Habitat 67, Montreal, Quebec, Canada

 emoticon emoticon Your in-flight movie presentation for Habitat 67! emoticon emoticon


Length 5:26

www.youtube.com/watch?v=74oX
PE7uePs

Enjoy! emoticon


emoticon emoticon We have landed! emoticon emoticon

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Habitat 67, or simply Habitat, is a model community and housing complex in Montreal, Quebec, Canada designed by Israeli-Canadian architect Moshe Safdie. At the School of Architecture at McGill University it was originally conceived as his master's thesis. Habitat 67 is widely considered an architectural landmark and one of the most recognizable buildings in both Montreal and Canada.



Habitat 67 is considered controversial and failed to win the Pilkington Price which is an award for the best thesis at Canadian schools of architecture. It is considered a failure because it failed in providing affordable housing.

Habitat 67 was financed by the federal government, but is now owned by its tenants, who formed a limited partnership that bought the building from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation in 1985. Safdie still owns a penthouse apartment in the building.



Habitat 67 has 354 identical, prefabricated concrete forms arranged in various combinations, reaching up to 12 stories in height. These units create 146 residencies of varying sizes and configurations, each formed from one to eight linked concrete units. Originally, the complex contained 158 units, but several apartments have since been joined to create larger units. Each unit has at least one private terrace.



The complex was designed to provide the benefits of suburban homes such as gardens, fresh air, privacy, and multileveled environments with the economics and density of a modern urban apartment building. It was going to illustrate the new lifestyle where people would live in crowded cities around the world. Safdie's goal for the project to provide affordable housing failed. Demand for the apartments has made them more expensive. Also, the structure was originally meant to be the first phase of a larger complex, but the high per-unit cost prevented that.

Safdie decided to present the master plan of Habitat 67 at Expo 67, the world's fair that was set to take place in Montreal during 1967. There he was given the blessing of working on the building project as an independent architect. He was awarded the project despite his youth and inexperience, an opportunity he described as "a fairy tale, an amazing fairy tale."



Habitat 67 in March 2012 won an online Lego Architecture poll. It is a candidate to be added to possibly inspire a special replica Lego set. Lego bricks were actually used in the initial planning for Habitat. "Initial models of the project were built using Lego bricks and subsequent iterations were also built with Lego bricks" according to Safdie's firm.



50 million people attended Expo 67 and Habitat 67 gained worldwide acclaim as a "fantastic experiment" and "architectural wonder". It was considered a success because it "redefined urban living" and has since become "a very successful co-op". Habitat 67's fame and success "made [Safdie's] reputation" and helped launch his career. Safdie has now designed over 75 buildings and master plans around the world.







To learn more visit this webpage:
www.habitat67.com/en/homage/

Hope you enjoyed the tour!

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