I have been fortunate twice now to have a Mies van der Rohe building as the focal point of a daily work-trek. The first time was in Toronto when I would head towards the Toronto Dominion Centre to the Design Exchange. Now eight years later, having transplanted to Montréal, I leave my digs in St-Henri, hang a left at The Green Spot, and trudge up Greene toward the lofty Westmount Square that rises up before me. It's a less cocky building than the TD Centre, I find, but then again it's a less cocky job I'm heading to and I don't have to smell the smell of quite so much money as before... As you can tell by now, mine is a rather pedestrian (literally) lay-woman's relationship with Mies' edifices - which is why I like this downplayed photo of Westmount Square taken by some McGill architecture students and posted on their web study-site.

Sure, I can reel off some facts about this complex for you: it was built between 1965 and 1968 (with Greenspoon, Freedlander, Dunne, Plachta & Kryton) as part of what is called Mies' "fourth phase" when his office was expanding and taking on more and more projects that allowed him to explore the "spatial issues arising in his work on urban schemes." Westmount Square's facade of black metal and tinted glass is often said to be modelled on the Lake Shore Drive Apartments in Chicago, but this project is especially loved for its "elegant ensemble of office and residential structures" that introduced a new kind of multi-functionality that included, in this case, a link to Montréal's metro system.

But most of you probably know all that already.

Instead, what I am more interested in is the way I see Westmount Square differently every time. Every day it seems like a new building to me. Is it the way the light is hitting it? The degree of cloud reflection in its windows? The mood I'm in? The way that woman sashayed out the door just now? The elegance of the building's understatedness in contrast to the ostentatious displays so often theatricalised at its feet?

Architecture is hard to write about in an emotional way. It either sounds like Gourmet magazine (see yesterday's posting), some wretched marketing brochure, or a sorry attempt to revive situationist reveries only without the politics. So maybe I'll just keep walking up the hill musing to myself for awhile. By the time I figure it out I'll probably have another job anyway.