NEIGHBORHOOD
HISTORY
SOCIAL HOUSING
In 1967, residents of the working class in Little Burgundy are expropriated. Authorities cleaned up “workers slum” that were falling into ruin. Homes and obsolete factories were demolished to make room from the Ville-Marie expressway and for major housing projects. In 1969, the first OMHM project for social housing in Montreal is built there: the Saint-Martin Blocks. Authorities provided 318 new apartments for low-budget families. The new concrete blocks do not answer the neighborhood’s culture, character, or individuality. Today we observe that it rather repeated the history of ghettoizing the inhabitants.
Urban renewal - Little Burgundy 1967
Source: ONF Canada
SPATIAL AGENCY IS LACKING
SPATIAL AGENCY
" To effect change and engage in [your] spatial environment
in ways previously unknown or unavailable to [you],
opening up new freedoms and potential
as a result of reconfigured social space. "
AWAN, TATJANA, JEMERY (2011)
Spatial agency, other ways of doing architecture, p.32
" To effect change and engage in [your] spatial environment
in ways previously unknown or unavailable to [you],
opening up new freedoms and potential
as a result of reconfigured social space. "
AWAN, TATJANA, JEMERY (2011)
Spatial agency, other ways of doing architecture, p.32
EXTENSIVE RESEARCH
Right before my thesis project, my colleagues and I at McGill did an extensive research on Little Burgundy neighborhood as part of another studio project. Bellow is a very brief summary of it through our own drawings.
SITE
Credit: Mathias Madelein
Downtown Montreal
︎︎︎N
STORIES
Credit: Etienne Genest
PEOPLE
Credit: Katia Broz
Credit: Sally Abd-Ali
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KATIA BROZ
MAY 2025