1966: Galactic Metropolis
In the mid-1960s, the city of Montreal carried out a series of studies that considered a variety of possibilities for the city’s form following models of other cities around the world: star-shaped, dispersed, linear, concentrated, galactic, and ring. The plans below present some of the options.
Planners ultimately chose a hybrid of these types, with a concentrated centre and a four-pointed star extending toward the periphery. As of 2011, the city had 1,649,519 residents, with 3,407,963 in its greater urban area.
City Planning Department, City of Montreal. Star-shaped metropolis (hypothetical plan for the Montreal region with a population of ten million inhabitants), plan no. 20 in Étude de la forme : Région de Montréal, no. 2 (Montréal : Service d’urbanisme, 1964–1966). HT395.C23 M64 1964
City Planning Department, City of Montreal. Galactic metropolis (hypothetical plan for the Montreal region with a population of ten million inhabitants), plan no. 22 in Étude de la forme : Région de Montréal, no. 2 (Montréal : Service d’urbanisme, 1964–1966). HT395.C23 M64 1964
City Planning Department, City of Montreal. Concentrated metropolis (hypothetical plan for the Montreal region with a population of ten million inhabitants), plan no. 24 in Étude de la forme : Région de Montréal, no. 2 (Montréal : Service d’urbanisme, 1964–1966). HT395.C23 M64 1964
City Planning Department, City of Montreal. “Noyautage II” (night view of hypothetical plan for the Montreal region with a population of ten million inhabitants), plan no. 28 in Étude de la forme : Région de Montréal, no. 2 (Montréal : Service d’urbanisme, 1964–1966). HT395.C23 M64 1964
Several of these plans appear in our 2004 publication The 60s: Montreal Thinks Big, which accompanied an exhibition of the same name.
