Tracing Democratic Space of a Public Square: The Case of Square Victoria in Montreal

The question of design for democratic space may be formulated through the lens of effect on subjectivity. Under that lens, the paper borrows Norberg-Schulz’s spatial notion of domain to denote the spatial openness of place for gathering things within it, revealing and making their presence tangible through its spatiality. Thus, it follows that good design of a democratic space is a synthesis of form and image in its embodiment of difference and multiplicity. A democratic space is an architectural image of the city as a whole, an image that reflects the psyche as a spatial mode of being. To advance our understanding of the socio-political dimension of space and to take an initial step toward the design of democratic space, the paper revisits the tracing of the morphological development of a public square in downtown Montreal, Square Victoria, as a leitmotif of urban change since its inception in 1810 as a hay market and subsequent effect on subjectivity that its successive redesign promoted.

Iñaki Abalos

Professor in Residence, Department of Architecture, GSD, Harvard University, Cambridge MA, USA

Orazio Carpenzano

Dean, Facoltà di Architettura, Sapienza Università di Roma, Rome

Yung Ho Chang

Professor of Architecture, College of Architecture and Urban Planning, Tongji University, Shanghai, China

Winka Dubbeldam

Founder of Archi-Tectonics, Miller Professor and Chair of Architecture at Stuart Weitzman School of Design

Brian Ford

Professor Emeritus, Department of Architecture & Built Environment, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK

Hsinming Fung

Professor, SCI-Arc, Los Angeles CA, USA

Carlo Gasparrini

Professor of Urbanism, Dipartimento di Architettura, Universita' degli Studi di Napoli Federico II, Naples, Italy

Rahul Mehrotra

Professor of Urban Design and Planning, GSD, Harvard University, Cambridge MA, USA

Antoine Picon

Professor of the History of Architecture and Technology, GSD, Harvard University, Cambridge MA, USA

Mónica Ponce de León

Dean, School of Architecture, Princeton University, Princeton NJ, USA

Jane Rendell

Professor, The Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London, London, UK

Peter Rich

Professor of Architecture, Witwatersrand University, Johannesburg, South Africa

Michael Speaks

Dean, School of Architecture, Syracuse University, Syracuse NY, USA

Martha Thorne

Hon FRIBA, Hon COAM, Senior Advisor for The OBEL Award

C David Tseng

Dean, College of Humanities and Social Sciences, National Chiao-Tung University, Taipei, Taiwan

Sarah Whiting

Dean, Graduate School of Design, Harvard University, Cambridge MA, USA

Li Xiangning

Deputy Dean, College of Architecture and Urban Planning, Tongji University, Shanghai, China

Tracing Democratic Space of a Public Square: The Case of Square Victoria in Montreal

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