The city of Montreal is a palimpsest, a series of surfaces upon which various actors, communities and organizations have left their trace in the form of the built environment. What is the nature of the relationship between a city, its memories and communities, and its ongoing transformation? In the context of a graduate seminar in the
Department of Art History, Concordia University, and several public conferences, students in architectural history have chosen distinct sites in Montreal to explore these questions. Using site visits, archival resources and visual culture, contributors to Montreal as Palimpsest explored their chosen sites as cultural landscapes, reading
them for their investment in specific pasts, and revealing the traces of their polyphonic histories. The essays that are found on this site, written over a period of three years, are intended to be public, scholarly resources, available to anyone who wishes to learn more about Montreal's architectural and urban histories.
Dr. Cynthia Hammond [cynthia.hammond@concordia.ca]
Department of Art History,
Concordia University
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