We propose a rich and colorful inaugural evening, in a mythical place: Dawson Hall, behind St James United Church (1887-1889, Alexander Francis Dunlop, arch.), known as the "Montreal Methodist Cathedral" - with 2000 seats, it was the largest Methodist church in Canada when it was built. Designated a National Historic Site of Canada in 1996, it escaped demolition in 1980 when it was classified as a historic monument, and then escaped extinction thanks to an ambitious restoration project, in...

In recognition of the fact that Canadian practitioners, scholars, and students of architecture think, work, and act globally, this session invites submissions that are geographically unconstrained. The session welcomes case studies or analyses that illuminate how the transnational flow of ideas, people, and capital has changed the global built environment, including the multi-directional nature of exchanges between the so- called developing and...

Over the past twenty or so years, the architecture of churches in Quebec and across Canada has triggered new and increasingly pressing questions: how should we approach their conservation, use, or meaning in a context where religious practice is in sharp decline, where the economic situation of parishes is prompting hasty decisions, and where radical versions of secularism are being imposed in the public space? These new questions call for different ways of thinking about the historic valu...

Architectural history and heritage have historically been defined by superlatives. Vernacular traditions and local histories, on the other hand, have often been pushed to the margins or overlooked. These everyday spaces and places are often relegated to the quotidian, and perceived as unworthy of recognition.  The COVID-19 pandemic, however, has changed our daily lives, and in many cases, our values. Now, we have been forced to see the everyday in a new light. What might this n...

Walking tour of the working-class housing and churches of Saint-Pierre-Apôtre and Sainte-Brigide-de-Kildare (now the Sainte-Brigide Cultural and Community Centre) in the south-central district of Montreal.The tour will be guided by Luc Noppen.A departure (by foot) will be organized from the conference site; the tour itself will begin at 5:00 pm at the Beaudry metro station (a metro station of Berri-UQAM, site of the conference).

This communication will reflect on how architecture articulates a world that is both energetic and informational. To use the senses as an analytical tool is to consider the sensorium as a reliable intermediary for sorting the noisiness of embodied experience. That something in this noise merits mention can be understood as a foundational point for information to become knowledge, to be immortalized and passed on. The intentionality with which one looks at the world is, of course, personal,...