Leacock Museum, Orillia

This is the museum shop. I was told it was built later.

 

 This is where Stephen Leacock did his writing. 

His house is under construction.

Beautiful Orillia

Creighton Manor B & B 

 The very nice host and hostess of Creighton Manor B & B and I.

 

A sunset on Lake Simcoe in front of the B & B. It was quiet and serene sitting at that lonely bench and taking all that beautiful sunset in. 

Morning walk on the shorelines of Lake Simcoe 

Made of Garbage

Fashion Made of Garbage - Exhibit at the Biosphere Environmental Museum in Montreal, St. Helen to be exact. Check out the rest of the pictures at my other blogs: Architectonic Toronto and Archimpression.  

Photos by Mahtot

Charlevoix Subway Station, Montreal

The Biosphere, Montreal

Buckminister Fuller's geodesic dome in Montreal, re-purposed silos in St. Jacob remind me of this: "Everything in nature is formed according to the sphere, the cone and the cylinder" Cezanne. Hmm, I wonder what in nature inspires structures like that of Mies van der Rohe's Dominion Center or my own office building - school project. Absolutely no comparison of grandeur intended, PLEASE!

Stone Buildings in Guelph

Repurposed Silos in St. Jacobs

Habitat 67, Montreal

This is Moshe Safdie's design project for Expo '67; a housing complex along the St. Laurent River on Avenue Pierre Dupuy. I biked from Montreal to St. Helen's Island to my last destination, Buckminister Fuller's geodesic (next entry). Habitat '67 was conveniently located on the way. 

I took the picture above from across the river. The complex looks like it is in ruins from afar. But on a close inspection, it looks very nice.  

Seeing this pile of concrete up close was great. 

Looks like there was reno happening at the time as can be seen in the picture below. (The pictures were taken August 2011.) 

Surely, given a chance to live in a unit like the above, I definitely would take it in a heart beat! But when I look at the building as a piece of architecture, I have my reservations. Is this a housing complex or a monument for the idea of a housing complex? It could work as the later: it is more expressive than utilitarian. (The imagination it took to design this is amazing.) But the question is, why does "housing" need such an extravagant expression and monumental representation?

Here is an excerpt I found in a book: "It[Mass housing] merely an emergency measure which was seized upon when the normal process fell short. It was a means which was useful when a large number of people had to be housed in a short space of time....But our problem began when this emergency measure from the turn of the century grew into housing for the entire community, and thus became the norm". 

I add this: our problem got worse, when we started building  extravagant monuments for it.