Sala Rosa Concert

Photos by Andrew Chau & Welland Sin

The One and Only, Kweku and the Movement, and First U Get the Sugar at Sala Rosa, Montreal. April 5.

aga khan museum toronto’s best-kept secret

Perspective rendering of the future Aga Khan Museum in Toronto, from canadianarchitect.com

The Aga Khan (آقا خان), spiritual leader of the Ismaili Muslims, is celebrating his golden jubilee this year. Fittingly and well-deservedly, his media presence has been everywhere. The Aga Khan has spent his life promoting community development, pluralism, peace, and as a plus, a legacy of great architecture.

The New Ismaili Centre by Charles Correa, from canadianarchitect.com

The Aga Khan seems to have taken a liking for Canada, and we have two major projects under construction right now in Toronto and Ottawa. Toronto outbid London (England!) for the Aga Khan Museum, a three-part project consisting of museum, religious, and cultural centre.

The Fumihiko Maki designed Aga Khan Museum, from canadianarchitect.com

The designs are still being completed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Fumihiko Maki, celebrated architect Charles Correa, Vladimir Djurovik of Lebanon, with Moriyama & Teshima from Toronto overseeing the project construction. This is truly a stellar cast of architects, and I have high hopes that this will be the most exciting project in Toronto for years to come (complete in 2011).

View of Vladimir Djurovik’s landscaped gardens, from canadianarchitect.com

It is too bad though that the old Bata Shoe headquarters were demolished for this plan… As the Toronto Star’s Christopher Hume aptly remarked, “Surely there’s an element of irony when an architecturally worthy building must be destroyed in the name of culture.”

Canada’s second Aga Khan project is the Ottawa Centre of Pluralism, to be housed in the former building of the War Museum.

Aga Khan Centre of Pluralism in Ottawa, photo courtesy of the Government of Canada

a wrapped courtyard

Posters by Evelyne Bouchard

A video of the Tunisia installation at the McGill School of Architecture. The exhibit explores the notion of private space in the traditional Islamic medina. The wrapped cloth restricts access to the interior courtyard but allows for liminal views to the sights and sounds of the country.

Video by Andrew Chau

farms in cities

Surprisingly enough, there do exist urban farms in Canadian cities.

Ottawa Central Experimental Farm from above, Image from Google Earth

One is the Ottawa Experimental Farm, which is very close to downtown (just southwest of Parliament Hill). This farm not only has a large swath of land dedicated to growing crops and testing out new cultivation techniques, it has an extensive built campus of research laboratories, government ministries, greenhouses, visitor facilities, and even an arboretum.

McGill University’s MacDonald Campus from above, Image from Google Earth

freight train graffiti

Some photos from the decommissioned CN freight yards in the north end of Montreal.

buildings changing before your eyes

this volkswagen tiguan ad blows my mind! (click youtube video below to play) i can’t stop watching it!

the buildings, sidewalks, cobblestones, pavement, everything in this city change in real time as the camera pans through…

from the vancouver firm embassy visual effects.

molson brewery

montreal’s own high line

One of my favourite new buildings/architectural interventions is the High Line in New York City. It is a linear strip of parkland built on long-abandoned elevated railway tracks that wind their way through the city.

They provide a radically different view of the city.

Images of the High Line courtesy of Joel Sternfeld, 2002

Montreal’s own version of the High Line, albeit a more car-friendly one, is a portion of Rue Notre Dame E. in Old Montreal, anywhere west of Rue Montcalm.

mcgill’s macdonald campus powerplant

The old building spewing smoke from its chimney provides power to the campus. It is 75 years old and embarrassingly out of date. The hodgepodge renovations include steam pipes jutting out of the wall and ground every which way, a hastily built chain link barrier fence, all seeming very out of place from the stately stone building they are tacked onto.

high class living comes to downtown montreal

the eye-catching structure at the north-east corner of bleury and maissonneuve has caught my attention for some time now, but i only went in for a closer look today. it turns out what looks like a well-designed storage centre for high-priced fashion is a condo sales office.