Habitat 67, or simply Habitat, is a housing complex at

Cité du Havre Cité du Havre () is a neighbourhood in the borough of Ville-Marie of the city of Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is located on a narrow man-made peninsula, the Mackay Pier (''Jetée Mackay''), which was largely built to protect the Old Port of Montr ...

, on the

Saint Lawrence River The St. Lawrence River (, ) is a large international river in the middle latitudes of North America connecting the Great Lakes to the North Atlantic Ocean. Its waters flow in a northeasterly direction from Lake Ontario to the Gulf of St. Lawrenc ...

Montreal, Quebec Montreal is the List of towns in Quebec, largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Quebec, the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-largest in Canada, and the List of North American cit ...

, Canada, designed by Israeli-

Canadian Canadians () are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their being ''C ...

- American architect

Moshe Safdie Moshe Safdie (; born July 14, 1938) is an architect, urban planner, educator, theorist, and author. He is well known for incorporating principles of socially responsible design throughout his six-decade career. His projects include cultural, ed ...

. It originated in his master's thesis at the

School of Architecture This is a list of architecture schools at colleges and universities around the world. An architecture school (also known as a school of architecture or college of architecture), is a professional school or institution specializing in architectura ...

McGill University McGill University (French: Université McGill) is an English-language public research university in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Founded in 1821 by royal charter,Frost, Stanley Brice. ''McGill University, Vol. I. For the Advancement of Learning, ...

and then an amended version was built for

Expo 67 The 1967 International and Universal Exposition, commonly known as Expo 67, was a general exhibition from April 28 to October 29, 1967. It was a category one world's fair held in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is considered to be one of the most s ...

, a

World's Fair A world's fair, also known as a universal exhibition, is a large global exhibition designed to showcase the achievements of nations. These exhibitions vary in character and are held in different parts of the world at a specific site for a perio ...

held from April to October 1967. Its address is 2600 Avenue Pierre-Dupuy, next to the Marc-Drouin

Quay A wharf ( or wharfs), quay ( , also ), staith, or staithe is a structure on the shore of a harbour or on the bank of a river or canal where ships may dock to load and unload cargo or passengers. Such a structure includes one or more Berth (mo ...

. Habitat 67 is considered an architectural

landmark A landmark is a recognizable natural or artificial feature used for navigation, a feature that stands out from its near environment and is often visible from long distances. In modern-day use, the term can also be applied to smaller structures ...

and a recognized building in Montreal.Habitat 67
- Quebec Cultural Heritage Directory,

Ministry of Culture and Communications (Quebec) The Ministry of Culture and Communications (, ) is responsible for promoting and protecting the culture in the Canadian province of Quebec. The current minister, since 2022, is Mathieu Lacombe. The ministry was formed in 2012 after the immigr ...

History

Safdie's design for Habitat 67 began as a thesis project for his architecture program at McGill University. It was "highly recognized" at the institution, though Safdie cites its failure to win the Pilkington Prize, an award for the best thesis at Canadian schools of architecture, as early evidence of its controversial nature. After leaving to work with

Louis Kahn Louis Isadore Kahn (born Itze-Leib Schmuilowsky; – March 17, 1974) was an Estonian-born American architect based in Philadelphia. After working in various capacities for several firms in Philadelphia, he founded his own atelier in 1935. Whil ...

Philadelphia Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ...

, Safdie was approached by Sandy van Ginkel, his former thesis advisor, to develop the master plan for Expo 67, the world's fair that was set to take place in Montreal during 1967. Safdie decided to propose his thesis as one of the

pavilions In architecture, ''pavilion'' has several meanings; * It may be a subsidiary building that is either positioned separately or as an attachment to a main building. Often it is associated with pleasure. In palaces and traditional mansions of Asia ...

and began developing his plan. After the plans were approved in

Ottawa Ottawa is the capital city of Canada. It is located in the southern Ontario, southern portion of the province of Ontario, at the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau River. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the cor ...

by Mitchell Sharp, the federal cabinet minister responsible for the exhibition, and Prime Minister

Lester B. Pearson Lester Bowles Pearson (23 April 1897 – 27 December 1972) was a Canadian politician, diplomat, statesman, and scholar who served as the 14th prime minister of Canada from 1963 to 1968. He also served as Leader of the Liberal Party of C ...

, Safdie was given the blessing of the Expo 67 Director of Installations, Edward Churchill, to leave the planning committee in order to work on the building project as an independent architect. The construction was done by Anglin-Norcross Ltd. of Montreal. Safdie was awarded the project in spite of his relative youth and inexperience, an opportunity he later described as "a fairy tale, an amazing fairy tale." The original plans called for 1,200 homes at a cost of $45 million. However, Safdie could only secure funding for a much reduced construction. This smaller development (about CA$22.4 million) was financed by the federal government, but is now owned by its tenants, who formed a limited partnership that purchased the building from the

Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC; , SCHL) is Canada's federal crown corporation responsible for administering the ''National Housing Act'', with the mandate to improve housing and living conditions in the country.McAfee, Ann. 2013 ...

in 1985.

Concept and design

Habitat 67 comprises 354 identical,

prefabricated Prefabrication is the practice of assembling components of a structure in a factory or other manufacturing site, and transporting complete assemblies or sub-assemblies to the construction site where the structure is to be located. Some research ...

concrete forms Formwork is Molding (process), molds into which concrete or similar materials are either precast concrete, precast or cast-in-place concrete, cast-in-place. In the context of concrete construction, the falsework supports the shuttering mold ...

() arranged in various combinations, divided into three pyramids, reaching up to 12 residential storeys, with a parking level, and a building services level. Together these units created 146 residences of varying sizes and configurations, each formed from one to eight linked concrete units. The complex originally contained 158 apartments, reduced from the original vision of 1,200, but several apartments have since been joined to create larger units, reducing the total number. Each unit is connected to at least one private landscaped garden terrace, built on the roof of the level below, which can range from approximately in size. The apartments each had a moulded plastic bathroom and a modular kitchen. The development was designed to integrate the benefits of suburban homes—namely gardens, fresh air, privacy, and multilevelled environments—with the economics and density of a modern urban

apartment building An apartment (American English, Canadian English), flat (British English, Indian English, South African English), tenement ( Scots English), or unit (Australian English) is a self-contained housing unit (a type of residential real estate) ...

. It was believed to illustrate the new lifestyle people would live in increasingly crowded cities around the world. Safdie's goal for the project to be affordable housing largely failed: demand for the building's units has made them more expensive than originally envisioned. In addition, the existing structure was originally meant to only be the first phase of a much larger complex, but the high per-unit cost of approximately $140,000 ($22,120,000 for all 158) prevented that possibility. The structural engineer for the project was August Eduard Komendant, an Estonian-American structural engineer and a pioneer in the field of prestressed concrete. The theme of Expo 67 was "Man and His World", taken from

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry Antoine Marie Jean-Baptiste Roger, vicomte de Saint-Exupéry (29 June 1900 – 31 July 1944), known simply as Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (, , ), was a French writer, poet, journalist and aviator. Born in Lyon to an French nobility, aristocratic ...

's memoir (literally, 'world of man', though it was published under the title ''Wind, Sand and Stars''). Housing was also one of the main themes of Expo 67. Habitat 67 then became a thematic pavilion visited by thousands of visitors who came from around the world, and during the expo also served as the temporary residence of the many dignitaries visiting Montreal. In March 2012, Habitat 67 won an online Lego Architecture poll and is a candidate to be added to the list of famous buildings that inspire a special replica

Lego Lego (, ; ; stylised as LEGO) is a line of plastic construction toys manufactured by the Lego Group, a privately held company based in Billund, Denmark. Lego consists of variously coloured interlocking plastic bricks made of acrylonitri ...

set. Lego bricks were actually used in the initial planning for Habitat; according to Safdie's firm, "initial models of the project were built using Lego bricks and subsequent iterations were also built with Lego bricks".

Access

Residents have private shuttle access to downtown Montreal, but access by foot is difficult. Guided tours are offered to the public. In 2023, the extension of the 777 Casino bus route of the began serving Habitat 67, providing the complex with public transport access for the first time.

Legacy

In 2017,

Canada Post Canada Post Corporation (, trading as Canada Post (), is a Canadian Crown corporation that functions as the primary postal operator in Canada. Originally known as Royal Mail Canada (the operating name of the Post Office Department of the Can ...

issued a commemorative stamp for the 50th anniversary of Expo 67 featuring the structure. In 2017, from June 1 through August 13, '' / The Shape of Things to Come'', an exhibition at Centre de Design, , presented "archival images and objects from the project's origins with conceptual drawings, and models, bringing them together with plans for unbuilt iterations". As a symbol of Expo 67, which was attended by over 50 million people during the six months it was open, Habitat 67 gained worldwide acclaim as a "fantastic experiment" and "architectural wonder". This experiment was and is regarded as both a success and failure—it "redefined urban living" and has since become "a very successful co-op", but at the same time ultimately failed to revolutionize affordable housing or launch a wave of prefabricated, modular development as Safdie had envisioned. Despite its problems, however, Habitat's fame and success "made afdie'sreputation" and helped launch his career; Safdie has now designed over 75 buildings and master plans around the world. Decades after Habitat, much of Safdie's work still holds to the concepts that were so fundamental to its design, especially the themes of reimagining high-density housing and improving social integration through architecture that have become "synonymous" with his work. However, ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

'' quoted ''

The Walrus ''The Walrus'' is an independent, nonprofit Canadian media organization. It is multi-platform and produces an eight-issue-per-year magazine and online editorial content that includes current affairs, fiction, poetry, and podcasts, a nation ...

'' assessment of it as a "failed dream". In 2023, Safdie Architects, in collaboration with

Epic Games Epic Games, Inc. is an American Video game developer, video game and software development, software developer and video game publisher, publisher based in Cary, North Carolina. The company was founded by Tim Sweeney (game developer), Tim Sween ...

, modeled the entirety of the original (much larger) vision in

Unreal Engine Unreal Engine (UE) is a 3D computer graphics game engine developed by Epic Games, first showcased in the 1998 first-person shooter video game '' Unreal''. Initially developed for PC first-person shooters, it has since been used in a variety of ...

In popular culture

The music video for Leonard Cohen's song " In My Secret Life" was filmed at Habitat 67, as were scenes of the 1977 film '' The Disappearance''. It appears on the covers of the 2003 album '' Velocity : Design : Comfort'' by American electronic/experimental rock act Sweet Trip and the 2012 album '' The North'' by Canadian indie pop band

Stars A star is a luminous spheroid of plasma held together by self-gravity. The nearest star to Earth is the Sun. Many other stars are visible to the naked eye at night; their immense distances from Earth make them appear as fixed points of ...

. It also appears on the album cover of Landslide's ''Drum & Bossa / Buddah'', his debut single from 1999 that was released on

Hospital Records Hospital Records is a British independent record label based in South London. Primarily releasing drum and bass, the label was started in 1996 by Tony Colman ( London Elektricity) and Chris Goss and has grown in recent years to become one of t ...

Panorama

References

External links

Habitat 67
Official website
Moshe Safdie and Associates
Official website
Habitat 67
- Quebec Cultural Heritage Directory,

Habitat 67
-

The Canadian Encyclopedia ''The Canadian Encyclopedia'' (TCE; ) is the national encyclopedia of Canada, published online by the Toronto-based historical organization Historica Canada, with financial support by the federal Department of Canadian Heritage and Society of Com ...

Historica Canada Historica Canada is a Canadian charitable organization dedicated to promoting the country's history and citizenship. All of its programs are offered bilingually and reach more than 28 million Canadians annually. A registered national charitabl ...

Habitat 67: 1967 and 2015-02-14

Habitat 67, Montreal
-

Getty Images Getty Images Holdings, Inc. (stylized as gettyimages) is a visual media company and supplier of stock images, editorial photography, video, and music for business and consumers, with a library of over 477 million assets. It targets three mark ...

Habitat 67
- Great Buildings .com
40+ Images of Habitat 67
-

Google Maps Google Maps is a web mapping platform and consumer application offered by Google. It offers satellite imagery, aerial photography, street maps, 360° interactive panorama, interactive panoramic views of streets (Google Street View, Street View ...

{{Montreal landmarks Brutalist architecture in Canada Buildings and structures in Montreal Expo 67 Heritage buildings of Quebec Moshe Safdie buildings Residential buildings completed in 1967 Residential condominiums in Canada Ville-Marie, Montreal Visionary environments World's fair architecture in Montreal