Grey stone houses climb curving hillside streets down to the dark glass towers of Westmount Square, filmed for a documentary on Mies van der Rohe.
What Westmount looks like
Grey stone and red brick houses climb the hillside streets above Sherbrooke Street. Turrets, mansard roofs and bay windows repeat from one lot to the next. curves around the slope past mature gardens and stone mansions on generous lots. Below Sherbrooke the grid flattens into rows of attached brick houses.
The public library on Sherbrooke Street West was completed in 1899 in sandstone. It has a vaulted entrance, a gabled roof and a turreted tower. A glass and iron conservatory built by Lord and Burnham in 1927 stands beside it. City Hall, a few blocks east, was completed in 1922 with a central tower and crenelations styled after a Scottish castle.
A twenty six acre park runs from Sherbrooke Street to De Maisonneuve Boulevard, with a stream and a wooded ravine down its middle. Victoria Hall and the library sit at its northwest corner. Beside the park on De Maisonneuve, a stone Gothic Revival church has pointed arches and a bell tower. It was dedicated in 1930.
At the foot of the hill, rises where Wood Avenue meets De Maisonneuve. Its curtain wall towers stand directly behind the same stone and brick row houses that line the streets above. Ludwig Mies van der Rohe designed the complex in black anodized aluminum panels and smoked glass, modelled on his own Lake Shore Drive Apartments in Chicago.
Shot in Westmount
Regular or Super: Views on Mies van der Rohe is a 2004 documentary on the architect. The film turns its camera on Westmount Square, the modernist complex at the foot of the hill. Joseph Hillel and Patrick Demers co-directed it, one of eleven Mies van der Rohe buildings the film surveys worldwide.
Regular or Super: Views on Mies van der Rohe, 2004
Westmount Square
The 2004 documentary surveys eleven buildings by Mies van der Rohe worldwide. Westmount Square, completed in 1967, is one of them. The film's camera takes in the black anodized aluminum towers and the underground shopping concourse beneath them. Street View
Shaughnessy's curving streets and Tudor Revival mansions date from the 1900s to 1930s, laid out by the Canadian Pacific Railway on land landscaped by Frederick Todd. Large stone and half timbered houses sit behind mature gardens on streets that bend rather than run straight, the same era and scale as Westmount's own hillside blocks. Cedar shingle roofs and wood trim look more West Coast than Westmount's grey stone and slate, so a tight frame on the stonework holds the illusion better than a wide one. Try searching Tudor Revival mansion street now.
Rosedale's winding streets are laid out along the Don River ravines, a similar break from the city grid. Its Victorian, Georgian, Tudor and Edwardian mansions date from 1860 to 1930. The scale of stone and brick houses on generous lots matches Westmount's own hillside blocks closely. Rosedale's ravine backdrops and mature tree canopy are denser than Westmount's, so a shot that keeps the ravine out of frame reads more like Westmount's open hillside. Try searching winding ravine street mansions now.
Chestnut Hill's houses are built from Wissahickon schist quarried on the hill itself. They range from Tudor to Georgian to Queen Anne in style, put up from the 1880s through the 1920s at the same wealthy hillside scale as Westmount. Cobblestone side streets and stone garden walls give it a similar established look. The schist looks warmer and rougher than Westmount's grey stone. Chestnut Hill's streets are flatter too, so a close frame on a wall or facade holds the match better than a wide street level shot. Try searching Wissahickon schist stone houses now.
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