The greystone is the most sublime form of Montreal architecture
Every single rock is a time-worn pearl yanked out of a local quarry - likely up in Ahuntsic - by stout hard-working, hard drinking men and then transferred onto a horse-drawn cart, shaped into useful sizes and then assembled and mortared in place by amazingly skilled craftsmen generations ago.
The love, care, effort and skill put into the effort is evident at a glance.
Bricks, in contrast are unimaginative, industrially-created uniform rectangles of oven blasted dirt.
They're the same wherever you go and there's simply no romance there.
The tragedy is that Montreal has no policy on protecting the dwindling supply of greystones that make this city so remarkable.
The one above on St. Catherine east of Papineau was demolished a couple of years back after it was abandoned.
The city should unveil a policy to encourage the preservation of such buildings regardless of the damage they suffered.
I prefer the Montreal brownstones, of which there are few remaining.
ReplyDeleteGuess where this is:
https://www.google.ca/maps/place/Montreal,+QC+H3H/@45.496538,-73.581787,3a,52.5y,332.44h,98.15t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1sP4BZEXlxGQbJ4uhSC4r_sw!2e0!4m2!3m1!1s0x4cc91a6ac580b55f:0x781c91755d9647ea!6m1!1e1
Sure it's nice.
ReplyDeleteThe Bagg family put that up back when they owned much of the land alongside the Main.
The greystones are a local signature though, the redstones are too rare to be equated with our urban identity.
I was surprised when I googled greystones and found that it refers to a style of architecture in Chicago and only minimally to Montreal. Would these be the only two places with such stoney-styled structures? Seems unlikely.
Sadly, several rows of greystone buildings were demolished for expansion of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts recently.
ReplyDeleteOr just up the street, the redstone Redpath Mansion dating back from 1886 was demolished last March. For what else, condos.
Montreal has no respect for preserving history and architecture.
Meh...I think we need to preserve some nice examples but not all of them. Being overly sentimental about these things can really hamstring a city and prevent it from developing properly.
ReplyDeleteBerlin and Tokyo get to be the ultra modern "cities of the future" they are because they were freed of most of thier heritage buildings by the US Air Force.
These old buildings are not all that useful anyway. By the time you fit them with modern conveniences like air conditioning and insulation and modern requirements like handicap ramps and elevators a lot of the original charm is gone anyway.