Andrew Schroeder

Montreal in 2009 – I’m still fascinated by the idea of airports as heterotopias of waiting and transience.

A great site that is holding my attention hostage this morning. Check it out for a variety of fresh perspectives on one of the most important issues in the contemporary city. Few sites I have come across investigate what makes public spaces successful, desirable, and heavily used in the same way that Project for Public Spaces does. Joy.

And bit more of failed public space from my own travel experiences.

Something shocking is happening in Minneapolis. A group of artists are undertaking a project to make art on the facades of unused buildings in the city. I was a bit skeptical when I saw the slickly printed, well designed signs for this type of work (I prefer guerilla style or ephemeral projects in public space). Intersecting artistic/private aesthetic interests with public space rarely works… but the Save Canvas project presented by Overproof Design Studio actually succeeds in its aims. It has been a pleasure to watch the empty structure along Nicollet avenue be turned into a work of art. Especially since this is the site of the unrealized Nicollet condo project (a 60 floor glass high-rise that never materialized thanks to the economic downturn).

Definitely check out their work.

On another note, I am reminded of something distinctly beautiful about the public sphere in Montreal. The city seemed to be predisposed to giving up automobile traffic for pedestrianized streets. In Minneapolis we have the “National Night Out” every year, during which certain blocks are closed to vehicular traffic. It takes a special event here to get people onto the street and walking around. In stark contrast, the above posters in Montreal indicate that the pedestrian is almost synonymous with the urban experience.

I couldn’t agree more.

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All of these images have been posted to my Facebook and Flickr accounts… but I feel it is a suitable day to post them again (with a bit more color correction). Actually, it was on this day that Charles de Gaulle gave his Vive le Québec libre ! (Long live free Quebec!) speech. This speech further encouraged the Québec Sovereignty movement… and I feel that this spirit of idealism is reflected in the spaces of the city fabric. I’ll make some huge generalizations here about Montreal from the tiny amount of research I have done on its attempt to be re-born. The scale and speed that Montreal was reformed in the 60s is truly remarkable… and if you travel to the city, it is apparent in the city’s metro system, public plazas, and (often) graceless modernist boxes. The above images represent a slice of the concept of public space I experienced while traveling. On one hand, the city is haunted by the empty and clunky buildings of the Olympic stadium. On the other hand, revitalized public spaces draw citizens into high-density housing developments. As I’m sitting at my desk, gazing out my window at the empty/lifeless streets of MPLS I wonder… how refreshing could American cities be if there was a concerted effort to make public spaces desirable, usable, and enjoyable?

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I’ve recently returned from Montreal with a small mountain of new images and resources. Ah… inspiration is a refreshing change of pace. All people who travel devour their destinations by acquiring different material goods as evidence of the attempts to understand the  place to which they have traveled. Some people acquire shotglasses. Others postcards. I personally get to know a city through the designs that permeate through its public and private spaces. I spent most of my brief parole from MPLS grabbing, ripping, and buying printed matter. Through the above materials, I came just a bit closer to getting acquainted with Montreal… a bit of typography obsession mixed with a love and fascination with 1960s Utopian ideals… that will (hopefully) equal some decent artwork.