The Epic Olympic Stadium in Montreal, Canada

This is the picture of the Olympic Stadium in Montreal, Canada. It certainly looks very beautiful against the inky black sky. What adds to the beauty of the building is its lighting that makes it stand tall and bright against the night sky. Note the tower of the structure. Does it not remind of the Olympic torch? Perhaps, it was built so purposefully. And behind that tower is a huge dome beneath which all indoor Olympic activities must take place. Maybe the ancient Greeks would want to have a round of Olympics in this contemporary structure that promises to compete well with their open amphitheaters in terms of architecture!

The Olympic Stadium (French: Stade Olympique de Montréal) is a multi-purpose stadium in Canada, located in the Hochelaga-Maisonneuve district of Montreal, Quebec. Built in the mid-1970s as the main venue for the 1976 Summer Olympics, it is nicknamed "The Big O," a reference to both its name and to the doughnut-shape of the permanent component of the stadium's roof. "The Big Owe" name has also been used to reference the astronomical cost of the stadium and the 1976 Olympics as a whole.

The stadium is the largest by seating capacity in Canada. After the Olympics, artificial turf was installed and it became the home of Montreal's professional baseball and football teams. The Alouettes of the CFL moved their regular season games to a smaller venue in 1998, but use Olympic Stadium for playoff and Grey Cup games. Following the 2004 baseball season, the Expos relocated to Washington, D.C., leaving the stadium without a main tenant, and with a history of financial and structural problems, it is largely seen as a white elephant.

The stadium currently serves as a multipurpose facility for special events (e.g. concerts, trade shows) with a seating capacity of 65,255. The Impact of Major League Soccer (MLS) use the venue on occasion, when larger capacity is needed or when the weather restricts outdoor play in the spring months.

Incorporated into the north base of the stadium is the Montreal Tower, the world's tallest inclined tower at 175 metres (574 ft). The stadium and Olympic Park grounds border Maisonneuve Park, which includes the Montreal Botanical Garden, adjacent to the west across Rue Sherbrooke (Route 138).

History

Background and architecture

The stadium was designed by French architect Roger Taillibert to be a very elaborate facility featuring a retractable roof,[1] the design of the stadium resembles to the Osaka 1970 World Expo Australian pavilion which was to be opened and closed by a huge 175-metre (574 ft) tower – the tallest inclined structure in the world, and the sixth tallest structure in Montreal.

The Olympic swimming pool is located under this tower. An Olympic velodrome (since converted to the Montreal Biodome, an indoor nature museum) was situated at the base of the tower in a building similar in design to the swimming pool.

The building was built as the main stadium for the 1976 Summer Olympic Games. The stadium was host to various events including the opening and closing ceremonies, athletics, football finals, and the team jumping equestrian events.

The building's design is cited as a masterpiece of Organic Modern architecture. Taillibert based the building on plant and animal forms, aiming to include vertebral structures with sinewy or tentacles, while still following the basic plans of Modern architecture.

The Epic Habitat 67 in Montreal, Canada

Habitat 67, or simply Habitat, is a model community and housing complex in Montreal, Canada, designed by Israeli–Canadian architect Moshe Safdie. It was originally conceived as his master's thesis in architecture at McGill University and then built as a pavilion for Expo 67, the World's Fair held from April to October 1967.

It is located at 2600 Avenue Pierre-Dupuy on the Marc-Drouin Quay next to the Saint Lawrence River. Habitat 67 is widely considered an architectural landmark and one of the most recognizable and significant buildings in both Montreal and Canada. It has been reported many times as one of the top 10 ugliest buildings in North America and the world.

History 

Safdie's design for Habitat 67 began as a thesis project for his architecture program at McGill University. It was "highly recognized" at the institution, though Safdie cites its failure to win the Pilkington Prize, an award for the best thesis at Canadian schools of architecture, as early evidence of its controversial nature.

After leaving to work with Louis Kahn in Philadelphia, Safdie was approached by Sandy van Ginkel, his former thesis advisor, to develop the master plan for Expo 67, the world's fair that was set to take place in Montreal during 1967. Safdie decided to propose his thesis as one of the pavilions and began developing his plan.

After the plans were approved in Ottawa by Mitchell Sharp, the federal cabinet minister responsible for the exhibition, and Lester B. Pearson, Safdie was given the blessing of the Expo 67 Director of Installations, Edward Churchill, to leave the planning committee in order to work on the building project as an independent architect. Safdie was awarded the project in spite of his relative youth and inexperience, an opportunity he later described as "a fairy tale, an amazing fairy tale".

The development was financed by the federal government, but is now owned by its tenants, who formed a limited partnership that purchased the building from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation in 1985. Safdie still owns a penthouse apartment in the building.

Concept and design

Habitat 67 comprises 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, which can range from approximately 225 to 1,000 square feet (20 to 90 m2) in size.

The development was designed to integrate the benefits of suburban homes, namely gardens, fresh air, privacy, and multilevelled environments, with the economics and density of a modern urban apartment building. It was believed to illustrate the new lifestyle people would live in increasingly crowded cities around the world.

Safdie's goal for the project to be affordable housing largely failed: demand for the building's units has made them more expensive than originally envisioned. In addition, the existing structure was originally meant to only be the first phase of a much larger complex, but the high per-unit cost of approximately C$140,000 prevented that possibility.

The theme of Expo 67 was "Man and his World", taken from Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's memoir Terre des hommes (literally "land of men", though it was published under the title Wind, Sand and Stars). Housing was also one of the main themes of Expo 67. Habitat 67 then became a thematic pavilion visited by thousands of visitors who came from around the world, and during the expo also served as the temporary residence of the many dignitaries visiting Montreal.

In March 2012, Habitat 67 won an online Lego Architecture poll and is a candidate to be added to the list of famous buildings that inspire a special replica Lego set. Lego blocks were actually used in the initial planning for Habitat; according to Safdie's firm, "initial models of the project were built using legos and subsequent iterations were also built with legos”.