I've always hated brutalism, but a few brutalist buildings in Montreal have always caught my eye beyond the obvious Habitat 67 and Montreal Metro. This is Le Rigaud and I don't know why, but I find it stunning. This is probably because I was a Blade Runner fanboy as a kid. Second pic is basically what I think about every time I see it. Am I crazy?
Montreal has a ton of brutalist architecture which has been preserved, unlike other major North American cities where it was torn down. Some still look like absolute garbage like the McGill library, Complexe Desjardins (sorry), while some I used to hate but now I love like Place Bonaventure. Since they added the neon outline around the building, it basically looks straight out of Tron and amazing. Palais des congrès used to look like a massive hostile bunker until it was extensively de-brutalized only 15 years later. Looks much better IMO.
But Le Rigaud looks amazing the way it is. Brutalism is actually all about equality, honesty, authenticity, anti-bourgeois, anti-superficial, social democracy. Didn't matter as it aged poorly and looked ultra dystopian. But I think Le Rigaud, Bonaventure, are sort of circling back to those original themes. I don't know. Should we save these or tear them down?