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In the course of our daily reporting, we often uncover unusual projects, places, or connections that don't make the final cut. Instead of keeping it to ourselves, we're pleased to share our weekly Architrivia.
In the opening scenes of Woody Allen's, Midnight in Paris, protagonist Gil Pender (Owen Wilson) muses aloud as he imagines Paris in the 1920s. The struggling writer is in awe of what he believes would have been a Golden Era for the City of Light, exclaiming, "Can you picture how drop dead gorgeous this city is in the rain? Imagine this town in the '20s. Paris in the '20s, in the rain. The artists and writers!" In the movie, Gil's fantasy is made a reality each night — at the stroke of midnight — when the young writer is introduced to Ernest Hemingway and Gertrude Stein, among others.
Visitors to Montreal may find it a little easier to imagine how Paris looked in the '20s — or at least, how part of it looked. The Montreal Metro was one of the most modern subway systems in the world upon its debut in 1966, built just in time for Expo '67. It was with a concerted nod to both Montreal's cultural link to Paris and to the joint French-Quebecois engineering effort that produced the Metro, that a repurposed Hector Guimard-designed entrance from the Paris Metro came to grace the main entrance to Square-Victoria-OACI station at the heart of downtown Montreal.
Assembled from salvaged pieces from several of Guimard's fanciful Art Nouveau-inspired Paris Metro entranceways, which were in the process of demolition during Montreal Mayor Jean Drapeau's official visit to Paris prior to the Montreal Metro's planning and development, the gates were a gift to Montreal inspired by the visiting Mayor's suggestion that the gates be saved and repurposed for the Montreal Metro. Remaining today as the only example of Guimard's original Paris Metro gates outside of Paris — the architect's work fell out of favour following his death in 1942 and most of it is now lost — the entrance to the Montreal Metro's Square-Victoria-OACI station is truly unique, a symbolic living link to the city's cultural past.
While you may not necessarily bump into Mordecai Richler or Leonard Cohen upon entering — even at the stroke of midnight, in the rain — there will forever be a whimsical sense of wonder tied to the dreamy Art Nouveau design of Guimard's creation.
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