HABITAT 67

Montreal, Canada

Architect Moshe Safdie's design for Habitat 67 began as a thesis project for his architecture program at McGill University. It was "highly recognized" at the school, but did not win the award for the best thesis at Canadian schools of architecture that year, as early evidence of its controversial nature. After leaving to work with architect Louis Kahn in Philadelphia, Safdie developed the master plan for the World Fair planned for Montreal in 1967. Habitat echoed a little known post-war Japanese architectural movement called Metabolism, whose proponents believed buildings should be designed as living, organic, interconnected webs of prefabricated cells. Habitat, a part of Expo 67 World Fair, is composed of 354 identical, prefabricated concrete forms, arranged in various combinations, reaching up to 12 stories in height. Together, these units create 146 residences of varying sizes and configurations, each formed from one to eight linked concrete units. The complex originally contained 158 apartments, but several apartments have since been joined to create larger units, reducing the total number. Each unit is connected to at least one private terrace, ranging in size from 225 to 1,000 sq. ft. “From an architectural point of view, Habitat is spectacular”, said one past resident. “But water gets into the concrete and develops spores, and the ventilation system blows the spores around.” After developing asthma and finding his cat dead, he moved. Such is the price of fame and greatness.

After scouting the building on a morning run, I returned a few days later for the sketch. Finding a Aview@ that explained this building was not easy. The right sun position was needed to develop the massing definition. I=ve since seen this view in a few photos, so it must have been the right choice.