Glasgow-based artist Rob Kennedy pays a visit to Mies van der Rohe’s gas station on Nun’s Island in Montréal: “I was expecting dark steel, shining glass and a fluorescent buzz, windows crammed with the updated trappings of consumerism. Not quite. Neatly sheathed in Brazilian plywood surrounded by trim suburban lawns and nervous chainlink security it has the air of a mislaid IKEA flatpack rather than a grand monument to the automobile.”

Rob Kennedy is visiting Montréal as part of a CALQ (Conseil des arts et des letters du Québec) artist residency program at PRIM Media Arts Centre in the summer of 2009. His works include various sculptures, videos, and exhibition designs for The Lighthouse, Scotland’s Centre for Architecture, Design and the City.

The gas station, designed by Mies in 1968, closed in December 2008. For additional information on the building, visit www.docomomoquebec.uqam.ca or www.heritagemontreal.org.

Directions to 201 Berlioz Street, Nun’s Island
By car: Take highway QC-15/QC-20 (exit 57) or Autoroute Bonaventure (exit 5) to Nun’s Island (Île des Soeurs). Follow Île-des-Soeurs Boulevard to Berlioz Street.
By public transit: From LaSalle metro station (green line), take bus #12 to the intersection of Île-des-Soeurs Boulevard and Berlioz Street.
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