From outside the color draws me like a beacon. When inside color washes over my body and it changes as I move from one place to another. I’m orange. I’m blue. When I chase the light and it chases me. That experience is the Montreal Convention Center.
When I hear the words convention center I cringe. I have experienced many a convention center and they are uninspired spaces. They have very little if any energy of their own. Visitors come and go but the buildings and spaces created inside are dead except for the mechanical drone of HVAC or escalators. Some of the buildings focus are industrial, some monumental, others overgrown shopping malls.
Why is it that our government buildings are so uninspiring? Is it our culture? Is it because we somehow think that our tax dollars and neighborhoods don’t deserve beauty? I think it is the process that we have for creating public buildings. The process is without inspiration or vision.
Montreal on the other hand had a marvelous vision and they have shared it with all of us.
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The Pennsylvania Convention Center is one of the worse inside and out. I don’t want to go on about it check it out yourself here : http://www.paconvention.com