East of '67

It's been 40 years since two of my favorite architects were showcased at Expo '67 in Montreal: The aging maverick designer, Buckminster Fuller, with his geodesic US Pavilion, the skeleton of which now houses the Biosphère Museum, and a young graduate student, Moshe Safdie, with his work-in-progress Habitat '67, a model for affordable housing which went drastically over budget and is now a pricey condominium co-op.

I guess that's the beauty of architecture, we forget that it not only exists in three-dimensions, but also exists in the fourth dimension, time. Too often us architects think we have concrete answers, when all around us the problems are constantly changing.

Aside from their intended socio-political statements, these buildings celebrate (with their metal triangles and concrete boxes) the machine age of architecture at its peak before we became ashamed of simple structure. Since then architects have tried to return to the Beaux Arts model of hiding under useless fenestration, or conversely engaged in a pissing contest of "unique" soaring forms which serve no function.

In another unintended consequence of ruthless functionalism, Montreal now has a full-fledged surf shop complete with custom boards designed for freshwater river surfing. A thriving surf community has grown up around the standing waves created by the channeling of the St. Lawrence River including the Habitat Wave named after the adjacent structure.