Rechercher dans la communauté

via Architectural Digest : True North With its magnetic mix of rugged individualism and European flair, Montreal exudes an irresistible French-Canadian joie de vivre Text by Mitchell Owens Tourists and travel guides often tout Montreal asa North American version of Paris. Pas vrai. Though the two cities’ abundant historic façades are predominantly limestone, Montreal’s are ash-gray, a rough-hewn contrast to Paris’s soufflé-gold luminosity. As for their all-important food scenes, Montreal’s muscular, hearty cuisine offers a robust counterpoint to the French capital’s refined traditions. And while the Québécois vernacular may have a sharper twang than what is spoken in France today, it’s actually more closely connected to French’s roots. Melissa Auf der Maur, the Montreal-born former guitarist for Hole and Smashing Pumpkins, once dismissed the provincial tongue as “hillbilly French”—only to have her mother, literary translator Linda Gaboriau, defend it as “the original French, the French of the kings.” In an increasingly globalized world, Montreal venerates its deep-seated local culture. French colonists settled Quebec in the early 1600s, and their descendants have never forgotten that intrepid foray, hence the province’s enduring separatist movement and its motto, Je me souviens—“I remember,” rendered pointedly en français. As Los Angeles–based AD100 architect Richard Landry, a University of Montreal alumnus, explains, “When you see those words on every license plate, it’s hard not to think about the patrimoine all the time.” Indeed, this city of 1.7 million, set on an island at the confluence of the St. Lawrence and Ottawa rivers, is infused with a pioneer spirit and an unpretentious pride in the homegrown. Cuisine is integral to this rich heritage—and a major reason Montreal remains a compelling destination long after summer’s festivals (most famously the International Jazz Festival) and carnivals have ended. “Montrealers reportedly spend more of their disposable income on eating out than on anything else,” says Andrew Torriani, the CEO and co-owner of the Ritz-Carlton Montréal hotel, a 1912 Beaux Arts landmark graced by the impeccable Maison Boulud restaurant, where executive chef Riccardo Bertolino plates suave international fare. The city is well-known for poutine, a tangle of frîtes topped with cheese curds and gravy. Auf der Maur swears by the version at Patati Patata (514-844-0216), a microscopic café close to Mount Royal Park, a 494-acre oasis designed by Frederick Law Olmsted. Diners craving more sophisticated menus can head to chef Normand Laprise’s hushed Toqué!, opposite the glittering business district’s colorful Palais des Congrès convention center and around the corner from the sleek W Montréal hotel. Chef-owners Hubert Marsolais and Claude Pelletier’s surf-and-turf mecca, Le Club Chasse et Pêche, on the other hand, is set amid the colonial gray-stone buildings of Old Montreal. Marsolais and Pelletier also collaborate with chef Michele Mercuri on the Italian-inflected brasserie Le Serpent, at the Ville-Marie arrondissement’s visual-arts center Fonderie Darling. Last year in the working-class Little Burgundy section—not far from the Old Port, where warehouses have been turned into cafés and inns, like the lofty Auberge du Vieux-Port hotel—chef-restaurateurs David McMillan and Frédéric Morin opened Le Vin Papillon, a charming wine bar. The new boîte is on the same block as the celebrated pair’s Liverpool House, a bistro with antler-bedecked walls, and Joe Beef, a tchotchke-filled gastropub that was recently ranked as Canada’s top restaurant, thanks to its lively confections like parfait of foie gras with Madeira jelly. Other daring chefs invigorating the city’s scene include François Nadon of the Latin Quarter’s Bouillon Bilk and Guillaume Cantin at Old Montreal’s Les 400 Coups. The city has a riveting collection of locally designed architecture as well. Starting with Moshe Safdie and his 1967 Habitat housing complex, a number of Canadian and Québécois talents have produced notable contemporary projects, including those in the Quartier des Spectacles, a network of performance halls, restaurants, galleries, fountains, and squares in the Latin Quarter. One of the district’s stars is the Grande Bibliothèque, a joint venture between Croft-Pelletier Architectes and Gilles Guité, both of Quebec City, and Vancouver’s Patkau Architects. The green-glass behemoth, containing multistory rooms walled with yellow-birch louvers, was hailed as “simple but wonderful” by Phyllis Lambert, Montreal’s architecture doyenne. The same could be said of Lambert’s own Canadian Centre for Architecture, which occupies an elegant 1989 building attached to a historic mansion in the Shaughnessy Village neighborhood. (The city does have a few outsider icons, namely Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s 1967 Westmount Square mixed-used complex, I. M. Pei’s 1962 Place Ville Marie skyscraper, and Roger Taillibert’s futuristic Olympic Stadium, a 1976 structure Landry calls “a very, very cool white elephant.”) Québécois art offers major-league delights, too. The works of powerhouse midcentury geometric painters Claude Tousignant and Guido Molinari are highlighted at the multivenue Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. And things are only looking up for current local talents, according to Lesley Johnstone, a curator at the Musée d’Art Contemporain de Montréal, which hosts the Montreal Biennial from October 22, 2014, to January 4, 2015. “Today the wealthy younger crowd whose families supported hospitals and the symphony are focusing on Canadian artists,” she observes. Among this new generation are Anne-Marie and Pierre Trahan, the maestros behind the two-year-old Arsenal Montréal, a contemporary art complex housed in a former shipyard in the Griffintown neighborhood. The 83,000-square-foot space is also home to the couple’s Division Gallery, which focuses on domestic talents such as multidisciplinary artists Nicolas Baier and Bonnie Baxter. After taking in Arsenal’s exhibitions, one can visit another Griffin-town magnet, a stretch of rue Notre-Dame Ouest known as Antiques Alley, where cafés alternate with treasure troves like Milord Antiquités and Antiquités L’Ecuyer (514-932-8461). Stylish Montrealers also dress Canadian, heading to Boutique Unicorn and Philippe Dubuc for fashions by their compatriots, while apparel star Marie Saint Pierre operates an eponymous flagship in downtown’s Golden Square Mile area. Boho-chic women—including Sharon Johnston, the wife of Canada’s governor general—step out in fascinatingly funky jewelry that designer Charlotte Hosten makes in her tiny appointment-only Mile End atelier. And at nearby Clark Street Mercantile, the brands primarily come from far beyond the province but share an earthy authenticity that feels absolutely Canadian. It’s a quality worth keeping in mind when exploring a city where roots and remembrance are everything. See more of Montreal's can't-miss destinations.

36 Hours in Montreal. CANADA’S second-largest city may be the second-largest French-speaking metropolis on the planet (after Paris), but the attention lavished on its Frenchness — Bistros! Baguettes! People saying “Bonjour”! — tends to nudge aside the many other ethnic communities within Montreal’s remarkably diverse urban sprawl. Italians, Portuguese and Lebanese have a very visible presence, and the city hosts annual festivals dedicated to everything from Asian-American films to Caribbean food. Throw in a pulsing alternative community and creative scene (this is a place that engendered talents as diverse as Saul Bellow, Arcade Fire and the irrepressible William Shatner), and a whole new Montreal opens up. Whether your passion is Syrian cuisine, contemporary art or vintage shopping, Montreal is serving it up with aplomb. C’est vrai... http://travel.nytimes.com/2012/06/17/travel/36-hours-in-montreal.html

Montréal courtise 15 000 spécialistes internationaux 4 juin 2008 - 06h58 La Presse Laurier Cloutier Dans la course mondiale aux talents, Montréal doit faire des gains pour soutenir sa croissance dans les secteurs de pointe. Cliquez pour en savoir plus : Macro-économie | Investissements | ANDRÉ GAMACHE | Montréal International Outre les investissements étrangers, le président-directeur général de Montréal International, André Gamache, ajoute donc le démarchage auprès de travailleurs qualifiés intéressés à s'établir dans un autre pays. Il courtise notamment 15 000 d'entre eux qui occupent déjà des postes importants à Montréal, mais sur une base temporaire. Un plus grand nombre de spécialistes internationaux devraient par ailleurs voir Montréal comme «un lieu de passage de choix», un tremplin dans leur carrière, explique André Gamache à La Presse Affaires, après un discours devant les Manufacturiers et exportateurs du Québec. Montréal n'est-elle pas une des grandes capitales mondiales de l'aéronautique, des technologies et des sciences de la vie grâce aux Bombardier, CGI, Ubisoft et aux pharmaceutiques? André Gamache veut démontrer que «c'est à Montréal que ça passe» autant qu'à Seattle, Toulouse, la Californie ou Boston. «Dans les jeux vidéo, Montréal est devenue la référence mondiale», assure-t-il. Une fois installés à Montréal, plusieurs de ces travailleurs qualifiés pourraient prolonger leur séjour et attirer de la sorte d'autres talents, explique André Gamache. Parmi les spécialistes internationaux que les secteurs de pointe de Montréal attirent, il y a toujours, bon an, mal an, 15 000 immigrants temporaires avec des permis de séjour de trois ans. André Gamache déplore que «seulement de 1000 à 2000 de ces travailleurs de passage restent à Montréal», même s'ils occupent des postes de choix, parlent français et ont leur famille ici. Cette main-d'oeuvre quitte souvent Montréal à cause de la bureaucratie avec laquelle on doit composer pour obtenir la citoyenneté canadienne. André Gamache «travaille déjà avec le gouvernement pour simplifier tout ça». «Dans l'aérospatiale et les technologies de l'information et des communications, il y a pénurie de main-d'oeuvre spécialisée. Cet enjeu du personnel qualifié est généralisé dans les pays développés et commence même à affecter les autres, dont la Chine. C'est la course internationale aux talents», dit-il. «La croissance fulgurante de plusieurs pays d'Asie leur fait découvrir que leur système d'éducation ne parvient pas à former la main-d'oeuvre au rythme des besoins croissants. Montréal par contre, une région de haut savoir de calibre mondial, possède un avantage considérable», souligne André Gamache. «Le monde est à un tournant, des occasions se dessinent, mais Montréal ne court pas encore assez vite, ajoute-t-il. Au final, ce sont les pôles les plus performants qui attirent les meilleurs talents et les investissements. Montréal compte 70 organisations internationales, dont l'OACI (Organisation de l'aviation civile internationale) et 1250 filiales de sociétés étrangères. En sept ans, Montréal International a contribué à attirer 6,3 milliards d'investissements étrangers qui ont créé 31 500 emplois.» À court terme, Montréal International doit pourtant défendre son rôle, car Ottawa veut sabrer 22% de son budget de 8 millions. Jean-Pierre Blackburn, ministre fédéral responsable de Développement économique Canada au Québec, ne veut plus financer que des projets précis, mais André Gamache garde quand même espoir d'arriver à un accord avec lui. http://lapresseaffaires.cyberpresse.ca/article/20080604/LAINFORMER/806040807/5891/LAINFORMER01