For our second trip, we headed down to the Montreal Planetarium, to see a show about Saturn.
Miriam:
Today's destination was a surprisingly fitting follow up to the architecture museum. The planetarium had on display the candidates and the winner for the architecture of the new planetarium planned to be constructed between the Olympic stadium and the Biodome in two years. It won't be too soon if you ask me since the current building is one of those ugly brown boxes with no windows built in the 60's I was talking about in the last post.
We assisted to "Saturn: beyond the rings." It seems that Titan, one of Saturn's moons, is the most likely candidate to be the next earth. So if you are looking to invest in up and coming real estate that's a good long term bet. You heard it here first.
I'm looking forward to going to the new planetarium to witness what 50 years of technology as brought to the light show.
John:
As Miriam mentioned, there was a nice segue between our last visit and this one. The architecture here was more what you think about when you think about architecture: plans, models, that sort of thing. Models are fun. It's too bad they could only pick just one.
The Saturn show was informative, if a little cheesy. The background music sounded like it might work in a porn flick. The funny thing is that the narrator/host was the guy that picked the music (according to the credits). Oh well.
The typical night sky show was interspersed with props: a to scale model of Saturn placed in a tub of water to show its density (not as dense as Jupiter, which explains the ringed planet's squashed shape), a replica (probably not accurate) of Galileo's telescope, and mock-ups of Saturn's moons.
Ok, so I admit to being a Trekkie, so anything space is automatically cool for me. (Side note: I also enjoy Star Wars. Why can't one be both?) The idea that Titan could eventually be an inhabitable planet is tantalizing, even if the time line is long term to say the least. What makes all the sci-fi stuff attractive is that we just don't know what's out there. The more questions we answer, the more questions we have to ask. Last week we ate at the restaurant at the top of the CN Tower. Looking down on the city put life in a different perspective: the buildings were like blocks, the cars like toys. When you pull back for an outside view of our galaxy, it's the same idea, but magnified so much that it's hard to get a clear picture. It's easy to let imagination kick in.
Friday, December 31, 2010
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Architecture and Cucumbers
John:
Today we visited the CCA. In the seven years I've lived in Montreal, I've walked or run past the CCA several times a week. The building is on Baile, between St-Marc and du Fort. It looks out on to Rene Lesvesque so every time the Concordia team runs over to Westmount Track, we run by.
The first piece that you see when you get to the top of the stairs is Douglas Coupland's "Brick Wall." I gotta say, I'm a sucker for Lego and such things. Brick Wall is just the sort of thing I could see myself building in my room when I was a kid. But that's not to start some "a six year-old could do that" rant. When I look at this installation, it takes me back to a time before I'd made all the decisions I've made. I used to build things all the time. At the cottage I would make elaborate sand-cities, with moats and bridges. In high school I dropped English Literature (a second English) to take Calculus, because I knew I would get a higher grade. In university, I almost switched my major from English to computer science. And then when I did the whole "go back to school" thing, I went to law school. Maybe I should have thought about architecture or engineering.
There were two main exhibits at the CCA today. One, 404 ERROR: The object is not online, focused on the use of computers in architecture. It was a pretty small exhibit, and to be honest, I don't really get the AUTOCAD thing, but the glass blocks trapped inside a cube, to be manipulated only by rubber gloves, nuclear-style, were cool, even if a girl was hogging them the whole time. Lego, glass blocks...it's pretty clear what I like!
The other exhibit, Journeys, consisted of 15 mini-exhibits that showed "how travelling fruit, ideas and buildings rearrange our environment." There were several interesting takes, from a table featuring European Economic Community regulations "laying down quality standards for cucumbers" to an examination of cocos nucifera, the gallant coconut. While the EEC standards appealed to my legal side ("maximum height of the arc: 10 mm per 10 cm of length of the cucumber"), my favourite was the movie describing how entire towns in Newfoundland were moved to follow fish populations. They just picked up their houses, floated them around to the next bay, and then hauled them back up on shore. Amazing!
Don't worry, I won't be embarking on a "third career" of architecture, but I did really enjoy the exhibits. They were slices of life, but not in that faux-ironic hipster way that is unfortunately popular (think mile-end rusty bicycle in a tree installation sort of thing); no, they were smart, interesting, and real.
Miriam:
Today, knowing nothing about architecture, we decided to make the Montreal Museum of Architecture our first destination using Montreal museum card. I had never been and I have always wanted to go. The building is an impeccable juxtaposition of old and new. It feels like the most utopic representation of Montreal, its architecture, and philosophy.
Two exhibits were up and the first one cheekily called error 404 made the link between the invention of the computers and its influence on architecture and the architect's work. Somehow I had never realized the really ugly brown boxes with no windows built in the 1960's were built that way because the very first computers were enormous monsters no more performing than our common calculator. They were super sensitive to light, dust, humidity and everything, so much so that the building housing them had to be, well, a really ugly brown box with no windows. I feel somewhat more at peace knowing that there was a reason behind these eye sores, however uncreative they are. The architect's work was turned on its head following the invention of the computer. The integration of software like autocad, I would imagine, must have been welcomed by them since it meant tons of time saved from not having to sketch everything by hand and redo everything at each change. The rendition of the final product on your screen saves the time and sanity of building the maquette out of foamboard.
The second exhibit called Journey: how fruit, ideas and travelling influences architecture (John has the right title but it was something like that). The exhibit was really more about the journey than the conveyor belt. Full of interesting information, it settled the "Bungalow: 1 floor or two floors" dilemma I have been having with myself since I started shopping for a house. Answer: one floor. It has a pretty interesting story: the word was first used to describe the one floor houses preferred by the British in the Indian colonies. The word actually comes from Bengal house, try saying it with a British accent and it makes more sense. Some of the information provided felt more like a joke. How does a Newfie move? He puts his house on a boat and he floats it away. But that's that actually what they did when the fish ran out. My favorite was the regulations on cucumbers in France and its amendment to allow cucumbers not "straight enough" to be sold in stores provided they bear the notice that they are meant for transformation only. What's up with that, and how does it connect with architecture? I have no idea but I am glad to have learned that! From now on I will try to buy the most crooked cucumbers I can find. Call it rebellion.
Today we visited the CCA. In the seven years I've lived in Montreal, I've walked or run past the CCA several times a week. The building is on Baile, between St-Marc and du Fort. It looks out on to Rene Lesvesque so every time the Concordia team runs over to Westmount Track, we run by.
The first piece that you see when you get to the top of the stairs is Douglas Coupland's "Brick Wall." I gotta say, I'm a sucker for Lego and such things. Brick Wall is just the sort of thing I could see myself building in my room when I was a kid. But that's not to start some "a six year-old could do that" rant. When I look at this installation, it takes me back to a time before I'd made all the decisions I've made. I used to build things all the time. At the cottage I would make elaborate sand-cities, with moats and bridges. In high school I dropped English Literature (a second English) to take Calculus, because I knew I would get a higher grade. In university, I almost switched my major from English to computer science. And then when I did the whole "go back to school" thing, I went to law school. Maybe I should have thought about architecture or engineering.
There were two main exhibits at the CCA today. One, 404 ERROR: The object is not online, focused on the use of computers in architecture. It was a pretty small exhibit, and to be honest, I don't really get the AUTOCAD thing, but the glass blocks trapped inside a cube, to be manipulated only by rubber gloves, nuclear-style, were cool, even if a girl was hogging them the whole time. Lego, glass blocks...it's pretty clear what I like!
The other exhibit, Journeys, consisted of 15 mini-exhibits that showed "how travelling fruit, ideas and buildings rearrange our environment." There were several interesting takes, from a table featuring European Economic Community regulations "laying down quality standards for cucumbers" to an examination of cocos nucifera, the gallant coconut. While the EEC standards appealed to my legal side ("maximum height of the arc: 10 mm per 10 cm of length of the cucumber"), my favourite was the movie describing how entire towns in Newfoundland were moved to follow fish populations. They just picked up their houses, floated them around to the next bay, and then hauled them back up on shore. Amazing!
Don't worry, I won't be embarking on a "third career" of architecture, but I did really enjoy the exhibits. They were slices of life, but not in that faux-ironic hipster way that is unfortunately popular (think mile-end rusty bicycle in a tree installation sort of thing); no, they were smart, interesting, and real.
Miriam:
Today, knowing nothing about architecture, we decided to make the Montreal Museum of Architecture our first destination using Montreal museum card. I had never been and I have always wanted to go. The building is an impeccable juxtaposition of old and new. It feels like the most utopic representation of Montreal, its architecture, and philosophy.
Two exhibits were up and the first one cheekily called error 404 made the link between the invention of the computers and its influence on architecture and the architect's work. Somehow I had never realized the really ugly brown boxes with no windows built in the 1960's were built that way because the very first computers were enormous monsters no more performing than our common calculator. They were super sensitive to light, dust, humidity and everything, so much so that the building housing them had to be, well, a really ugly brown box with no windows. I feel somewhat more at peace knowing that there was a reason behind these eye sores, however uncreative they are. The architect's work was turned on its head following the invention of the computer. The integration of software like autocad, I would imagine, must have been welcomed by them since it meant tons of time saved from not having to sketch everything by hand and redo everything at each change. The rendition of the final product on your screen saves the time and sanity of building the maquette out of foamboard.
The second exhibit called Journey: how fruit, ideas and travelling influences architecture (John has the right title but it was something like that). The exhibit was really more about the journey than the conveyor belt. Full of interesting information, it settled the "Bungalow: 1 floor or two floors" dilemma I have been having with myself since I started shopping for a house. Answer: one floor. It has a pretty interesting story: the word was first used to describe the one floor houses preferred by the British in the Indian colonies. The word actually comes from Bengal house, try saying it with a British accent and it makes more sense. Some of the information provided felt more like a joke. How does a Newfie move? He puts his house on a boat and he floats it away. But that's that actually what they did when the fish ran out. My favorite was the regulations on cucumbers in France and its amendment to allow cucumbers not "straight enough" to be sold in stores provided they bear the notice that they are meant for transformation only. What's up with that, and how does it connect with architecture? I have no idea but I am glad to have learned that! From now on I will try to buy the most crooked cucumbers I can find. Call it rebellion.
Our plan
Hello! This Christmas, my mom got Miriam a Montreal Museum's pass. This pass gets us two entries to all of the museums in Montreal. The plan is for us to blog our thoughts about them. We are certainly not art critics, but we're confident in our own opinions. We hope you enjoy!
Museums List
Here's a list of the museums we plan to be visiting this year: Avataq Cultural Institute, Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec, Biosphere Environment Museum, Canadian Centre for Architecture, Centre d'histoire de Montréal, Centre historique des Soeurs de Sainte-Anne, Château Dufresne Museum, Château Ramezay Museum, Cinémathèque québéboise, Cité historia musée d'histoire de Sault-au-Récollet, Darling Foundry, DHC/ART Foundation for Contemporary Art, Écomusée du fier monde, Exhibition Centre La Prison-des-Patriotes, Maison Saint-Gabriel, Marguerite-Bourgeoys Museum, McCord Museum of Canadian History, Montréal Biodôme, Montréal Botanical Garden, Montréal Holocaust Memorial Museum, Montréal Insectarium, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Montréal Planetarium, Montréal Science Centre, Musée de Lachine, Musée des Hospitalières de l'Hôtel-Dieu de Montréal, Musée des maîtres et artisans du Québec, Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal, Point-à-Callière Montréal Museum of Archaeology and History, Redpath Museum, Sir-George-Étienne-Cartier National Historic Site of Canada, Stewart Hall Art Gallery, Stewart Museum, The Fur Trade at Lachine National Historic Site of Canada.
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