Railway stations, bus depots and airport hangers are clover for admirers of supersheds! The need for massive spans bring the need for close collaboration, even harmonic relations, between architect and structural engineer. The transport shed can also lead to some pretty good architecture. Who, that has visited it, can forget Stockwell bus depot in London? When it was constructed in1952 it was the largest single-span concrete structure ever built! Its cathedral-like proportions and elegance astounds today.
So this transport centre in Montreal designed by
Lemay Associés for the Montreal Transit Society is part of a noble tradition and must answer some particularly demanding questions. It has been designed to house 300 vehicles and is colossal in scale but it also sets different design priorities to earlier transport sheds.
Whereas supersheds past were about the harmony of structure and architecture, it would appear that architecture and sustainability – are the tensions that must now be resolved by shed builders. This one, develops the concept of 'weaving' both as a metaphor for its environmental integration with the surrounding countryside, and as a way to explain or justify the physical roof form.
A good friend is fond of reminding me that Corbusier considered architects to be peevish, selfish even, and somewhat preoccupied with trivial detail. By contrast he thought structural engineers to be virile and manly in their approach to architecture. I have never felt qualified to offer my own view on Corbusier's position, but I feel that this is the right moment to solicit my friend's opinions on this shed, and whether or not it challenges Corbusier's opinions of those professions.
Christopher C. Hill
