The Fountainhead.

This morning, after completing a top-secret mission, I finally realised my dream of going to the Canadian Centre for Architecture. I'd been wanting to go for a while, and attempted to go on Monday, only to find that they don't open on Mondays or Tuesdays. It was a short visit, but a fascinating one. It's always free for students, but at the moment it's free for everyone because they're in-between exhibitions and so there's only one exhibition on, plus a few pieces from the usual collection. From the outside, it looked to me like something Howard Roark might approve of {get that reference and you'll be my friend forever}, although I'm sure he'd find a way of letting in light as to render the glass pyramids on the roof superfluous:

Inside I meandered around a really fascinating exhibition on the composer/architect Iannis Xenakis whose scope of interest, achievement and intellect is truly breathtaking.
In addition to that exhibition, one of the designs I liked the most from the permanent collection was by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, for a small city's museum. The way it was designed not only allowed for the environment and landscape to be seen from the interior, but even from the exterior its construction would mean you could essentially see through it. Cool.

The CCA also has a fantastic shop with hundreds of books on and around architecture and design, any of which I would have bought and read with interest had I only known where to start.

I think next I might supplement my Arts Plastiques de 1940 a 1968 course with a trip to Montreal's modern art museum. The fact I haven't yet been is probably unforgivable as it's on the next block from my home, but hey, I'm not a tourist. All in my own time.
xx