Homeschooling of the Future

Another fabulous video of the "future", 1960's-style...

The Stephen Leacock Building

Like Montreal itself, McGill University experienced a building boom in the 1960's. A dramatic climb in enrollment during this period meant that faculties and departments were outgrowing their spaces. Construction projects all over campus sought to fill this void, including a new building for the Faculty of Arts.

Leacock was strategically connected to the ancestral Arts building.

Built in 1965, the Leacock building was named after Stephen Leacock, a well-known Canadian humorist and author, and a McGill professor from 1901 to 1944. The exterior of the 10-storey structure was made of precast load-bearing concrete panels, each of which contained a sealed window. Concrete pillars helped support some of the projected portions of the structure, including a corridor that connected the tower to the old Arts building. The first floor circulation passageways were designed to be lit for the most part by natural daylight, which entered through glass walls on the east and south sides.

A student lounge area, complete with ashtrays.

A typical 60's Leacock office, left, and the glass walled corridor to Arts, right.

Inside, the first 3 floors were reserved for student and lecture areas. These lower floors were accessible from terraces located on the second and third floors, or the first floor street level entrance. This was intended to keep student traffic to a minimum.

Some 24 lecture halls ranged in capacity from 30 to 200, not including a 650-seat auditorium located on the first floor. The latter was designed with no windows (to provide fewer distractions), and its seats sloped in the same direction as the natural hillside.

The upper tower was reserved for 125 offices, accessible by elevator.

A mod council room in the Leacock building.

A little known fact is that the Stephen Leacock building was originally planned as two towers. Had this been the case, Morrice Hall, a beautiful Collegiate Gothic style structure built in 1871 (and still standing today) would have been demolished for the second tower...

Leacock and Morrice Hall (formerly The Presbyterian College of Montreal).

View from Doctor Penfield Avenue.

images: archives.mcgill.ca

Expo Inside Out!

Another magazine figures prominently in my Expo 67 collection. Acquired in 1997, Expo Inside Out! was my first ever Expo collectible.

Ironically, the item that inaugurated my collection was not in any way an official souvenir. Published by Omniscope Magazine of Westmount, Quebec, Expo Inside Out! was a 48-page unauthorized guide to "what to see" and "what to avoid", at Expo 67.

From the foreword:

"We have not attempted an encyclopedia of Expo. Nor have we collected hymns of praise for Man and his World. [...] Our guide is highly unauthorized [...] Our research was done without benefit of red-carpet V.I.P. treatment, and all opinions expressed here are either personal or objective. They are not Expo approved."

Using a 5-star rating system, every pavilion, many rides and shows, as well as some services were scrutinized by this publication. Every facet of touring Expo 67 was discussed, including restaurant and bar reviews, shopping guides, and touring Expo with children. Various pre-planned tours were proposed for those visiting with time constraints. Routines were suggested for rainy and/or overly crowded days.

The result offers a completely different view of Expo 67. Often funny, the scathing reviews are my favorites:

"Venezuela is the fastest pavilion at Expo
if you skip the film. Skip the film."
•
"Germany is a pavilion through which you
walk slowly, wondering what you're missing..."
•
"[La Spirale] spirals up. It spirals down.
What did you expect for a dollar?"

images: personal collection

The Supremes at Expo 67

Check out this ultra-rare shot of Diana Ross and the Supremes at Expo 67!

image source: facebook.com

400 Posts!

Yesterday's Puppini Sisters post marks the Expo Lounge's 400th!

Once again, thank you to all Expo Lounge readers, old and new!

The Puppini Sisters

No need to be an avid Expo Lounge reader to realize that retro is hot right now. And one of the most exciting musical groups to come out of this revival has to be the Puppini Sisters.

The Puppini Sisters was formed in 2004 by Marcella Puppini, Stephanie O’Brien and Kate Mullins, who met while studying at the Trinity College of Music in London. Practiced musicians, the girls have everything from piano to saxophone to harp on their combined résumés.

What sets this trio apart is their retro Andrews Sisters-esque look and sound. Dressed in full 1940's glamour, the Puppini Sisters cover such classics as Mr. Sandman and Jeepers Creepers, as well as 40's style reworkings of more contemporary music such as the Bangles' Walk Like an Egyptian and Beyoncé's Crazy in Love.

Their 2006 debut album, Betcha Bottom Dollar, broke records by becoming the fastest selling jazz debut in Britain, soaring into the top 20. Their recently released second album, The Rise and Fall of Ruby Woo, followed in the tongue-in-cheek footsteps of Betcha Bottom Dollar, but this time included original compositions by Puppini, O'Brien and Mullins.

Celebrity fans ranging from Prince Charles to Ozzy Osbourne, and glowing praise from the media, have contributed in establishing the Puppini Sisters as one of the most accomplished and original acts of the present day...

images: myspace.com

Montréal '64 to '68

In the years leading up to Expo 67, a prestigious monthly magazine about the city of Montreal was published. Featuring slick photography and bilingual articles, Montréal '64, '65, '66 and '67 sought to generate buzz surrounding the 1967 World Exhibition and its host city.

Produced and mailed to over 700,000 addresses throughout the world, Montréal magazine was the brain child of mayor Jean Drapeau. In his 1997 book La petite histoire d'Expo 67, ex-director of public relations Yves Jasmin recounts that a chunk of funding for the magazine was taken out of the already minuscule budget destined to promote and advertise Expo 67. The cost of the publication ran at 250,000$ per year at the time, with 150,000$ of it covered by the Expo corporation.

While mayor Drapeau would have liked Montréal magazine (and Expo itself, for that matter) to go on forever, the monthly glossy met its demise in late 1968. Though it had survived Expo's closing (and arguably, its initial raison d'être), sharp increases in postal rates forced Montreal '68 to cease publication after its October issue.

Montréal magazine remains a testament to the economic and cultural boom that the city experienced in the 1960's. Special year-by-year bound editions of Montréal '64 to '68 were created and I am fortunate enough to own them all. These precious documents serve me constantly as a source of information and photographs for Expo Lounge blog posts...

images: personal collection