There's something that most Montrealers don't realise that Montreal is famous for. You hear about this from people living outside Montreal, more than people living inside. Montreal is a world capital of the most controversial architectural style in history. The coldest, the most uncompromising, the brutalism. The big hell's at your point! This message makes the fascist! I'm being held to a standard! I'm restricted to fucking OS! Brutalism is like the architectural abstract art. Regular people hate the inorganic modernism. Yet its fans are often the fissionados with quite sophisticated tastes. Architects often like it because it's so interesting and special. And to be honest, it's not allowed to build stuff like it anymore. No more concrete monsters for you, Mr. Architect. In another way, brutalism is like the architectural version of heavy metal. Regular people find it harsh and strange, but its fans relish it for that exact same reading. Like an awesome rip. There's some joy to come across a brutalist building and being like, yeah, it's so brutal! Look at that concrete, oh well, you're not there! So let me share a bit about brutalism so that maybe you can see what others see in these buildings. If you don't like brutalism at the moment, you probably think it's ugly. But there's a very big difference between this, which is plain, and this, which is heroic. These iconic brutalist buildings in Montreal were actually hard to build. They're not the cheap black brick condos pumped out the house, Susan and Steve. These things were lovingly crafted by masters, the people who made them gave a shit. They thought they were ushering in a new era of honest, long-lasting buildings for an optimistic future. Brutalism, whose name comes from Breton Brute, is a form of structuralism. The idea being to show the structure and the materials the building has made from. Not try to hide it. That principle of honesty is why they're so often schools, libraries, housing projects, hospitals, government buildings and public transit systems. The French origins of brutalism is also part of why Montreal has so much of it. For last, great construction boom struck Montreal in the 1970s. Right when the iron was hot for brutalism. The Montreal Metro, many of the buildings for the expo and the Olympic, were all built in the style by the architectural greats of Montreal and the world. In this era, there was a pretty stupid idea of planning things and building things around. Look out! The worst was Thorbo Amalace, the neighbourhood where around 20 city blocks were demolished. To build the brutalist monument, made some radio Canada. It wasn't brutalism that demolished their beautiful neighbourhoods to replace them with parking. It just happened to come along at the same time as that was a popular trend too. But like any old crazy fad, after just a short time, it was gone. And for Montreal, many of these buildings now actually represent the high water mark of Montreal's power as Canada's permanent city. So Montreal offers a range of brutalism. And I would argue that most of it works pretty well. Brutalism works in utilitarian public spaces. So having no windows and giant concrete walls isn't going to make a nice building to live in. But in an underground subway station, it's no problem at all. The Montreal Metro system is a masterpiece and it's brutal as fuck. Another place where brutalism has worked is where it's veered off the purest brutalist vision who wants to work in a concrete windowless room. It's been reasonable guys. Often brutalist buildings get altered over time. Place Bonn-Eventshire for example, has had a lot of windows installed over the years. But the Metro nails this again. Many of the metro stations have flourishes and dashes of colour that contrast beautifully with concrete. I think that my favourite station, pre-fontang, gets everything right here. It's brutalism. There's lots of life, the colour and the concrete and hearts each other. And even more striking than when they're alone. And check out that circle motif throughout that matches the metro symbol. This was built by people who really cared and it comes through. Montreal is experiencing a new battle of development. And looking at some of the designs for new RAM and subway stations recently, I was a little sad to see that it just didn't quite look like Montreal. And that was when I realised it. Brutalism has got me. Because Montreal has got brutalism. It's joined a ranks of things that make Montreal special. I don't want to get rid of it. In fact, we may have to fight to keep something. One of the worst things about what's going on now is we're in a period where people are only just starting to appreciate this architecture. But a lot of it is due for maintenance and it's at risk. I've heard rumors about the Maison Radio Canada over the years saying that demolition was being looked into as a possibility. I think that it's some clear now. But it seemed like a bit of a tragedy on the same side that we demolished the neighbourhood. That we didn't appreciate the value of until it was too late. We would then demolish a building. That we didn't appreciate until it was too late as well. I hope that we don't make these mistakes before taking time to notice. You know what? That building is actually kind of cool. They'll never have our architecture. Suck it Toronto. I don't care anyway. They're not the cheap black brick condos pumped out the house soos and the steve. It's a real brick. Play bricks guys. We would then demolish a building that we didn't appreciate until it was too late as well.