> Art critic Blake Gopnik, who spent six years of his childhood living at Habitat 67, called the building the “greatest modern sculpture,” adding, to give that comment some weight, “and I’ve seen a lot of sculpture.” For Gopnik, who learned how to ride a bicycle on Habitat’s second floor terrace, the project’s success lies in what he calls its “aesthetic surprise.” Gopnik explains, “When you walk through it, you get a sense of space unfolding around you—vistas open up and get enclosed by concrete.”
This is it. This is the only thing in the article matching the title. Architectural 'digest' but it's more of 'we've digested the information and this is what we shat'
Recently Safdie and Unreal Engine created a fly through model of Safdie's original vision for Habitat 67, which was scaled back dramatically from the original idea of creating a whole neighborhood, due to a 2/3 cut in the budget:
https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/hillside
I remember hearing there were a bunch of problems with the quality of the construction (like everything else in the city). Montreal has some nice architecture though, including lots of brutalist stuff, for example that apartment complex at Sherbrooke and Viau, and obviously expo stadium. And I'm not sure the name of the style, but a few buildings like the sun-life building downtown. I'd say it's probably the most architecturally interesting Canadian city.
I probably don't know what I am talking about but just because it is made out of concrete does not make it brutalist. in fact that structure is sort of the opposite of brutalist. I think of brutilist as straight lines, heavy beams, minimal decoration. that building is trying to be whimsical and light, greebling, floating bits, asymmetry. in short anti-brutalist.
The authority to check with is Kenneth Frampton and his Modern Architecture. He categorized Safdie as postmodern. I just checked and apparently my copy (some early 90s edition) is awol from the shelf and no pdfs to be found on the net. However found this article:
Ando used to make concrete sing. Just superb. He also had a dog he named Corbu (its true!) - iirc he claimed (in a lecture when visiting our school) that he followed Corbusier but to me he generously lifted from Lou Kahn.
This article is rather light and it seems the author only chatted with the subject for a few minutes. The vague title almost gives one the impression that habitat 67 no longer exists but it is still intact. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habitat_67
His architecture firm and Epic Games just released a project with a realistic model of the original planned building, and a drone lidar scan of the smaller one that was built:
I wonder if this was part of the inspiration for Hsieh's "container park" in Las Vegas.
I've often contemplated what building dense and engaging housing with a minimal set of forms. The advantage is of course cost if you can pre-build the forms in a factory.
This is it. This is the only thing in the article matching the title. Architectural 'digest' but it's more of 'we've digested the information and this is what we shat'