Tag Archives: Architecture

Hallelujah!

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Thursday 22 September 2022 – The only thing we had to do today was to get ourselves from Québec to Montréal; all else would be (a) bunce and (b) unplanned.  It involved a rather early start, since our train departed at 0810; however, we were business class, obvs, and would thus get breakfast on the train, which gave us back a little time.  Québec Station’s main entrance is rather grander in appearance than the windswept construction site that houses the taxi rank of unhappy memory from our arrival.

Nonetheless, if you look closely, you can see that the whole place is suffering from not having been well looked after recently. It’s sadly in need of a lick of paint; also, the coffee machine in the business class lounge wasn’t able to dispense actual coffee.  However, we were only there for about five minutes before it was time to board the train, so our souls didn’t suffer too badly.  Our carriage was similar to the one in which we travelled to Ottawa – indeed, we had the same seat allocation.  It also meant that our baggage travelled with us (so often the case in life) and there was room in the overhead locker for all our bits including my ludicrously heavy backpack.

The journey was unremarkable and quite short – enough to serve us a palatable breakfast and some coffee – and so we arrived in Montréal before midday.  Jane had done her research and so we knew that Montréal has an underground city similar to, although not so tightly networked as, that of Toronto; Montréal’s is called RÉSO and it looked like we could get from the station to our hotel, the Fairmont Queen Elizabeth, using its network. So it proved.  Of course, arriving that early meant that our room wasn’t ready and we spurned the chance to spend an extra 100 dollars a night (minimum) on getting an upgraded room that was available.

The weather outlook was for heavy showers so we decided to use the time until our room became available to go back into the RÉSO and explore a bit, on the basis that this carried the minimum risk of getting soaked. Back underground we went, and found, to no real surprise, that it was very similar to Toronto’s PATH: corridors and walkways;

eateries in profusion;

occasional glimpses of the outside world;

shops and shopping centres;

some interesting architecture;

and some quirky touches.

These two escalators were unusual in that they were both working.  In many other cases, one of the escalators was not.  This seems so systematic across the bits of the city we’ve passed through that I can only assume it’s because of routine maintenance in preparation for the forthcoming winter, rather than the kind of tight-fisted neglect which leaves so many UK escalators nonfunctional.

Having found ourselves in the Eaton Centre, a temple to consumerism that was of no interest to us, we realised that we were quite close to the city’s Christ Church cathedral, so we popped in for a look.

There’s a nice almost-cloister round the back, too.

We decided to walk back towards the hotel – not one of Fairmont’s more sumptuous establishments –

and mooch around near it until we were alerted that our room was available.  Our friend Ian Burley, whose Canadian recommendations have been very helpful as we work our way across the country, describes the area around the hotel as “charmless”.  He’s right; but that doesn’t mean it’s uninteresting.  Opposite the hotel, for example, is the newly installed 30m diameter steel Ring at the entrance to downtown’s Place Ville Marie

(sorry about the C2 crap in the way of a decent image); and next door to the hotel is the huge Basilica of Mary Queen of the World,

so we popped in there, too.  It’s rather different from Christ Church….

…one can easily tell which is the Protestant and which is the Catholic church.  Outside, this cathedral is architecturally complex in a similar manner to that of Sainte Anne de Beaupré.

Whilst walking around, we also saw this extraordinary building.

which looks like a bastion but is actually the Gare Windsor,

formerly the city’s Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) station, and which served as the headquarters of CPR from 1889 to 1996.  It’s now mainly office space, and has a wonderful atrium.

We walked out into the courtyard outside, and spotted what we thought was our first piece of street art (something that’s very big in Montréal).  Actually it wasn’t really; this was the Place des Canadiens who are

Montréal’s hockey team.  There’s a kind of Hall of Fame by this big billboard.

Our room was by this time available, so we put our bags into it and then almost immediately headed out to see another of Ian’s recommendations and something that Jane particularly wanted to see –

the Leonard Cohen mural.  I should point out that this takes up 13 storeys on the side of a 21-storey building. I have used image manipulation to straighten the photo above.  To give you an idea of the context, this is how it looked:

The route we walked there took us through streets that weren’t all that pleasant, with many homeless and/or otherwise troubled people in evidence, and there was a powerful whiff of weed almost everywhere.  We walked back a slightly different route, which was less oppressive and in doing so spotted our first piece of real street art,

a mural so big that it was not possible to fit it all into a single image, but I’ve done my best here.  The general area around our hotel is pretty much a business district and so one wouldn’t expect it to have lots of charm. There are one or two odds and bits of interest

although I haven’t a clue what any of them are about; and there’s some interesting modern architecture, which I’ve attempted to convey in an arty shot here.

Many of the tall modern buildings hereabouts are quite interestingly architected, with modern takes on art deco and so forth, so it’s not without interest.

It was nice to have a chance to explore a little of the area in preparation for two days of currently unplanned wanderings.  Apart from anything else, it made us realise that we would need to get equipped with ticket for the metro in order to get to the areas we want to explore – it would take too long to walk. I’m sure that by the time we get to tomorrow, Jane will have worked out what we should be getting up to, and I bet it involves looking for street art among other things.  You’ll have to stay in touch with these pages to find out, won’t you? I hope you think this is a reasonable idea.

 

Anne Interesting Tour

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Tuesday 20 September 2022 – The weather forecast for the day was gloomy, and the reality out of our hotel window

didn’t give huge cause for elation.  So, by an accident of fate, our plan to be on a bus for most of the day looked pretty sound.  There was a little uncertainty about precisely where the bus would stop, as a result of which we failed to be first on it and therefore to get the prime seats at the front of the upper deck.  This was a little bit of a shame, as the front windows actually boasted windscreen wipers, and so would have been clear for taking photos.

The driver, Dan, gave an interesting and folksy commentary as we went along and we tried to grab photos of the things he was talking about – never easy on a reasonably swift-moving bus on a rainy day, but one or two are worth sharing.

The route went north-east from Québec City, along the north coast of the St. Lawrence river.  This is the area where original settlers, erm, settled, and it seems that it took a few years for them to find the best area: at first they made homes on the banks of the St. Lawrence, but these got washed away by the unexpectedly high tides; so the next attempt was on top of the cliffs that bordered the river, but these were subject to the  bitterly cold north-easterly winds; finally, the best location turned out to be at the foot of the cliffs, out of the reach of the tides and sheltered from the winds.

By this stage, the settlers had learned about the potentially 12 feet of snow that could be expected during the winter, and so the houses tended to have steps up to the entrances.  We tried to catch some pictures of these houses as we went by.

 

On thing that we noticed was the colour of the roofs, many of which were (like that church spire I mentioned in my last post) silver in colour.  It turns out that these are tin, chosen because it is reasonably long-lasting and also fire-resistant.  Many have brightly-coloured roofs.

The reason for this is historical, as there’s no real need for the colour now.  But in the days of the original settlers, with houses relatively few and far between and 12 feet of snow on the ground in winter, the coloured roof was perhaps the only landmark a person could see.  The house in the photo immediately above features a “spring kitchen” – a place where folk could gather as the weather broke after winter, to celebrate the arrival of spring.

Houses that were farms tended to a strip of land that stretched back to the banks of the river – that way it was easy to understand land ownership.  Some of the farm houses are very handsome

and some of the older buildings show , from the reduced height of the door, that people weren’t as tall then (late 16h and 17th century) as they are today – perhaps as much as a foot shorter on average.

The tour made its first stop in St-Anne-de–Beaupré, a small town of perhaps 3,000 souls, but home to an astonishing Basilica.  The first church was built by sailors, seeking protection against shipwrecks off Ile-Oeuf on their way upriver to Quebec City (Saint Anne, the mother of the Virgin Mary, is the patron saint of sailors).  But the church has grown and grown, and has a reputation similar to that of Lourdes as a place for the sick to come on a pilgrimage and be cured.

It is huge

and ornate, both outside

and inside.

The doors are covered in beautiful copper, both outside

and in.

and there are extraordinary stacks of crutches and other mobility aids

which have been left here by people who have been cured of their illnesses.

There are no fewer than three other religious establishments immediately around the Basilica,

a couple of churches and, above, a commemorative chapel  of the third church.   On the gentle slopes of the hillside behind the chapel and beside the Santa Scala pictured above it are twelve bronze statues of the Stations of the Cross.

All in all, it is clear that Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré is a very significant religious centre.  There’s something excitingly called a Cyclorama

which is not, after all, a wall of death for daredevil motorbikers to whizz round, but actually a 365-ft representation in the round of Christ’s crucifixion – sadly closed since the pandemic and not yet re-opened.

After this stop, we retraced our journey back towards Quebec City. Driver Dan described the next stop as a “Copper Shop” and I wondered why we would visit a police station.  At first, it seemed merely the sort of retail opportunity that is often an unwelcome intrusion into a tour, as we were ushered into the lobby lined with works of art made from copper.  I was wrong to misjudge it, though.  We were at Cuivres d’Art Albert Gilles Boutique et Musée. Our group was given a short demonstration of how sheet copper can be transformed into a work of art.

although what we saw was a mere illustration using thin sheet metal; the real material is five times as thick and takes real skill, dedication and time to make into a final sculpture.

The studio, which was started by Albert Gilles who has passed the flame to daughter and grand-daughter, also hosted an exhibition, including Albert’s work to create silver representations of the life of Christ,

a project which took him 15 years, as well as some other lovely items.

The key thing that prevented this from being an unwelcome attempt to sell us stuff came with the knowledge, imparted by Madame, that Albert Gilles had created the copper doors for the Basilica at Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré (along with work at some 60 other churches).  We left with a great, erm, impression of the man, his work and his art.

We next stopped at the Montmorency Falls.   These are 83 metres high, thus higher than Niagara, although not as powerful.

The falls are impressive enough from ground level, but one can reach the top for a different viewpoint.  You have a choice: walk up steps to the right of the falls as you look at them – 487 steps, we’re told, since we didn’t take this option (not enough time) – or a cable car to the left, which is quicker, less work but costs more.

The cable car is unique in my experience in two ways: the cars are clamped to the cable and it’s the cable that moves; and each car is clamped to two cables, which (obviously) both move. From the top of the cable car, you go past Montmorency Pavilion

and can take a couple of viewpoints, the better of which is ruined, in my photography-solipsistic world, by zipwire cables spoiling the view.  There’s a suspension bridge across the falls, which is quite exciting.  On the left from this viewpoint you can see the steps which hardy souls can climb and which would probably give the most satisfying viewpoint.

In the distance, in the upper of these two pictures, you can see a much larger suspension bridge. This leads to – indeed is the only road access to – the Île-d’Orléans, which is where we headed next.

This island is home mainly to farms, as building regulations forbid the creation of any other kind of industrial construction.  It produces mainly fruit and vegetables – strawberries, apricots, potatoes and apples. There’s a 9-hole golf course, a couple of churches and a decent selection of very handsome (and expensive, obvs) homes.  There’s a Nougaterie, and a blackcurrant farm, Cassis Monna & Filles, which Ian Burley recommends for its gin, but rather than go there, we ended up at a chocolate shop, right at the western point of the island, where you can actually see back over to Québec.

If you look carefully, you can even see the central tower of our hotel, just above the left-hand cruise ship.

The chocolate shop is very obviously a popular place for tours

but we resisted the urge to dash in and stuff our faces.  Instead, since this was the last stop of the tour and we were back at the hotel shortly afterwards, we headed to a hotel restaurant called Sam (for reasons we discovered the next day) where, by virtue of force of personality, or perhaps just plain luck, we just managed to squeeze in for a late, and very good, lunch and a couple of cold, and very welcome, drinks.

Was this a “Fabulous Country Tour”?  Well, not really – and of course the dull weather didn’t help – but it was interesting and we learned quite a lot about early settlers; and the Basilica was a truly remarkable place.  We enjoyed the day and could now look forward to our second and final day in Québec.  The weather outlook was rather better, so we could expect to have a good chance to explore this fascinating city in more detail.  Do come back and find out, won’t you?

 

Ottowa – Capital!

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Saturday 17 September 2022 – As promised in my last entry, I have spared you my ramblings for a whole day, so here’s a catch-up of what we got up to yesterday.  The train trip from Toronto to Ottawa the day before was almost entirely unremarkable and quite pleasant.  We were on Via Rail, travelling business class, which is something I would recommend, as it saves a lot of queuing – queues to show your ticket, then queues to get on the platform are the lot of hoi polloi in the bilges.  We were wafted on to a carriage with comfortable seats, free drink and lunch, power for our computers and a reliable WiFi that lent some purpose to having the computers with us.  There were several stops en route, and we arrived in Ottawa some 30 minutes late, but we weren’t in a hurry.  A short taxi ride then got us to our hotel, (yet) another monumental Fairmont slab of masonry

the Château Laurier.

Today’s formal content was a walking tour of Ottawa, billed as free, but with the expectation set that tips were expected. At the appointed hour we met our guide, Craig

who has a real job of teaching history, but who started doing the walking tours 17 years ago and now has a company employing about 15 guides.  I’m glad we got the boss – he is knowledgeable, entertaining and very well organised; he shepherded a group of 17 people around for two and a half hours without boring or losing any of us and we thoroughly enjoyed it.

Ottawa is a strange place, for a number of reasons.  For a start, it’s the home of the government of Canada, and so there are numerous Parliament buildings on, unsurprisingly, Parliament Hill: centre block, with the Peace Tower;

West block, the House of Commons, home of the MPs; and East block, where the senators have their offices. Behind the centre block is the Parliamentary Library, of which more later.

In most of my photos of government buildings, I apologise for the presence of cranes and other signs of construction, but these are impossible to avoid, as The Construction (referred to by locals with implicit capital letters and normally through gritted teeth) is something that has been ongoing for a long time, in some senses for over a century. In 1916, a fire started in the central block, and some bright, erm, spark, thought to close the massive doors between it and the Library.  So the library was saved, but the rest burned down and has been rebuilt.  The Central Block is now being refurbished, so is unused – the Senate debates at Union Station – a mini replica of the original Penn Station in New York – down the way

and the Commons is in the West Block.

The West Block, by the way, has been completely rebuilt, brick by brick.  When The Construction started refurbishing it, the mortar was so fragile that the walls started to collapse as they were being sandblasted, so it was taken apart, and all the bricks individually cleaned, numbered and then used to rebuild.  So it is a modern building

with a copper roof which is still copper-coloured. Look across to the East Block

and you can see what 150 years of weathering does to a building.

The Canadian political system, with its two houses, is similar to the UK’s and is basically adversarial.  In that sense, Ottawa is split.  In a strictly geographical sense it is also split almost exactly in half.  The Parliament buildings are in the Upper Town, which, in the early days of the city, was the Posh Bit, designed and built by largely English and Scottish Protestants.  As such, streets like Spark Street, leading away from Parliament Hill, display architecture that would be familiar in London or Edinburgh

(although the buildings may state that they are “Bank of Nova Scotia” or similar, the government basically owns all of Spark Street, so all of the buildings are government buildings; any shops are leased from it). Government is way, way the most important part of Ottawa’s business, about 60% of the population work directly for the government or its agencies; high tech is second, with many of the big IT names having their Canadian HQ in the city; and tourism is third.

Crossing the Rideau Canal

takes you into Lower Town, where the buildings display a basically French architecture; many would seem at home in Paris.

The Lower Town is home to the Byward Market district, which is the entertainment centre of the city.  So there are profusions of cafés and restaurants, some of which are in very French-style courtyards.

So, why the split?  It was a direct consequence of the creation of the Rideau Canal, a 202km waterway connecting Ottawa to Lake Ontario, dug entirely by hand (no machinery at all) and opened in 1832 as a precaution in case of war with the USA who might then assert control over the Great Lakes and their rivers.  The labourers – 40,000 of them – were almost entirely French or Irish (hence Catholic), and made their homes on the Lower Town side of the canal route, hence the architectural – and indeed cultural – divide.

By the way, the relations with the USA remained cordial, so there was never a need for the Rideau Canal, which remains open these days for pleasure boating from April to October, when the locks are in operation, as seen here when a bunch of Rangers were making their way through by the hotel.

In Winter the canal freezes, of course, which creates the world’s largest skating rink – 7.8km long, and used not only for a bit of fun skating but also by people commuting to work in the winter. It, and Dow’s Lake which it leads to, is a UNESCO World Heritage site.

We saw a lot of other interesting things as we wandered around Ottawa, both on Craig’s tour and our independent ramblings later: protests by the Parliament;

the Centennial Flame, lit in 1967 to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Canadian Confederation, with sides geographically dedicated to each of the provinces and territories;

statuary;

(above imaginatively called “Bear Catching Fish)

(The above is called “Our Shepherds”.  The accompanying description says “The playful blue colour and simple, symmetrical structure of the sculpture acts as an enticement to consider deeper meanings. Our Shepherds speaks of those who take power and those who are led, inviting viewers to question who are the shepherds and who are the sheep.” This is a load of pretentious bollocks in my view.)

(A representation of The Stanley Cup, the Canadian ice-hockey trophy)

(Maman, outside the Arts Museum and across the road from Notre Dame)

street art;

(a cute advert for a bicycle rental establishment)

(York Street Steps)

and the Changing of the Guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior.

There are nice views over the Ottawa River.


(above: The Canadian Museum of History, designed by an indigenous architect deliberately to have no right angles, as these are deemed to trap spirits)

The Lower Town has a nice vibe about it

(although not everywhere is sweetness and light).

We couldn’t get into the Notre Dame Basilica

because it’s closed at weekends.  We couldn’t get into any Parliament buildings to gawp at the richness of the décor because of closure due to the death of Queen Elizabeth II – and the normal light show on the Parliament buildings had also been suspended, but there was at least a mark of respect,

and we couldn’t get into St. Brigid’s Church (spotted in the distance by Jane as having an interesting spire)

because the last rabble to occupy it have been evicted and the locks changed – see here for details.

The Library, behind Parliament, is indeed an impressive building.

Having been saved by the heroics of Michael MacCormac from the fire of 1916, the Library has been considerably refurbished and its very foundations improved by a complex (and probably expensive) underpinning operation. Walking on the path behind it gives the great views, shown above, over the Ottawa River.

In Sparks Street, the old Post Office building is another flashback to English Victorian architecture

with lions guarding the doorway which are supposed to be welcoming but actually look rather like a cross between Kenneth Williams and Frankie Howerd having seen something rather beneath them.

Nearby is a statue of Oscar Petersen, the virtuoso jazz pianist, who was actually from Montréal, so I’m not quite sure why Ottawa has been selected as its site, but there it is, with music playing quietly in the background.

As you can infer from some of the pictures above, we also wandered about as dark fell, and a couple of buildings looked quite good when lit: the Library;

a nearby pavilion;

the Peace Tower (you’ve seen already); and Notre Dame Basilica

which was hosting a wedding.

Our crepuscular perambulations ended another varied day.  It was excellent to get such a detailed historical perspective on the development of the city on the walking tour; it was a shame that some of the highlights were not accessible, but we still got a lot of pleasure from our ramblings.

The weather outlook for the morrow was, frankly, gloomy, so we thought we’d see how the day evolved, rather than make any detailed plans.  So please come back in due course to see what actually happened.