08:36 on 2012/07/15 Reply  

• Chris 09:09 on 2012/07/15 Permalink

  was that a view anyone cared about?

• Kate 09:29 on 2012/07/15 Permalink

  I did, enough to have photographed it a few times. It was a way of showing several layers of architecture, the Birks building, the deco building behind it, and PVM behind that.

  I always like seeing PVM on the skyline anyway, it’s iconic.

• Marc 10:05 on 2012/07/15 Permalink

  Well, you can still see a quarter of it. Better than nothing, I suppose. I’ve always liked that Philips Sq. view.

• Kate 10:20 on 2012/07/15 Permalink

  Here’s a night view in winter:
  

  and a day view:
  

• ProposMontréal 10:21 on 2012/07/15 Permalink

  After all, maybe this will be an improvement !

• Doobious 15:31 on 2012/07/15 Permalink

  The view of PVM is half obscured from the QdS too now. Not good.

• Matt 16:57 on 2012/07/15 Permalink

  Ugh. Plus, that new tower just looks like a lot of the other uninspired pieces going up these days.

• Martin 17:06 on 2012/07/15 Permalink

  But most importantly, we’re loosing a surface parking lot and getting more residents downtown. Win-win. PVM is great, but we can still see it from many other vantage points.

• Chris 17:27 on 2012/07/15 Permalink

  Martin, but I bet there’s more parking underground than there was on-surface. So we’ll probably get more car traffic too. :(

• qatzelok 19:03 on 2012/07/15 Permalink

  Place Ville Marie is a pretty bland “icon” for Montreal. And its monotonous horizontal bands of steel and glass cheapened the panorama at Phillip’s Square.

  Its presence will not be missed. Kate, why are you defending incredibly mediocre, large-scale buildings?

• Doobious 19:33 on 2012/07/15 Permalink

  Heretic.

  Kate, the “deco” building is called University Tower.

• Doobious 20:08 on 2012/07/15 Permalink

  Extra ugh… Assuming presales are good, this thing is going up on Union on the parking lot where the Bluebird Cafe used to be. At 40 storeys or so, you can kiss your view of PVM from the east goodbye.

• Doobious 20:10 on 2012/07/15 Permalink

  Oh, and it’s aluminum, not steel. Heretic.

• Kate 20:32 on 2012/07/15 Permalink

  Doobious: I’m glad to know the name. It was part of my old weblog logo:

  

  qatzelok: you really are a heretic. It’s iconic. What building would you propose instead?

• Doobious 22:41 on 2012/07/15 Permalink

  Because I’m short on useful stuff to do at the moment: pic.

  University Tower for a time housed the headquarters of Shell Oil Company of Canada.

• boblemieux 08:45 on 2012/07/16 Permalink

  La PVM étant situé au centre de notre centre-ville, il est impossible de protéger les vues sans sérieusement limiter le développement en hauteur. Peu importe où un nouveau gratte-ciel sera construit, la PVM disparaîtra un peu… La tour Altitude n’est pas si laide non plus, son revêtement est un peu banal, mais elle a une volumétrie intéressante, et des balcons qui ne sortent pas de la structure comme de vilaines verrues (ce que je déteste le plus à Vancouver). La tour Union sera d’un style très différent aussi, alors il y a aura une bonne diversité d’architecture dans le secteur. Ce n’est pas si mal.

• qatzelok 21:21 on 2012/07/16 Permalink

  @ Kate: “What building would you propose instead?”

  For modern icons of Montreal: The Big Owe, Habitat, and the Biosphere are all more interesting as quirky one-offs with culturally-interesting agendas.

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