lots happening in mile end

I’ve been wandering Mile End lately, with and without clients.  I love that it’s an interesting mix of architecture, commerce, art and people.

These photos take you to the neighborhood in ways my descriptions just can’t.  I’ll be back with a few reviews, but in the meantime, merci mille fois - a thousand thank yous - to Cynthia Hartnett for sharing these photos (which I have regrettably cropped to fit the blog format.)

muvbox - a design-friendly, affordable lunch spot

Leave it to design-friendly Montreal to combine green technology with scenic vistas and affordable food.

Muvbox, a new take-out restaurant in Vieux Montreal, is a 20-foot shipping container by night and a solar powered boîte serving clam chowder, pizza, and lobster from the Magdalen Islands by day.

I arrived just before noon on a Wed, at the recommendation of a friend - knowing nothing about the design, but eager to try a lobster roll that cost less than $10.

It was a sunny day with a delicious breeze coming off the water, and the place was hopping: the shaded deck was full, half a dozen people waited in line on the building’s north side, and red-aproned staff moved quickly and efficiently at the heart of the miniscule space.

My lobster roll came in a paper box, in keeping with the box theme. The split hot dog roll was nicely toasted, making a warm shell for chunks of claw meat with slivers of celery and bound by a little mayo. The most popular meal was the special - clam chowder, lobster roll, chips and a drink for $14.95.

My friend pronounced the Margherita Pizza ($5.95) delicious and a good value. (The resto’s founder, Daniel Noiseux, brought the wood-fired oven to Montreal 25 years ago.)

Located on the quai next to La Maison des Eclusiers, the minimalist structure looks onto a gorgeous view. And at night, the restaurant itself adds to the scenery. Painted black, white and red, with giant lobsters on the end, the box has awnings that retract and sides that fold up to enclose kitchen and deck.

If you go:
Muvbox is located at the corner of McGill and rue de la Commune
Open from 11:30 am to 7:30 pm, weather permitting

bixi is easy, affordable, fun

There are times when I want to get from one end of Montreal to the other, and I don’t want to go underground. I don’t want to deal with parking or spend money on a cab - and it would take too long to walk.

Enter Bixi, the city’s new bike rental program. It’s easy, affordable (especially if you’re doing lots of short to’s and fro’s), and fun.

The bikes themselves are sturdy beasts, with lightweight aluminum frames, and wide tires that make cobblestones navigable and take the sting out of stormwater grates. Seats are wide, and the padded handlebars upright - making balance easy.

Shifting is easy, too - flick your wrist to turn a ring and change the gears. Unless you’re climbing Mont Royal, you don’t need any more than the three gears provided.

And the simple system leaves your left hand free to work the bell. This comes in handy near the Science Center, where cyclists and pedestrians mix liberally, and at intersections throughout the city, where the added twist to the mix is turning cars.

The sloping down tube and chain guard make the bikes rideable in just about any attire, and thanks to a taut bungee cord incorporated into the basket, knapsacks, shopping bags and maps are securely contained.

I can’t say enough about the bike path. Over 500 km of gently sloping, paved paths connect the main areas of the city, making it a cinch to get where you need to go - and beyond.

We took two bikes from Parc de la Fontaine one sunny Tuesday morning, jumped on the bike path, and sailed down to Ateliers et Saveurs in Old Montreal for a noon-time class.

We wandered the tiny streets in the Old City, then explored Ile de Notre Dame and Parc Jean Drapeau, saw Habitat 67 up close, and got great views of La Ronde. Later, we ambled through Hochelaga Maisonneuve and saw the Olympic stadium from the sidewalk.

In most cases, we moved more quickly than we would have in a car. And knowing that we could get places under our own steam, while helping ease smog and congestion, made the experience downright exhilarating.

Our only snafus came when we tried to return the bikes - and in the end the fault was mine. If I had read the 20+ pages of info on the touch screen before renting the bikes, we would have known that if there are no empty parking spaces for a return, you can get 15 additional minutes free, while you try another station. Push the symbol with the clock and the + sign.

There is also a map at most stations, so you don’t have to memorize their locations, as we attempted. And the docks don’t all work: if you try to slide a bike into an an empty spot and it won’t lock, you’ll need to find another dock that does.

We used the bike as both taxi (short hop) and tour bus (two hours at a time). Pricing favors the former. The first 30 minutes of use is free, so our credit card was billed for each additional half hour of the longer trips.

A hardy commuter advised us to avoid the charges by returning the bikes to a new station every 25 minutes, then taking new wheels. But we figured it would probably have cost us as much to rent a bike for the day, and we wouldn’t have had the flexibility that Bixi offers.

Do you cycle in Montreal?  Do you use the Bixi system?  Share your experience!

st michael’s church open to visitors

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve passed St Michael’s Church while wandering Mile End and thought: maybe this time it will be open. There’s almost always someone on the stairs of the imposing, Byzantine-looking structure - munching a sandwich, reading, talking on a cell phone, or just whiling away the afternoon.

But, alas, the double wooden door is closed and locked, with no notice of when it will open.

I’ve wondered: Is the interior like Sacré-Coeur in Paris, brimming with golden mosaics?

Or more like the Greek-Orthodox church of my childhood, where I attended Easter services with a friend? My memories of her church center on the aromas of pirogees served on Fridays, and the colorful icons in gilded paintings and radiant stained glass windows.

En fait, Eglise St Michael is unlike either. And I have the Canada Summer Works program to thank for setting me straight.

I arrived earlier this month to find the doors open and a young man from Massachusetts waiting to give me a free tour. He unlocks the doors daily as part of a program that helps not-for-profit organizations increase visibility, while giving college students valuable work experience.

His enthusiasm is respectful but not dry - and he is delighted to hold forth on the statues, symbolism, history and art history of the parish.

To my surprise, the church is not Greek-Orthodox as the dome and minaret suggest, but Catholic, under the auspices of the Franciscans. The original worshippers were Irish; that population has dwindled, and the church now serves the Polish community.

My guide pointed out the saints adorning the inside of the dome (which was the largest dome in Montreal before St Joseph’s Oratory was built). He told stories depicted in Guido Nincheri’s stained windows and murals. He explained how the Stations of the Cross were copied from a church in Munich.

I love the way tour guides make even stone - and in this case, concrete - come alive. My tour was worth the long wait. This young man’s insights helped me appreciate faith, architecture, and the history of this splendid neighborhood.

Ca vaut le coup d’y passer.

If you go: 5580 Rue St Urbain, at St Viateur O. Visits in French and English, M-F, 9:30am-5pm, July-Aug.

Photograph courtesy Mourial.

speed limits at cca

Speed Limits, the current show at the Centre Canadien d’Architecture, is thought-provoking and disconcerting. Using a variety of media - posters, lithographs, video clips, and artifacts - the expo displays in detail, and calls into question, the pace of modern life.

The show opens with the image of a snail crawling across the ceiling, while urban motion/commotion is projected across the floor. The juxtaposition, both luminous and biting, hints at the complexity of the subject.

Demonstrating how architecture and design aided our desire for speed in the 1950s, a series of videos show a woman at work in an efficient kitchen. Watching, I felt nostalgia for that idyllic era, and the continuing promise that technology creates both more time and more possibility. Then I cringed with embarrassment.

With sleek drawers and streamlined, labeled bins putting everything within her reach, and electric appliances making cooking and cleaning faster, what registered ultimately was the housewife’s increased servitude.

A large screen showing date-stamped photographic sequences of the construction of the Irving Trust Building in New York, the Eiffel Tower in Paris, and the China Central Television Building in Beijing were amazing - until subsequent sequences showed the fast, horrifying razing of other structures.

A display based on Claude Lelouche’s “Rendez-vous Paris” consists of several videos playing at once - each a sports car driven at top speed through a different major city. The viewer’s perspective is from the driver’s seat, the angles are sharp, and the sound of revving motors fierce. Motion-sickness trumped my curiosity here, and I didn’t linger.

A quieter gallery showed sleep aids (great design, and again the promises of advertising) against gorgeous footage of Usein Bolt’s record-breaking sprint in the 2008 Olympics. Here the contrast was less jolting, and the examples reminded why I visit museums: to experience sheer, uncomplicated beauty.

Bolt’s movement was pure perfection - not a sentiment I shared with the other examples (though likely others will.)

Immersed in the speed of the modern world, I yearn for… not slowness, exactly, but quiet, and simplicity. This show was perhaps more complicated than I bargained for. But its contrasting, multilayered approach to an abstract design idea is one reason I love the CCA.

If you go:

Speed Limits runs until Oct 12, 2009, 1920, rue Baile.

Free tours look closely at the expo, held Wed - Sun, 2pm in English, 3:30pm in French; meet at the information desk.

Photograph courtesy CCA.

sidewalk sales, street fairs, and more

Yesterday was a glorious day to be out and about in Montreal. After four days of rain, the sky was blue, and the city sparkled. I wandered with friends in The Main, the Plateau, the Botanical Gardens, and Vieux Montréal…aahh, what a treat.

The Main - closed to traffic between Sherbrooke and Mont-Royal for the first of three summer sidewalk sales - was in its glory. Street food included chow mein, hot dogs and espresso (with chocolat chaud as a holdover from the preceding rainy days) - supplemented by café terraces, filled to overflowing.

Friends chatted in groups, couples walked hand in hand, and just about every breed of dog padded through the happy crowds. In sidewalk sale tents, prices plunged - and we got two swingy, Georges Lévesque nylon skirts at Scandale for half off.

Ex-centris had a free viral/visual project going. Apparently, there is still confusion about whether the state-of-the-art complex is still open. To promote the still intact Cinéma Parallèle, a friendly, goateed young man invited passersby to peer through a hole in a painted board, kind of like they do with Mickey Mouse at Disney. A professional photographer recorded the images.

I can’t say I understood the visuals (at first glance, a donut, with a bullet on trajectory toward the participant’s head), but I love the place - a cultural treasure, full of fun and surprises all year long.

In the Plateau, it was all about biking. Folding bikes, hybrids, and faithful old road models rolled along with the cars on Ave Mont-Royal. Bikes (and calmly panting dogs) waited in front of stores and cafés as their owners enjoyed the confluence of free time and good weather, shopping, brunching, and hanging out in puddles of sun.

Every BIXI station in and around Parc la Fontaine was empty - and the bike path between the park and the Botanical Gardens streamed with riders. At the gardens, bike parking was easy to come by; cars, packed with families and poussettes, were not so easily accommodated.

We saw a black tandem bike locked to a post, and imagined the couple who owned it: middle aged, helmeted cyclists wearing slim-fitting Pearl Izumi jackets, who had once toured Ireland, Italy and elsewhere under their own power.

Near the entrance, a pair of twenty-something cyclists leaned duffle-laden steeds against a tree, while he took her picture with a disposable point-and-shoot. Not in front of the joyously spattering fountain, or the ruffled yellow snapdragons - but in front of the Olympic stadium, with her left hand raised to shoulder height, and held flat, as if she held the white stadium tip in her palm.

In Vieux Montréal, a long line waited at Musée Point-à-Caillière, in honor of the city-wide Free Museum Day. On the grass near the science museum, aerobics instructors led warm ups for a walk benefiting Alzheimer’s patients.

We watched a parade of snare drummers wearing tri-cornered black and gold hats, and wandered through a food festival featuring lobsters and sugar on snow.

Finally, we staked out a table at Café Serafim, soaking in the sun, nursing lattes, and admiring Chapel Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours.

Across the street, wearing period dress, the Musée Marguerite Bourgeoys staff announced the free tour. Eventually we succumbed and climbed the 69 steps to the tower - breathing in the blue sky and the view of the harbor, watching our fellow revelers from above.

scandinave les bains spa

My first spa experience, more than 10 years ago, was at the Roman baths at Baden Baden. It’s hard to beat rarified Black Forest air, 12 pools and steam rooms, and maternal German masseuses who joyfully rub, slap and pummel your cares away.

Sure, I try new spas, but halfheartedly. I have found them too social, too beauty-oriented, too superficial.

So imagine my surprise when I entered the new Montreal spa, Scandinave les Bains, and something in the minimalist, slate and glass reception area called up a long lost image in my brain - an archeological dig, a half-forgotten memory of the original Roman bath ruins. The place actually reminded me of Baden Baden.

This subliminal effect is a tribute to Montreal architects Saucier + Perrotte, who used wood, water, daylight and stone to transform a 20,000 sq ft former warehouse into a temple of inordinate calm.

Curved tiled walls, smooth expanses of slate and glass, and the textured stone walls of Old Montreal coexist with panels of natural light, flowing water, and ipe floors.

Treatments include a spacious and sleek jacuzzi pool, a Finnish dry sauna, a eucalyptus steam bath, two bracingly cold rinse stations, and several relaxation areas. There are 11 sleek massage rooms, a juice bar, and a waterfall that kneads shoulder muscles while creating a comforting white noise.

The prescriptive nature of Scandinave les Bains resembles that of its European counterparts, and this is in part where it differs from many contemporary spas. Hot is followed by cold, which is followed by rest on a beanbag recliner or a heated bench. Then you begin again.

Silence, too, has its place: talking above a whisper isn’t allowed.

My experience, in a nutshell: I started in the dry, cedar-lined sauna. The treatment relaxed my muscles - but did little to quiet the mind. Next, the shock of a quick plunge in frigid water had me gasping and screeching (ever so quietly), then breathing deeply - calming the chatter in my brain.

Resting, I closed my eyes, pulled the hood of my rented robe over my head, let the outside world disappear, and thought of nothing, until called for my hour-long Swedish massage (sublime). Then it was back to hot, cold, rest.

Suffice it to say that I can’t wait to go back. Baden Baden has found its equivalent, closer to home.

If you go: Bring a bathing suit (and robe).  71, rue de la Commune O, 514 288-2009, open 10am-10pm daily.

agnès varda at ex-centris

It’s not that I don’t like art - I do. But I love seeing original version films in a state-of-the-art independent film house more. Double that sentiment when the building is an architectural treasure.

So imagine my disappointment when I learned that March 19 will be the last day to see a movie at Ex-Centris.

Or that was what I first understood. Apparently, there has been some confusion. After years of supporting auteur and independent films, Ex-Centris is suspending its regular programming.

The key word is regular programming. Cinéma Parallèle will continue to operate, and the facilities will be used for a variety of projects ranging from theatre-style performances to new media productions, as well as cinema presentations that go beyond the traditional experience.

The facilities were designed from the start to offer more than film presentations - and their imminent transformation into multidisciplinary exhibition spaces will accommodate musical performances, interactive installations, and various combinations of stage performance and new technology.

That’s great, but I love movies. So to celebrate the ongoing presence of Cinéma Parallèle, I went to the premier of Agnès Varda’s new visual memoir, Les Plages d’Agnès.

The documentary opens with 80 year old Varda setting up mirrors in the sand. You look into other people’s lives, she says, and you uncover landscapes. Look into her life, and you find beaches.

Whether that’s because she’s always lived on the water (Varda even commuted to the Sorbonne in Paris by boat), or because of the imaginative powers that water evokes, I don’t know. But the opening was original and beautiful.

The film followed her life from childhood, in scenes that were at turns touching, funny and surreal. We met the loves of her life, and the artists who influenced her.

Best of all, the film put Varda’s career in the larger context of art and culture from the 50s to the present. It took us back to the plages de Paris in 68, to protests of the early women’s movement, and Black Panther rallies.

I would probably not have seen Les Plages d’Agnès if not for the impending changes at Ex-Centris. But I’m so glad I did. It’s fitting to welcome a new era of with a look back at what’s come before.