacques cartier bridge: an icon in a wasteland in the shadow of the bridge
context
The Jacques Cartier Bridge has become an icon of Montreal. The structure, which is painted turquoise, rises high above the Saint-Lawrence River in a monumental span, cantilevering more than 500 meters1. It connects Montreal to the South Shore via Saint Helene’s Island, the location of the amusement park La Ronde and the Expo67 site Jean Drapeau Park. In Sainte-Marie it stretches inland 700 meters before the cars can exit on the ramps, onto De Lorimier Avenue and Papineau Avenue. The bridge offers a view of all of Montreal, including sights of the Olympic Stadium, the mountain Mont Royal, the Old Port, the CBC tower and the downtown Ville-Marie complex. It can itself be viewed from all of Sainte-Marie and from most of downtown Montreal2.
2
The bridge rises high above the street level, with supports spaced out circa every 40 meter3.The first support on land is a massive concrete arch, but the rest of the structure is a more light-weight steel construction, offering a high level of transparency. South of Saint Catherine Street, the area immediately under the bridge is vacant, consisting of bare dirt ground with little vegetation on it. Sometimes it is used for parking, but it is mostly empty. At the crossing by Saint-Catherine Street, the stretch has been paved and installed with a couple of benches and street trees. By Maisonneuve Boulevard a skate-plaza was constructed a couple of years ago, but its success has been debated4.
1. Giroux Éric; Vue sur le Pont;Ville-Marie Montreal and Écomusée du Fier Monde, 2005 2. Personal registration during field trip, July 2014 3. As measured on the original construction drawings; viewed at Écomusée du Fier Monde, July 2014 4. Theodore, David; ”Making Place”; Canadian Architect, October 2008. Theodore writes: ”It is the first municipal park that skateboarders, BMX riders and inline skaters can use legally. But it had a difficult genesis and absurdly indignant reception from the very people it was built for.”
thesis program - cAMILLA siggaard andersen the royal danish academy of arts school of architecture - autumn 2014
aerial view of the jacques cartier bridge Aerial view from Mapquest parking or wasteland
1:5.000
by the pillars of the bridge
context
The pillars of the Jacques Cartier Bridge are surrounded by vacant land, where houses were torn down years ago and never reconstructed. The feeling of the bridge as a barrier through the neighbourhood is enhanced by the absence of a purpose on these plots.
2
In the southern wasteland, three buildings remain from the industrial golden era: the prison Au-Pied-du-Courant (not a prison anymore), Molson’s Brewery (still functioning) and a small power station (inactive) that sits on an infrastructural island between Notre-Dame Street and the Ville-Marie Autoroute. Along the waterfront, where the view of Saint Lawrence River and of Montreal is at its best, the once-industrial harbour front invites to be re-appropriated for recreational activities. However, the barrier of the Canadian Pacific Railway and of the NotreDame Street traffic makes it impossible to access this area. The closest one can get to the water is the Bellerive Park, east of the bridge, and its adjacent triangular wasteland that is used as a snow deposit during the winter. However, this summer the Québec organisation l’ADUQ1 created an urban intervention on this particular site. The project, le Village Éphémère, has been one of the first recent successful attempts to draw people to Sainte-Marie’s riverside, proving that the area does have the ability to attract people’s positive attention2.
1. L’Association du Design Urbain du Québec, freely translated to The Association of Urban Design in Québec. 2. There is a transcript of an interview with l’ADUQ’s Head of Communication in the appendix of this document. The appendix also comprises data from a questionnaire that was filled in by the visitors of le Village Éphémère.
thesis program - cAMILLA siggaard andersen the royal danish academy of arts school of architecture - autumn 2014
"
curiously sainte-marie is almost a bit isolated in the city, even though it has all the links to connect it to downtown. nancy dunton / lecturer mcgill university interviewed july 7 2014
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Background
3
Caption: View east of the Jacques Cartier Bridge of Notre-Dame Street and the CP rails.
thesis program - cAMILLA siggaard andersen the royal danish academy of arts school of architecture - autumn 2014
"
changes to the wider physical urban fabric are the most visible effects of event projects and many cities now bear the physical imprint of events they have staged. andrew smith events and urban regeneration 2012, P. 101
the american pavillion from expo67 is now an environmental museum The Buckminster Fuller geodesic dome in Jean Drapeau Park.
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events as a momentum for change postive and negative impacts of events
Background
Large events, such as the Olympic Games, the World Fair and major sporting events, are typically associated with the opportunity to breathe life into an area or to brand a city’s image. In negative cases, they have also become synonymous with large debts and with dilapidated and empty left-over buildings and sites1. In Montreal, it took almost twenty years before the velodrome from the 1976 Olympics was repurposed, but for the city’s 350th anniversary in 1992 it found new life as a biological ecocentre2. The American pavilion from Expo67 was re-appropriated in that same year, and it is now an environmental museum (Biosphere). Today, both structures are successful contributions to the city, though neither was originally intended for a second life. A growing trend in event planning is to foresee this post-event situation, in order to optimise the opportunity to use the event as a kick-starter for a larger urban development scheme3. This was exemplified by the 2012 London Olympics, where adaptability and temporality of several sporting buildings and urban landscapes were integral parts of the event planning4.
3
The organisation of Montreal’s 375th anniversary is currently being curated with similar intentions of fitting the event celebrations into a wider perspective5. The committee that was founded to organise and coordinate the events throughout 2017 has explicitly stated the importance of the year’s long-term effects in the city, both “tangible and intangible”6. To ensure a positive reception of the projects, the committee is also encouraging citizen participation in the planning and execution of events. Still, through all of these intentions to ensure a good local impact of the celebrations, the global image of Montreal remains an important consideration7.
1. Smith, Andrew; Events and Urban Regeneration; Routledge, 2012 2. The Olympic velodrome is today known as the ”Biodôme”, which recreates American ecosystems. Source: Espacepourlavie.ca/en/biodome, September 4, 2014 3. Ibid. 1. 4. Dyckhoff, Tom and Barrett, Claire; The Architecture of London 2012; John Wiley & Sons, 2012. 5. 375mtl.com, September 4, 2014 6. ”Action Plan 2013-2017”; Society for the Celebrations of Montréal’s 375th Anniversary, 2013. 7. The website 375mtl.com states: ”Keenly aware that Montréal’s 375th anniversary is an incredible launch pad for the city, the Society wishes to maximize experiences and benefits well beyond 2017 (...) Through the sum of its actions, the Society aims to bolster Montrealers’ sense of pride and belonging, as well as to increase the city’s visibility and profile abroad.”
thesis program - cAMILLA siggaard andersen the royal danish academy of arts school of architecture - autumn 2014
"
Keenly aware that Montréal’s 375th anniversary is an incredible launch pad for the city, the Society wishes to maximize experiences and benefits well beyond 2017 (...) Through the sum of its actions, the Society aims to bolster Montrealers’ sense of pride and belonging, as well as to increase the city’s visibility and profile abroad. Society for the Celebrations of Montréal’s 375th Anniversary 375mtl.com
events as urban regenerators1
Background
The link between events and regeneration can be understood in reference to time, since both concepts have the ability to compartmentalise time. Events split time into pre-, during and post-event, in the same way that regeneration is always seen in reference to what it was before and what it will be after. But while a regeneration normally takes several years or even decades, events compress the “during” time into a relatively short period. Hence, events linked to regeneration can accelerate this process. Events and regeneration are also both very place-bound happenings. This gives them the ability to territorialise and designate space, which in turn makes them capable of transforming vague and informal spaces into specific and identifiable places. Because of an event’s ability to set aside usual norms and legislations, they have also been associated with neo-liberal ideologies.
3
The idea of using events as a tool for regeneration can be categorised into two: eventled and event-themed urban regeneration. An event-led urban regeneration has the event as the main catalyst. An event-themed urban regeneration uses the event within a broader context and alongside other agendas that sometimes outweigh the event itself. It is this latter approach, which is interesting from Sainte-Marie’s point of view. staging a 2017 event in sainte-marie
This project proposes to stage an event in Sainte-Marie in 2017, with the agenda of catalysing a regeneration of the neighbourhood’s dilapidated areas. The event will take the form of a Smart City Expo, building on the city’s existing investments within this field2. The creation of structures and of public spaces to accompany this event will lay the foundations for Sainte-Marie’s new public heart; the Smart Community Centre. In return, the city of Montreal can “use” the event to brand itself as a people-oriented Smart City as part of the four-part action plan3. In this way, both the city and the community in Sainte-Marie have the potential to benefit from the event/post-event relationship of an event-themed urban regeneration.
1. The paragraph entitled ”Events as Urban Regenerators” is informed by: Smith, Andrew; Events and Urban Regeneration; Routledge, 2012 2. Reference the chapter ”Montreal: City of Spectacles”. 3. Ibid.
thesis program - cAMILLA siggaard andersen the royal danish academy of arts school of architecture - autumn 2014
"smart" parameters The diagram is inspired by Siemens work with ”Sustainable Cities” from Siemens.com
"
the very technology of computer telecommunications extends the gaze, trandscends the body, amplifies the mind into unpredictable configurations of thought and creativity. roy ascott (1990) as quoted in documents of contemporary art: networks, 2014
from smart city to smart community the definition of ”smart”
Background
Smart Cities are most commonly defined by their ability to collect data, analyse data and manage ressources1. In this definition, “smart” means implementing technological systems to control the chaotic metropolis2 (roughly put). However, a different definition has also been proposed; one that puts people and communities at the centre of the discussion. This approach considers it “smart” to make it easy for people to do good3, for example by improving the connection between the city operators and the public4. It is this kind of relationship that the proposal of a Smart Community Centre hopes to encourage. In both cases, which have also been categorised as top-down and bottom-up approaches5, “smart” is implemented as an infrastructural system of connections between people, places, money and goods6. This infrastructure may not have a physical manifestation, but it still has the potential to influence how we interact with the city7. For the purpose of defining this project’s agenda, the next two paragraphs give examples of differences between methods of smart city implementation.
3
examples of top-down initiatives: Songdo and rio de janeiro
The project to build Songdo International Business District in South Korea was undertaken at the beginning of the 21st century, with the aim of testing ubiquitous computing systems at a large scale, and to attract international business corporations to South Korea8. The entire city was erected within a decade, with systems for smart waste-, water and emergency management imbedded in the very structure of the urban interior. The city was also constructed with multiple docks for charging electric cars, and with wi-fi in for example the underground transportation system9. However, in 2013 the city was still less than half full and only 20% of the commercial office spaces were rented out10. Rio de Janeiro in Brasil is a city of 6 million inhabitants, and the drive to create “Smart Rio” has come from its hosting of the 2016 Olympic Games. In order to prevent problems (ranging from accidents to natural disasters to riots), the city has equipped itself with a multitude of sensors that feed information into a “Smart Operation Centre”11. The information going into the centre is to be monitored by 600 trained people. In this way, the city administration has a full overview of any problems that may arise. 1. Lecture by Escerich, Kim, Future Cities Conference, November 7, 2013 2. Michael Bloomberg, New York’s former mayor has said: ”If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.” As quoted in Smart Cities, 2013:41. 3. Conversation with Kristian Villadsen, partner Gehl Architects, September 2, 2014. 4. Townsend, Anthony M.; Smart Cities; Norton, 2013. 5. Ibid. 6. Caldarelli, Guido; Catanzaro, Michele; Networks; Oxford University Press, 2012 7. Neal, Zachary P.; The Connected City; Routledge, 2013 8. Lecture by Lecavalier, Jesse, ETH Zürich, September 11, 2012 9. Williamson, Lucy; ” Tomorrow’s cities: Just how smart is Songdo?”; BBC news, September 2, 2013 10. Ibid. 11. Lecture by Escerich, Kim, Future Cities Conference, November 7, 2013
thesis program - cAMILLA siggaard andersen the royal danish academy of arts school of architecture - autumn 2014
"
we think it is entirely possible to develop technologies that will fold into our surroundings and our bodies. these tools will get our noses off the smartphone screen and back into our environment. they will make us more, rather than less, present in the world around us. gershon dublon and joseph a. paradiso / m.i.t. media lab article in scientific american, july 2014
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examples of bottom-up initiatives
The idea of having a city that merged with machines could adapt to people’s needs is (in architecture) more than fifty years old. Some of the early examples include Ron Herron’s “Walking City” (1964) and Cedric Price’s “Fun Palace” (1961), both conceived as experiments of thought and both putting the user at the centre of the adaptability.
Background
Two more modern examples of bottom-up initiatives are the “DIYcity” movement and “Botanicalls”1. The DIYcity.org was conceived by John Geraci in 2008 as an initiative to bring together urban planners, environmental designers, students, governments and web developers. The goal was that residents anywhere could use and learn from the tools provided by the network on the site, with the aim of improving their local area. To boost people’s innovation, Geraci launched challenges on the site, awarding the most innovative solution to common problems. One output of such a challenge was the creation of an app that cross-referenced open data to send out personalised text-messages about concurrent traffic situations.
3
Botanicalls was launched by a group of American students who wanted people to be more in touch with their green environment2. In order to achieve this, they developed a sensor that could go in the plant pot, measuring the level of hydration. If a plant is in need of water, the sensor calls or texts the owner of the plant to alert him/her of its need. Both of these are examples of a technological world that directs our attention locally.
smart technology in sainte-marie
The Smart City Expo and the Smart Community Centre proposed by this project, are both meant to inspire a bottom-up creation of “smart” infrastructures that operate as described in the previous paragraph. The Expo and the Centre are distinguished by their programmatic agendas. The Expo’s main address is to teach and to inform. The Centre aims to contribute to the creation of Smart Montreal via the activities that are undertaken by the community inhabiting it. Both programs are also taking into account Montreal’s Smart City plan as described in chapter 2.
1. Townsend, Anthony M.; Smart Cities; Norton, 2013. Townsend lists several other examples, which can be reviewed in his book. 2. Botanicalls.com, September 4, 2014. The website states: ”The Botanicalls project is fundamentally about communication between plants and people. We are empowering both by inventing new avenues of interaction.”
thesis program - cAMILLA siggaard andersen the royal danish academy of arts school of architecture - autumn 2014
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like the impurities in water that facilitate the formation of ice, places and events known as foci facilitate the formation of relationsships. They make possible a social phase transition in which individuals shift from a disconnected and disorganized state to a clustered one (...)
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zachary p. neal the connected city, p. 34
project description
View of the Jacques Cartier Bridge from west looking east.
4
thesis program - cAMILLA siggaard andersen the royal danish academy of arts school of architecture - autumn 2014
summary Montreal
2017 triple-celebration
smart montreal
Montreal is planning a series of events to celebrate and commemorate its 375th birthday, Canada’s 150th birthday and the 50th anniversary of Expo67 in 2017.
Montreal is preparing to become a smart city, marked by the establishment of the Digital Smart City Office and by the Smart City Conference ultimo 2014.
project description
Two main drivers in Montreal.
The festive spirit and drive that is going to colour the atmosphere of 2017, makes it the perfect time to launch Montreal’s smart city ambitions to the public in a Smart City Expo.
4 By connecting the potential of a Smart City Expo in Montreal with the dream of a Smart Community Centre in Sainte-Marie, the city of Montreal benefits from the collective brain of its residents, while the community of Sainte-Marie benefits from a regeneration and re-programmation of its most dilapidated areas.
Sainte-Marie’s twin identities are fused into one in the Smart Community Centre, which encourages innovation and creativity to take place among people and in the public sphere.
cité des ondes
pôle de création
Sainte-Marie has been branded as Montreal’s centre for telecommunication, and today these businesses are very much present in the quartier, albeit quite introvertedly.
Sainte-Marie has a relatively large amount of residents working in creative industries, and is currently being rebranded as Montreal’s hub of creativity.
Two main brands of Sainte-Marie.
Sainte-marie
thesis program - cAMILLA siggaard andersen the royal danish academy of arts school of architecture - autumn 2014
project description
vision
The main ambition of the project is to give Sainte-Marie a defined public place in the heart of the quartier, where the residents are encouraged to meet and exchange ideas of innovation. The vision is to achieve this by using the momentum of the 2017-celebrations, in combination with the Smart-Montreal movement, to kick-start an urban regeneration of both the local fabric and the local identity.
thesis program - cAMILLA siggaard andersen the royal danish academy of arts school of architecture - autumn 2014
4

framing
project description
The framing onus of the project is to regenerate and repurpose the vacant no-man’s land and non-place in the southern part of SainteMarie by the Jacques Cartier Bridge. The quartier’s history of being a lively and busy neighbourhood in Montreal is not honoured by its current status of ambiguity. It seeks a defined public centre with a unique program to attract interest and involvement from the residents of the neighbourhood and of Montreal. By placing this program in proximity to the bridge, the eastern and western parts of Sainte-Marie can be joined where they were once separated. Furthermore, the bridge provides a natural funnel towards the water, and therefore an opportunity to reconnect the residents with the natural positive assets of the Saint Lawrence River. The Smart Community Centre is implemented as the main attractor in this regeneration, building upon the presence of the telecommunication industries and a relatively large proportion of residents employed in creative businesses. The Centre will provide both indoor and outdoor facilities for innovation and experimentation, inspiring a playful use of the public realm. In time, the neighbourhood is revitalised around the identity of these activities in the Centre, which is operated by locals.To fulfil this, the project needs to be a framework of public spaces and facilities that can be adapted over time.
4
In order to kick-start this process, a Smart City Expo will take place in 2017 as part of the city’s general celebrations. The Expo will require a physical improvement of the brownfield areas and the construction of exhibition facilities. While the main aim of organising an Expo is to inform Montrealers of the city’s pursuits in smart technology, the main aim of hosting the Expo in Sainte-Marie, is to create a momentum for an improvement of this neighbourhood’s physical and psychological state. It is important that the Expo is designed with its post-event purpose in mind to optimise the reuse of buildings and spaces for the Smart Community Centre.
thesis program - cAMILLA siggaard andersen the royal danish academy of arts school of architecture - autumn 2014
target groups
project description
The project strives to give the neighbourhood of Sainte-Marie an attractor of public life by creating a building of both local and regional interest.The building’s outdoor areas will turn the vacant land surrounding the Jacques Cartier Bridge into an attractive urban environment, extending the supply of public space in Sainte-Marie for the benefit of its residents. The push to establish a people-oriented Smart City movement in the former industrial neighbourhood is an attempt to rebrand its identity and purpose for the 21st century, beginning at the most dilapidated parts of the quartier. During the year 2017, the citizens of Montreal will be invited to visit the Smart City Expo in Sainte-Marie, to learn about the possibilities and limitations of a future techno-urbanism. The main focus of the exhibition will be to inspire Montrealers to contribute to the development of the urban realm, specifically in regards to the implementation of “smart city” systems. Following the Expo, the Smart Community Centre will be open to all who wish to work with, or learn more about, the technologies in question. The primary goal of the centre is to support and integrate people into the life of their city.
thesis program - cAMILLA siggaard andersen the royal danish academy of arts school of architecture - autumn 2014
4
scope The proposal outlined by this program offers the freedom to explore the possibilities of creating an adaptable and playful public sphere, tied to the purpose of one or several semi-public buildings.
project description
The timeline of the regeneration’s master-strategy will be solved at a diagrammatic level, explaining the main implementations and their timely transformations in accordance with the larger context. The layout of the elements of the Smart City Expo will be explained and presented, but the project will not go into detail with the interior organisation of the exhibition. The main focus of the project is the post-event situation, with the Smart Community Centre as its nucleus. The long-term effects of the Expo will be explained in these drawings, along with the relationship between the existing public spaces and the new public program.The drawings will also show the distribution of the interior program, and the architectural experience of these spaces.
thesis program - cAMILLA siggaard andersen the royal danish academy of arts school of architecture - autumn 2014
4
suggestive spatial requirements Smart City Expo The program can be comprised in one building envelope or seperated in several building elements.
Exhibition and Presentation Indoor Exhibition (1000 visitors at a time) Outdoor Exhibition and Public Space (20.000 visitors at a time) Auditorium (200 visitors at a time)
project description
Visitor Facilities Reception and Circulation (to be scaled in accordance with visitor requirements) Food and Drink Restrooms Cloakrooms
Other Administration Facilities (to be scaled in accordance with exhibition scope) Technical Room and Storage (to be scaled in accordance with exhibition scope)
4 Smart community Centre The program can be comprised in one building envelope or seperated in several building elements.
Private Incubator Office facilities (200 deskspaces) Administration Facilities Technical Room and Storage
Semi-public Meeting and Learning Room(s) (seats 50 people) Technical Lab(s)/Testing Facilities Auditorium(s) (seats minimum 50 people) Cloakrooms
Public Pedestrian Network Test-bed Public Plaza(s) Reception and Presentation Food and Drink Restrooms
thesis program - cAMILLA siggaard andersen the royal danish academy of arts school of architecture - autumn 2014

deliverables
suggestive list of drawings and models
project description
A timeline explaining the master strategy of the project phases. (diagrammatic)
Schematic Plan of the Smart City Expo (1:1000)
Visualisation of the Smart City Expo (no scale)
4 Plan(s) of the Smart Community Centre (1:500)
Elevation(s) of the Smart Community Centre (1:200)
Section(s) of the Smart Community Centre (1:200)
Visualisation of the Smart Community Centre (no scale)
Model of the Smart Community Centre (1:500)
thesis program - cAMILLA siggaard andersen the royal danish academy of arts school of architecture - autumn 2014

final submission
presentation layout
preperation of final model
preperation of final drawings
review
detailing of plans and sections
timeline and master strategy
review
Spatial explorations
Site analysis
Program submission
Field trip
28/29
project description
36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51
week
schedule
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thesis program - cAMILLA siggaard andersen the royal danish academy of arts school of architecture - autumn 2014

"
we need to take the wheel back from the engineers, and let people and communities decide wehre we should steer (...) we need to empower ourselves to build future cities organically, from the bottom up (...) failure to put people at the centre of our schemes for smart cities risks repeating the failed designs of the twentieth century. ANTHONY tOWNSEND / SMART CITIES NORTON 2013, P. 14,18 AND 284
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references
5
Caption: Saint Catherine Street at the beginning of the Gay Village in Sainte-Marie’s end.
thesis program - cAMILLA siggaard andersen the royal danish academy of arts school of architecture - autumn 2014
acknowledgements Dear Reader, A couple of years ago I was fortunate to study two semesters at McGill University in Montreal, during which time I fell in love with the city, its history and its residents - my friends. In one of my classes at the school, we were introduced to different neighbourhoods in Montreal and their role in the myriad that make up the city’s identity, and that was how I became acquainted with Quartier Sainte-Marie. I will always be grateful to my lecturer Nancy Dunton for sharing her enthusiasm about Montreal’s quartiers. The dream of this project has grown ever since.
references
This program and project description has also been conceived with the help and guidance from several other people that I would like to acknowledge. During my field trip to Montreal this summer, I was invited into the office of the City of Montreal’s urban planning department (AADU, Atelier d’Aménagement et de Design Urbain), where Danny Aubin kindly shared a vast amount of documents from the city archives. Danny has also been feeding me information since my return to Denmark, and I am very grateful for his help. In AADU, I also met with Wade Eide, who has been working for the city of Montreal for several decades. It was very interesting and valuable to hear his realistic take on urban planning in Montreal. At the Écomusée du Fier Monde, which is themed around Centre-Sud (Sainte-Marie), the museum director Éric Giroux generously shared drawings, pictures and documents from the museum’s personal collection. Several of the pictures are included in this program, and I hope that you will find them as atmospheric and inspiring as I do.
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By coincidence, the urban design organisation l’ADUQ had decided to do an intervention on the vacant land by the Jacques Cartier Bridge this summer. I thank Marie-Claude Plourde of l’ADUQ for sharing their experiences, which has helped me understand the practical assets and challenges of implementing a project by the bridge. Last, but not least, I thank the multitude of Montrealers that have been very helpful and engaging during my registrations in the city. I hope that I will be able to meet your expectations and dreams. Camilla, September 7 2014
thesis program - cAMILLA siggaard andersen the royal danish academy of arts school of architecture - autumn 2014
selective bibliography Books Anastakis, Dimitri et al.; The Sixties: Passion, Politics and Style; McGill Queen’s University Press, 2008 Augé, Marc; Non Places: an Introduction to Supermodernity;Verso, Second English Language Edition, 2008 Benoît, Michèle; Gratton, Roger; Pignon sur Rue: les Quartier de Montréal; Guérin, 1991 Caldarelli, Guido; Catanzaro, Michele; Networks; Oxford University Press, 2012 Charney, Melvin; “The Montrealness of Montreal”; The Architectural Review, 167, May 1980 Cook, Edward A. et al.; Remaking Metropolis: Global Challenges of the Urban Landscape; Routledge, 2013 Deakin, Mark; Creating Smart-er Cities; Routledge, 2013 Dunton, Nancy; Malkin, Helen; A Guidebook to Contemporary Architecture in Montreal; Guérin, 2008 Dyckhoff, Tom and Barrett, Claire; The Architecture of London 2012; John Wiley & Sons, 2012. Giroux Éric; Vue sur le Pont;Ville-Marie Montreal and Écomusée du Fier Monde, 2005 Gourney, Isabelle; Canlaethem, France; Montreal Metropolis 1880-1930; Stoddart Publishing Co., 1998 Guillet, Edwin C.; The Story of Canadian Roads; University of Toronto Press, 1966 Larsen, Lars B.; Documents of Contemporary Art: Networks; Whitechapel Gallery and MIT Press, 2014 Lewis, Robert; Manufacturing Montreal; The John Hopkins University Press, 2000 Lortie, André et al.; Montreal Thinks Big:The Sixties; Douglas&McIntyre, 2004 Marsan, Jean-Claude; Montreal in Evolution; McGill Queen’s University Press, 1981 Neal, Zachary P.; The Connected City; Routledge, 2013 Rémillard, Francois; Montreal Architecture: a Guide to Styles and Buildings; Meridian Press, 1990 Smith, Andrew; Events and Urban Regeneration; Routledge, 2012 Townsend, Anthony M.; Smart Cities; Norton, 2013. Wilson, L.R.; The Montreal South Shore Bridge; Dominion Bridge Company, 1930 Wolfe, Joshuia; Grenier, Cécile; Discover Montrel; Libre Expression, 1991
references
Web (All last referenced September 5, 2014) 375mtl.com Donnees.ville.montreal.qc.ca Lesfaubourgs.ca Smartcityexpomtl.com Tourisme-montreal.org Ville.montreal.qc.ca Articles and Documents ”Presentation of the Four Axes of the 2014 Montreal Smart and Digital City Strategy”;Ville Montreal, 2014 ”Programme Particulier d’Urbanisme, Quartier Sainte-Marie”;Ville-Marie, January 2012 ”Urbanisation”; Montréal Region, February 1969 Bruemmer, René; ”Montreal’s Mapping Database to be made publicly available”; Montreal Gazette, June 11 2014 Cauchon, Noulan; ”Urbanism - whither?”; The Journal of the Royal Architectural Instititute of Canada, June 1934 Corriveau, Jeanne; ”Réinventer le Faubourg à m’lasse”; Le Devoir, December 13 2008 Croteau, Lucien; ”Croteau’s View on Dozois’ Plan”; Montreal Gazette, February 7 1957 Dublon, Gershon and Paradiso, Joseph A.; ”Extra Sensory Perception”; Scientific American, July 2014 Hodges, Margaret; ”Expressway Aesthetics”; Journal for the Society of Architecture in Canada, no. 1 2001 Theodore, David; ”Making Place”; Canadian Architect, October 2008 Wasik, Bill; ”The Programmable World”; Wired, June 2013
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Other Ressources Collections at Écomusée du Fier Monde, July 2014 Collections at Musée McCord, July 2014 Interview with Nancy Dunton, July 7 2014. See appendix for full interview transcript. Interview with Marie-Claude Plourde, July 5 2014. See appendix for full interview transcript. Interview with Wade Eide, July 15, 2014 Lecture by Lecavalier, Jesse; ETH Zürich, September 11, 2012 Lecture by Escerich, Kim; Future Cities Conference; November 7, 2013 Map by Louis Charland; ”Plan de la Ville de Cité de Montréal”; 1801 Map by Chas. E. Goad; ”Atlas of the City of Montreal”; 1881 Map by A.R. Pinsoneault; ”Atlas of the Island and City of Montreal and Île Bizard”; 1907 Map by Service d’Urbanisme; ”Plans d’utilisation du Sol de la Ville Montréal”; 1949 Statistics Canada, 2006 census.
thesis program - cAMILLA siggaard andersen the royal danish academy of arts school of architecture - autumn 2014
"
(...) citizens must come to realize that it is up to them to remodel their urban environment in order to answer their daily needs and aspirations. jean-claude marsan montreal in evolution, 1981, p. 382
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APPENDIX
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People sitting on the structure of the Jacques Cartier Bridge during the annual Fireworks Festival.
thesis program - cAMILLA siggaard andersen the royal danish academy of arts school of architecture - autumn 2014
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appendix contents canadian statistics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80 definitions of sainte-marie. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85 interview 1: marie-claude plourde . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87 interview 2: Nancy Dunton . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91 interview 3: wade eide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95 interview 4: daniel mok. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
APPENDIX
registration of ”le village Éphémère” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
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thesis program - cAMILLA siggaard andersen the royal danish academy of arts school of architecture - autumn 2014
CANAdian provinces Source: Statistics Canada
population of provinces and metropolitan areas year 2013 Source: Statistics Canada
provinces (by order of colour)
Met. area (by order of size) max: toronto, ON (5.959.505 people)
QUÉBEC (8.155.300 people)
montreal, QC (3.981.802 people)
min: NUNAVUT (35.600 people)
min: peterborough, on (123.105 people)
APPENDIX
max: ontario (13.538.000 people)
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thesis program - cAMILLA siggaard andersen the royal danish academy of arts school of architecture - autumn 2014
population change of provinces and metropolitan areas year 2003-2013 Source: Statistics Canada
provinces (by order of colour)
Met. area (by order of size)
max: alberta (+26,5%)
max: calgary, ab (+32,6%)
QUÉBEC (+8,9%)
montreal, QC (10,6%)
min: nova scotia (+0,3%)
min: thunderbay, on (-1,9%)
population density of provinces and metropolitan areas 2013 Source: Statistics Canada
provinces (by order of colour)
Met. area (by order of size)
max: prince edwards island. (26 ppl/km )
max: toronto, ON (1009 ppl/km2)
QUÉBEC (6 ppl/km2)
montreal, QC (935 ppl/km2)
min: NUNAVUT (~0 ppl/km2)
min: saint john, nb (38 ppl/km2)
APPENDIX
2
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thesis program - cAMILLA siggaard andersen the royal danish academy of arts school of architecture - autumn 2014
boundaries of Sainte-marie over time Sources listed on opposite page.
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definitions of sainte-marie The Montréal neighbourhood Sainte-Marie has been subjected to many names throughout different eras, and with these changes the boundaries too have altered.The variations in designation are the key to understanding how the quartier has developed – both in regard to the urban landscape it presents and to the people it enfolds. The area has colloquially had more than five name changes in two-hundred years, and even recent sources cannot seem to settle on a common definition. While it has previously been referred to as Faubourg Québec, Sainte-Marie’s Ward, Faubourg m’lasse and Cité des Ondes , today it is most commonly known as either Sainte-Marie or Centre-Sud . The electoral boundaries of Sainte-Marie are the most encompassing, bundling the neighbourhood into the larger Ville-Marie borough, while a recent report from said borough proposes a different governmental division of the area for the purpose of redevelopment; one that is pushed to the easternmost side towards the Hochelaga rail yards . This demarcation could be seen as a municipal acknowledgement of the recent positive, natural development of the western areas of Saint-Marie , which were the focus of official governmental assessment reports thirty years earlier . In reality, the strongest boundaries in Sainte-Marie are marked by its larger infrastructural elements. By discounting auto roads, large parking areas, wastelands and commercial railways in the graphic demarcation, it becomes clear that the actual neighbourhood is in fact smaller, and more fragmented, than the area that bears its name. This is particularly obvious along the waterfront and by the Jacques Cartier Bridge, which has separated the area in two below Ontario Street.
APPENDIX
This account of Sainte-Marie focuses on the southern parts of the quartier, as defined by the city of Montréal .The aim is to examine the shifting relationship between local, national and global pursuits in the urbanisation of the city, and the impact that these changes have had on the physical and phenomenological environment surrounding the Jacques Cartier Bridge.
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Sources (see reference list for details): Faubourg Québec: Louis Charland, 1801 St. Mary’s Ward: Chas E. Goad, 1881 Faubourg m’Lasse: Pignon sur Rue Cité des Ondes: Collections at Écomusée du Fier Monde Centre Sud: Collections at Écomusée du Fier Monde Programme Particulier d’Urbanisme: Programme Particulier d’Urbanisme 2012, Ville-Marie Quartier Sainte-Marie - Ville Montreal: Montréal’s open database Municipal Border - Ville-Marie 2014: Montréal’s open database Neighbourhood border excluding major infrastructure: Personal observation
thesis program - cAMILLA siggaard andersen the royal danish academy of arts school of architecture - autumn 2014
INTERVIEW 1 WHO
Marie-Claude Plourde Position
Responsible for the event communication in l’ADUQ (L’Association du Design Urbain du Québec) Background
Bachelor of Architecture from l’Université de Montréal. Master of Communication from Université du Québec à Montréal. INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT
July 5, 2014 On the fifth of July 2014, I visited the temporary urban design exhibition “le Village Éphémère” (the Ephemeral City) at its location by the Jacques Cartier Bridge. It was a very sunny day and the site was buzzing with people. Shortly after I arrived, I met up with Marie-Claude Plourde, head of event communication at l’ADUQ, with whom I had arranged an interview. I wanted to find out how and why her organisation had become interested in this site, which, up until this summer, had not seen any public initiatives for decades. We found seating on one of the installations in a quiet corner, and I began the interview by asking her to tell me about her position and responsibilities in l’ADUQ.
thesis program - cAMILLA siggaard andersen the royal danish academy of arts school of architecture - autumn 2014
APPENDIX
“In l’ADUQ we usually do more than just the function of our title. One of my responsibilities is updating our Twitter account on a daily basis. It is very important for our organisation to be present on the social media because we are also a very young initiative. We need the social media, such as Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and the likes, to make awareness of what we do, and to help people to get to know us better. It is also important for us to be perceived as more than just a social platform. We want to be an organisation that promotes things that are going on in the city, in order to spread knowledge of the urban design scene. That is why we share a lot of articles and other things like that, and not just information about our own events.”
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Having gained a basic understanding of the motives behind the organisation, I was interested in learning how l’ADUQ had ended up choosing this specific site. I asked Marie-Claude about the decision-making process for determining the location for the Ephemeral City. “This is the second year that we host a Village Éphémère. Last year we only did it for one day by one of the basins on the Lachine Canal. We arrived at 7 in the morning to set it up and at 5 p.m. people began to arrive. It was a really big success, and the people that owned the site actually asked us to come back this year. We wanted to choose a new site though because it is in our mission to make people discover new places. Ville-Marie suggested that we used this location in Sainte-Marie, and we immediately thought that it was an interesting proposal because not a lot of people know about the place, although it is actually really close to the centre of Montreal. We knew that there was going to be many challenges to overcome though. There are usually a lot of poor people hanging out here, and it is definitely not a place where you want to be at night. Also, on top of the social challenges, there were a lot of administrative problems to overcome. At first we thought that the site was owned by the mayor’s office in Montreal, but in fact it belongs to Canada’s ministry of transportation. We ended up having to rent it, and we even started the preparations long before we had the permissions in order [the site’s owner, the Ministry of Transportation, has since this interview was conducted decided to not charge l’ADUQ rent for the time they occupied the site]. By the end of the whole process we only had a week until the opening day and it was too late to go back.” At this point I was wondering about what positive aspects could have been convincing enough to make l’ADUQ battle the many challenges that Marie-Claude had just described to me. I asked her to list the main positive features that had outweighed these obstacles. “This site is really great because it is so central and you have a view of all the spectacles of Montréal.You have a view of the Jacques Cartier Bridge, the Saint Lawrence River, La Ronde on Saint Helens Island, Mont Royal (the mountain), the Olympic Stadium and the Molson’s brewery, which is a really big part of the city’s history. From this place you can touch with your eyes every important thing in Montreal.” Looking around, I had to agree with her. There was only one sore sight, and that was looking towards the neighbourhood of Sainte-Marie, which seemed to have turned its back on the traffic that separates the river and the residential area. I asked Marie-Claude if ADUQ had tried to address the locals of this neighbourhood.
“We tried to get in touch with the neighbourhood of Sainte-Marie.We know that the locals have been fighting to regain access to the river and to the park by the river for years, but it is difficult because of the traffic on Notre Dame Street, which is actually a huge civic concern. The street used to be more like a road for the citizens, but today it resembles an auto-route or a highway. The people of Sainte-Marie can’t get to the water or to Park Bellerive because of it, and the park is even one of the oldest in Montreal. Another infrastructural challenge is the large railways that go under the bridge at the edge of the harbour front.This place is really in the shadow of the bridge. Unfortunately we didn’t have the resources to properly engage the community about these issues. Also, even though we tried to get in touch with some of the locals, the Village Éphémère is really for all the citizens of Montréal. Monsieur and Madame Everybody.The mission of this project is really to bring awareness to some of the many underused spaces in the city.” Up to this point, Marie-Claude had been really generous to share with me the concerns and considerations that went ahead of the opening of the Ephemeral City. Next, I was curious about the feedback that had followed after, and of whether the site had actually delivered the anticipated success.
APPENDIX
“We have generally had really positive feedback. Many people have said that they think the initiative is really great, and we have had many people from all over Montreal visit us. Of course there are still those who think the site is too inaccessible and who wanted us to put it closer to the other hubs of the city, but that was not our point. It is interesting though that such a central place has such large problems connecting to the network, but it is also a shame because the area actually has a really great history and there are still historic buildings scattered around on the vacant lots. I think that many of the people who visit us are positively surprised by the great attributes of the area, which are normally more difficult to spot.” Before rounding off the interview and thanking Marie-Claude for her great and insightful answers, I had one last concern about the project.What will happen when the summer is over, and the Ephemeral City packs up and vacates the site?
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“Unfortunately we are not capable of controlling what is going to happen to the site when the Village Éphémère moves out. Of course it would be nice to leave some kind of legacy, but probably this winter it will be a snow deposit once again. “
thesis program - cAMILLA siggaard andersen the royal danish academy of arts school of architecture - autumn 2014
INTERVIEW 2 WHO
Nancy Dunton Position
Consultant, Conception and Coordination of projects of architecture. Sessional lecturer at the School of Architecture at McGill Sessional lecturer in the Master Conservation Program at Université de Montréal. Background
Bachelor of Commerce from McGill University. INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT
July 7, 2014 From my time studying at McGill University I remembered my lecturer Nancy Dunton as the epicentre of knowledge about the city of Montreal, its history, people and architecture. In the hope that she would be able to reveal stories about my site as well, I had asked her to meet me on the 7th of July for an interview. Since I was not lacking sources regarding the earlier history of the neighbourhood, I was particularly interested in learning about recent events that have taken place in and around Sainte-Marie. I therefore commenced the interview by asking her to give me her broad opinion of Sainte-Marie’s current state of appearance.
thesis program - cAMILLA siggaard andersen the royal danish academy of arts school of architecture - autumn 2014
APPENDIX
“It is all a bit spotty. In many ways, it was so dismembered in the 1950’s and so attacked by Radio-Canada. If you think of the area today as a neighbourhood, interestingly enough it actually ended up fulfilling mayor Jean Drapeau’s dream of a telecommunication centre – a ‘Cité des Ondes’. All the tech-communication companies are actually there today. But aside from that… it is awfully spotty. You know, Sainte-Marie used to be a place where the residential concentration was focused on the proximity to the factories that were there. It kept this traditional relationship where you lived close to where you work up to the Second World War. That is reflected in the housing too, which ultimately meant that it wasn’t an area where the property speculators were ever going to build very well. It has never been an area that had a lot going for it in that way.
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That being said, you look at the industry and you realise that the telecommunication industry is actually kind of anchored – around Radio Canada. And then within this you get little pockets of recent change, such as Usine C and Espace Libre, which have been established in the middle of this area, which the rest of Montreal really perceives as nowhere. Not to be forgotten, of course, is the influence of the Gay Village; which is enormous. If you had to take one thing which is fascinating as a cultural movement within a neighbourhood, then it is the cultural phenomenon of the Gay Village. This community really seized the neighbourhood, and still more people gravitate towards it. The interesting thing is, if you think about the industries, that because people no longer live beside where the work, the industry of the telecommunication hasn’t really given that much life to the neighbourhood. I have never heard of anyone that works for CBC who lives in Sainte-Marie. And this is where you have to make the distinction to the gay village, which is the reverse of the coin. This is all about living there, about all the particular neighbourhood characteristics – being close to the pubs and the cafés and restaurants. There have been other more punctual projects, such as the Ephemeral City. I think it is very interesting how the idea of a pop-up has been up-scaled; like a pop-up culturalisation. There was an earlier project to make a skateboard plaza as well, but it tanked completely. What it always makes me think is that there is no sure solution. There was also a study done for the borough, the PPU (2011) [Programme Particulier Urbanisme, see reference list for further information], which proposed a series of different interventions in the neighbourhood. However, the first proposal was too pointed and it didn’t address the larger aspects. They had to change the whole thing to make a more cohesive initiative (PPU 2012).” Having gained an insight into the general up’s and down’s of the recent years in Sainte-Marie, I was curious about the more specific attributes of the neighbourhood. I asked Nancy to bullet-point the largest potential and the biggest challenges for the area. “In many ways, the main asset is that, besides from Radio Canada, it hasn’t been messed with. There is still the potential to do something very interesting in the neighbourhood. The main difficulty is that it is, physically and morphologically, quite fragmented. And these physical challenges are not small. The other big problem is the constant overhanging threat of what they are going to do with the site of Maison
Radio Canada. There is talk of selling the tower and then building on the perimeter of the site. However, this talk has been going on for years, but it is a real problem for the area because nothing is being decided and it puts everything at a standstill. If it is realised, then you go from this weird situation with a parking lot wasteland, to having a wall of buildings along the perimeter. I would say that in terms of unknown factors in the neighbourhood, that for sure is a big one.” As my project aims to build upon the societal changes of the city and their physical manifestations in Sainte-Marie, I was also curious to find out how Nancy regarded the impacts of the construction of the Jacques Cartier Bridge in 1930 and of the implementation of a telecommunication centre in the 1950s. “The construction of the Jacques Cartier Bridge is interesting, because it really is the first automobile connection going outwards from Montreal. It was the connection to the states and the beginning of an era of trucking and of the need to basically move goods.The bridge was, and is, about the ceremony of arriving in Montreal.This is even obvious in the 2012 PPU, which discuss the options for beautifying the city entrance, which is essentially the Sainte-Marie area, but for the benefit of the drivers and not the locals. In many ways you can argue that the Jacques Cartier Bridge just stepped all over Sainte-Marie – and still does so today.
APPENDIX
Regarding the Cité des Ondes, then that which is there is very inwards focused, because that is the nature of that kind of business – curiously, paradoxically. So something that is going to take that and turn that kind of business outwards is an interesting notion. I think, that the more that there is this idea of appropriation and of public spaces, the more it shows people what can be done, and once people think of a space as their own, curious things can happen as a consequence. The other thing that is true in a neighbourhood is that something that is big and too pointed or too directed won’t succeed. What succeeds is something that is simple.”
6 Knowing that Nancy has followed the development of the city first-hand for several decades, I was sure that she would also have a qualified guess of what the future of Sainte-Marie is going to bring. Specifically I wanted to know what kind of identity she thought the area was going to develop, based on the current movements and vibes from both people and municipality. However, the present state of uncertainty had left Nancy uncertain about the future as well.
thesis program - cAMILLA siggaard andersen the royal danish academy of arts school of architecture - autumn 2014
“I have no idea of what the identity will be. Right now it is mostly defined by the Gay Village, but that is a bit of a false identity, because it is only centred along Saint Catherine. And it is all a linear thing. To identify itself only by that is not an identity. The telecommunication industries, which are very present, aren’t really giving the neighbourhood a sense of identity either; at least not as it is now. What is fascinating is the enormous civic drive that took place in the 60s and the 70s in the neighbourhood. There was a certain spirit in that era, and there were a lot of activists present in that time to defend the neighbourhood’s rights. Even today there are all different kinds of community co-ops and different strata of housing. But is that enough to give it an identity? I don’t know… The up-from-within movement is what is happening in the Gay Village. The other option is that change will come from somewhere from the outside, like from the borough. But Sainte-Marie is not Saint-Henri, which has become desirable. SaintHenri has all of its qualities to make it appear desirable. Curiously, Sainte-Marie is almost a bit isolated in the city, even though it has all the links to connect it to downtown. So I really don’t know what will happen. But it is interesting to follow.”
INTERVIEW 3 WHO
Wade Berthal Eide Position
Architecte, Service de la Mise en Valeur du Territoire,Ville Montreal AADU, Atelier d’Aménagement et de Design Urbain Background
Master of Architecture, Université de Montréal INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT
July 15, 2014 At the end of my fieldtrip in Montreal, I visited Wade Eide at the city’s urban planning department, specifically the AADU, Atelier d’Aménagement et de Design Urbain. Wade has been working for the City of Montreal for several decades, and he had kindly prepared a presentation for me about the work of the office, and about Montreal’s general approach to urban planning. Danny Aubin, who had assisted me a couple of days earlier by showing me a vast amount of official reports about Sainte-Marie, was also present at the meeting. After we had sorted out the digital projector, Wade started sharing his most interesting experiences as an urban planner in Montreal.
APPENDIX
In the 1940’s, just before the big demolitions and reconstructions of the city for widening of streets began, that was when the city was at its apex. However, beginning in the 1960’s and going into the 70’s and 80’s, we demolished huge areas of the city on all three sides of Old Montreal. My colleagues and I, we based our entire careers around reconstructing the city from where it was left after the 1970’s and 1980’s demolitions. In the late 1980’s the city was very much broken, but slowly and largely do the work that we have done and what others have done, we have managed to rebuild the city.
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I will give you a few examples of the projects that we have done over these last year. In the east part of Montreal we have done Place Valois. It is close to the Olympic Stadium just west of Pie IX. It is an example of a project that we did in an area which is already quite well constituted. There was a system of railways that went through it which had served the industry from the industrial area, but after they removed the industrial
thesis program - cAMILLA siggaard andersen the royal danish academy of arts school of architecture - autumn 2014
plants we proposed a way of rebuilding that area with residential construction. We also created a new public place and we used the railways as the means of creating an urban promenade. Little urban interludes like that, and also like the bridge, give an opportunity to do something a little bit different; something which is a bit off the original street grid. This pedestrian promenade is a series of green spaces. The way that we create public space in Montreal, is that we basically take one of the blocks out of the grid and it becomes a public square. We remove a bit of the existing tissue and then create an opportunity to build around it. We also try to use ecological concepts, such as ecological management of water and things like that. We dedicate a lot of land for green space. One of the ways that we have worked in another place was that we had a design charrette, where a series of small architectural companies came up with ideas for an urban development. The final proposal still abide the division of the rangs because it has become such an important part of Montreal’s identity. It is things like that that give Montreal its character. Another project we did was in the Griffin Town area by the Lachine Canal. It was originally proposed by the promoter, but it completely went against the way of doing streets and buildings in Montreal. He proposed to buy existing streets and re-consult the division of the land. We came up with a different concept which preserved the original street grid, which actually has quite a historical significance. And we proposed an alternate project based on what exists, and then from that we created a space which is more a part of Montreal. In 1801, Louis Charland had the idea of creating a suburb outside the old walled city by developing the existing rational grid – this is the first example of a project like this in North America and it even predated the Manhattan street grid. So that was an important element that the promoter had completely eradicated. We thought that it was important to preserve as part of the memory of the city. Today we work a lot with Gehl-like concepts of pedestrian management. I think that we are pretty much on the same wavelength as Jan Gehl. We have a different approach, but we are going towards the same goal. We work on many different scales all over the city, with the main idea of using marginal spaces in the city to create public places. By the Museum of Modern Art we had the
idea of making a public space which was kind of an exhibition space itself. Right now we are working on recovering the Ville-Marie Expressway. A couple of years ago we tried to requalify what used to be a very urban street, Notre-Dame Street, which since then have become of an auto-route. We wanted to recreate sort of an urban boulevard instead, right where it crosses Papineau Avenue.We proposed to dig down the road and then to use the space above it as an urban boulevard.
APPENDIX
I think that that sort of gives a brief introduction to the approach that we have towards different urban projects. Where is the urban space? That is the question that we are concerned about. We work on the people side of the public/people relationship. We want Montreal to be a network of public spaces.
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thesis program - cAMILLA siggaard andersen the royal danish academy of arts school of architecture - autumn 2014
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INTERVIEW 4 WHO
Daniel Mok Position
Resident in the Gay Village Background
Engineer, McGill University INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT
September 4, 2014 In Sainte-Marie I ran into Daniel Mok, who is a student living right by Beaudry metro station at the heart of the Gay Village. Dan agreed to let me fire some quick questions at him regarding his experience of the quartier, its environment and its people. As I had run out of time during the field trip, the interview was conducted via email upon my return to Denmark. As a residence in the Gay Village, how do you experience the environment of the neighbourhood?
APPENDIX
The neighbourhood has a lot to offer due to the variety of residents. In the summer the close off part of Saint Catherine’s Street around Beaudry Station, which allows a lot of pedestrian traffic and the many different restaurants and bars present an abundance of choice. During the day, the area is close to Parc a la Fontaine and to Old Port where there are always lots of different activities as well. The many strip clubs and more sexually oriented places like “saunas” are not for me. There are some missions that harbor people with drug addictions and mental health issues that may cause some confrontation as well, so I tend to avoid them. I would say that my main hang out places are the park, Old Port or the main restaurants on Saint Catherine’s Street. Or maybe sometimes Saint Denis Street in Quartier Latin, which is also really close.
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What kind of people do you feel live in and visit your neighbourhood? I would say that the kinds of people that live in this neighbourhood are definitely people looking for a different experience. The main attraction is the LGBT community, as
thesis program - cAMILLA siggaard andersen the royal danish academy of arts school of architecture - autumn 2014
they are more flamboyant and expressive. However many Quebecois enjoy the area also, as it is very French but also very cheap. The area attracts some students as well who may not have a “village” in their home towns. How do you experience you proximity to the river and to Downtown? When I go for runs I usually go down to the river. However, the river is cut off from my area of residence by the Ville-Marie expressway so the influence of being close to the river is minimal. Being close to downtown is a bit more useful, especially when it comes to enjoying life outside of work. Being able to use the subway system and buses effectively makes meeting friends easier. As well, when people are visiting it is easy to connect and meet up. Any events that happen are also easily accessible such as hockey games. It makes deciding on night time events without extensive prior planning much more enjoyable. How often do you visit the part of the neighbourhood on the eastern side of the Jacques Cartier Bridge? Why so often/rarely? I rarely visit the eastern part of this area as I think it is mostly residential. I have never had a reason to visit as I don’t think there are any establishments there. I also have no friends that live there. However, every day when I drive across the Jacques Cartier Bridge after a long day of work I enjoy the scenery looking out over the entire neighbourhood.
the ephemeral city This summer, and by coincidence, the organisation l’ADUQ (L’Association du Design Urbain du Québec) had implemented a project on a vacant piece of land next to the Saint Lawrence River and to the Jacques Cartier Bridge. The project was called ”Village Éphémere” and it consisted of several art installations, a fake beach, a bar and a series of portable eating carts. The interview that I did with Marie-Claude, head of communication in l’ADUQ, can be read in this appendix. However, I also wanted to get an idea of what kind of people would visit a design-village in an area that I suspected was not usually overrun with visitors. In order to do this, I created a quick questionnaire designed for quantitative feedback. The output of the questionnaire is presented on this and the next couple of pages. where
Village Éphémère by the Jacques Cartier Bridge, Sainte-Marie who
Visitors of the Village Éphémère how many
gender
age groups 4% 5%
49%
under 18
51% male
28%
18-30 31-50
Female
63%
51-65 over 65
The visitors of Village Éphémère were equally distributed between male and female, but for the age groups there was a majority of young guest between 18-30 years. This is probably a reflection of the offers of activities, which were coloured by the presence of a DJ and a bar. However, the offer of a beach also attracted some families with children.
thesis program - cAMILLA siggaard andersen the royal danish academy of arts school of architecture - autumn 2014
APPENDIX
75 people were interviewed on July 12th 2014 between 3pm and 9pm.
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my favourite thing about the ephemeral city is the view of the river and of the bridge. It is so beautiful here and i never knew about it. anonymous woman, 28 years, july 12 2014
montrealers sunbathing on the beach in the ephemeral city Caption: The Ephemeral City looking towards the city (west) on July 12, 2014
area of residence 4% 7%
23%
17% 17%
4% 4%
4%
other
pointe-st-charles
little italy
lachine
the village
verdun
laval
st-laurent
côte des neiges
plateau
outremont
centre-sud
villeray
ville-marie
hochelaga
sainte-marie
south west
mile end
rosemont
The majority of visitors of the Village Éphémère had come from other places than the island of Montreal. Still, the quartiers Plateau and South-West were also widely represented. It is notable that Sainte-Marie, where the project was located, was relatively thinly represented. However, the 4% of visitors from the Village and the 4% of the visitors from Centre-Sud are also residents of the western areas of Sainte-Marie.
frequency as a visitor of sainte-marie
9% 11%
4%
once every other week once a week never regularly
76%
APPENDIX
Most people (76%) answered that they normally never visit Sainte-Marie. This goes to show Montrealers great tradition for showing up at organised events, even if they are in an area that they are not already acquainted with.
will you share you visit on the social media?
25%
6 yes, of course!
75%
no, probably not...
75% of the visitors said that they intended to share their visit on the social media. This is of interest to this project, because it goes to show that even very local initiatives can not escape the macro-network in our modern, digital world.
thesis program - cAMILLA siggaard andersen the royal danish academy of arts school of architecture - autumn 2014
By the Jacques Cartier Bridge Five lanes of stubborn iron bars cut into the city into our city. What were we before the bridge brought disintegration? Caught in separation we blame our parents who should have foreseen (forewarned) the future. Progress: cars connecting cultures not people. Do they know that their paths are tearing more than urban fabric when they flow through are lives? We are specks of dust across a vast ocean of memory. In time we trust (though time was never a remedy for times moving forward) and vacuumed time preserves the stink of our industry-crumble as cars keep crossing that bridge to enter the end. We are no longer but in the echoes of the I’s living on the edge of driving off
a bridge
The Jacques Cartier Bridge during its construction in the late 1920’s. The image is provided by Écomusée du Fier Monde.
montreal / SaintE-marie I smart city / smart community
thesis program I cAMILLA siggaard andersen I autumn 2014