Habitat '67, designed by Moshe Safdie  and built as part of Expo, the World's Fair hosted by Montreal in 1967, has become an internationally recognized example of experimental housing whose place in the history of twentieth-century architecture is assured. Will Habitat '67 maintain its hegemony as a building for the new millennium? This premise is explored through a comprehensive analysis of the continuing viability of high-density, urban cluster housing as documented by structural, spatial and climatic changes. Given the exceptional richness and scope of material for Habitat '67 in the Safdie Archive, this multi-media website is an ideal conceptual and pedagogical model for the study of a contemporary Canadian architect.

Site Content

The Habitat website includes comprehensive sketches, plans, elevations, sections, working drawings, structural details, and photographs of models. Digital panoramic views are included which capture the structure in successive seasons. The three-dimensional modelling of Habitat '67 is rendered in terms of architectural details, component layering and topography. Images from the initial phases of the project and its construction are included, as are interviews and case studies featuring first- and second-generation Habitat residents.

Canadian Architecture Collection

Through this highly accessible technological format, the Canadian Architecture Collection (CAC) hopes to encourage a wide audience to think differently about the built environment that surrounds them. The CAC is a university-based archive, exhibition and teaching facility serving practicing architects, art and architectural historians, museum curators, conservation groups, students and researchers. In addition to supporting the teaching and research requirements of the McGill School of Architecture and Urban Planning, the CAC assists other departments within McGill as well as the community at large. Habitat '67 has been used repeatedly in textbooks for secondary school students in Quebec and Ontario.