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Performing arts centre architects all over the world are being ditched in order to get It Boy Jack Diamond on site, it seems.
Wooo-hooo! Toronto style!
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From CBC News:
Jack Diamond to design Montreal concert hall
Last Updated: Friday, March 27, 2009 | 12:53 PM ET
CBC News
Toronto architect Jack Diamond, who designed the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts in Toronto, will help design a new concert hall for Montreal.
The Quebec government announced Thursday that a consortium involving Diamond + Schmitt of Toronto and Montreal's SNC-Lavalin has been chosen to build the $267-million building.
The group won the contract, which includes a 1,900-seat hall, in an international design competition.
The Orchestra Symphonique de Montréal has been performing since 1963 in multi-purpose facility Salle Wilfrid Laurier in Place des Arts.
If all goes as planned it will have a new home, built as a dedicated concert hall, by 2011.
Diamond, a music lover, said he's not interested in splashy architecture. Instead, he is concerned with the sound of the music inside the hall — and whether the building is environmentally and technically functional.
"Of course the kernel — the prime one being audience and performers have to have a connection — the performers have to be able to hear themselves play," Diamond told CBC News.
He would not release details of the design proposal.
But he said he would be working with Robert Essert, an acoustics expert who collaborated with him on the Four Seasons Centre, which has been praised for its fine acoustics and sight lines.
Diamond + Schmitt also designed the Sidney Harman Hall in Washington, D.C., and is redesigning the Banff Centre for the Arts in Alberta.
The MSO Concert Hall is being designed, managed and financed by a consortium which will lease the building back to the public sector and manage and maintain the building for 30 years.
In addition to SNC-Lavalin and Diamond + Schmitt, the group includes Aedifica, a Montreal architectural firm, Aecon, an infrastructure contractor, Solotech, a lighting supplier and Gala Systems, specializing in theatrical machinery.
The private sector involvement, and the consortium's commitment to manage the building for the next 30 years, should lead to better design, Diamond said.
"I mean if you're managing a proposal and you're responsible for the cost of its maintenance, you're going to see to it that you've got good equipment and a pretty efficient building," he said.
The building is to be built next to Place des Arts at the corner of Maisonneuve and St-Urbain.
http://www.cbc.ca/arts/artdesign/sto...l-concert.html
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So I guess they've ditched the proposal by Architectiken Cie
AoD
Performing arts centre architects all over the world are being ditched in order to get It Boy Jack Diamond on site, it seems.
Wooo-hooo! Toronto style!
I think you mean "Revised Budget Boy"Originally Posted by Urban Shocker
Performing arts centre architects all over the world are being ditched in order to get It Boy Jack Diamond on site, it seems.
Wooo-hooo! Toronto style!
In other news, it looks like we'll no longer have the best performing arts centre in the universe.
I look forward to seeing his design.
I expect there will be a nice dark corner just for you.
Leaked earlier today...
Perhaps there will be an extra colour-full one for you.
Senior UT Member
It's been revised. The curved beige facade on the left has been eliminated due to budget cuts.Leaked earlier today...
Actually there was more than enough money - it was just deemed too much spectacle.
Congrats Montreal... prepare to be underwhelmed!
Senior UT Member
Zut alors - preparez vous pour la crappe.....
Actually, I thought Montrealers were smarter than this....
Considering OSM is considered to be the premier symphony orchestra in Canada, I am quite confident that they know what they want out of the hall - and besides, at 250M+, the budget is more than twice that of Four Seasons Centre.
Now, do inform me at the end of the day how much the Feds will contribute to the project...after which point we shall discuss the issue of architectural merit.
AoD
Last edited by AlvinofDiaspar; 2009-Mar-27 at 20:25.
Read the article a little more thoroughly -- 250M may seem like lots but much of it goes toward upgrading the infrastructure around the place. Add inflation in, and the cost doesn't really amount to that much more than Four Seasons. But given all of that it would be interesting to see what exterior Diamond can do with a decent budget. I know the interior will work. Further, I don't believe that Roy Thomson Hall (with all of its flaws as a concert venue) would come in under 200M nowadays.
To even suggest that the Feds might put any money in just raises my back. Our money has flowed in the direction of Quebec (as they cry poor) for years and years -- I have had absolutely enough of that. And before you jump all over me -- I know Toronto got some federal money for the arts infrastructure projects here -- and it was a pleasure for a change, the money is largely ours.
The politics, the politics --- this project is a huge political hole. They've been playing off the various political layers of this entire country for years trying to get this whilst they should be working it out for themselves. Diamond is too good for them, even in this time of restraint.
I'm going to guess... glass cube box?
Senior UT Member
I think that with the slightly higher budget and Jack Diamond's additional experience at concert halls today, it will look better than the Four Seasons Centre and actually acceptable. Diamond has many interesting projects in his portfolio, and his higher budget buildings are generally functional with good attention to detail, if boring in shape.
$267-million should get them something nice.
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