A few nice Montreal Expos images I found:
Habitat ’67, view from South looking North
Image by Chris Devers
From Wikipedia: Habitat ’67:
********
Habitat 67 is a housing complex and landmark located on the Marc-Drouin Quay on the Saint Lawrence River at 2600, Pierre Dupuy Avenue in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Its design was created by architect Moshe Safdie based on his master’s thesis at McGill University and built as part of Expo 67.
Expo 67 was nicknamed "Man and his World", taken from Antoine de Saint Exupéry’s memoir Terre des hommes, (literally "Land of Men"), translated as Wind, Sand and Stars. Housing was one of the main themes of Expo 67. Habitat 67 then became a thematic pavilion visited by thousands of visitors who came from around the world. During Expo 67 it was also the temporary residence of the many dignitaries coming to Montreal.
It was designed to integrate the variety and diversity of scattered private homes with the economics and density of a modern apartment building. Modular, interlocking concrete forms define the space. The project was designed to create affordable housing with close but private quarters, each equipped with a garden. The building was believed to illustrate the new lifestyle people would live in increasingly crowded cities around the world.
The complex was originally meant to be vastly larger. Ironically, the building’s units are now quite expensive rather than "affordable" due to its architectural cachet. It is owned by its tenants who formed a limited partnership that purchased the building from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation in 1985.
********
I remember first hearing about Habitat ’67 from a social studies textbook from maybe 3rd of 4th grade in North Carolina in the early 80’s, along with a description of how it was expected to be a model for how people would live some day (but, as was already becoming obvious fifteen years later to a 10 year old, probably not any time soon), and more importantly, a grainy black & white photo of this crazy, jumbled up Lego pile of a building. I wanted to see this building for myself some day, but didn’t think it would be able to any time soon.
Twenty years or so later, on the tail end of a trip to Montreal, I remembered about Habitat for the first time in years, and made a point of driving by while we were in town. I was hoping for a chance to get some closer pictures, but as it’s a private, affluent condo building now, you couldn’t really get any closer than these two photos, and I couldn’t work out how to get a long, lateral view of it from across the water. Oh well, something for next time…
Expo 67 Nightscape
Image by RHTRAVELER
Circa 1967
Expo 67 nightscape
Image by RHTRAVELER
USA Pavilion
