Place Ville-Marie

Place Ville-Marie or 1, Place Ville-Marie is a cruciform office tower built in the International style in 1962 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is 188m (617ft) in height with 45 stories. Along with an underground shopping mall, it forms the nexus of Montreal's underground city, one of the world's largest, with indoor access to over 1,600 shops, restaurants, offices, and businesses, as well as many of Montreal's metro stations, transportation termini, and tunnels extending all over downtown. Place Ville-Marie by architect I.M. Pei, in Montreal, Canada Photo by Montrealais. ... Place Ville-Marie by architect I.M. Pei, in Montreal, Canada Photo by Montrealais. ... Cruciform means having the shape of a cross. ... The Weissenhof Estate in Stuttgart, Germany (1927) The Weissenhof Estate in Stuttgart, Germany (1930) International style, also known as the Modern movement, is a primarily American offshoot of Bauhaus architecture that was exported to various parts of the world. ... 1962 was a common year starting on Monday (link will take you to calendar). ... This article needs cleanup. ... The Mall, an out-of-town shopping centre at Patchway, near Bristol, England. ... Montreals underground city (French: La ville souterraine) is the well-known underground city complex in downtown Montreal, Quebec, Canada. ... This is a list of the metro stations on the four lines of the Montreal Metro, in Quebec, Canada. ...

The name "Place Ville-Marie" is often used to refer to the cruciform building only but it also applies to three shorter office buildings which were built around it in 1963 and 1964, and to the urban plaza which lies on top of the largest section of the shopping promenade, and between the buildings. From a postal point of view the cruciform tower is "1, Place Ville-Marie" and the lesser buildings around it are "2, Place Ville-Marie" and so on. The buildings and the plaza have been given many facelifts over the years. In the latest much of the grey concrete and terrazzo of the plaza was covered with grass, flowers and shrubs. The complex has 2.7 million square feet (250,000 m²) of space and parking for about 900 cars. There are about 70 tenants with 3,000 employees. 1963 was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will take you to calendar). ... 1964 was a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will take you to calendar). ...

The location of Place Ville-Marie was originally a deep hole gouged in the flanks of Mount Royal by the need to give a Northern extension to the tracks of Montreal's central station of the Canadian National Railway. Most of the building was thus built over the tracks, requiring the structure to be more resistant to vibrations than normally required. As a result, it is the most earthquake-resistant office tower in Montreal. Alternate uses: Mount Royal (disambiguation) Mount Royal (French: mont Royal) is a mountain on the Island of Montreal, immediately north of downtown Montréal, Québec, Canada, the city to which it gave its name. ... Missing image Canadian National Railways logo or herald (used pre-1960) Missing image Network Map of Canadian National Railway The Canadian National Railway (CN; AAR reporting marks CN, CNA, CNIS), known as Canadian National Railways (CNR) between 1918 and 1960, and Canadian National/Canadien National (CN) from 1960 to present...

Place Ville-Marie was one of the first designs of Henry N. Cobb and I. M. Pei, who was later to become a famous master of Modernist Architecture. His design was controversial from the start given its proximity to many Montreal landmarks and the vast changes it would bring to the downtown core. Henry N. Cobb (born 1926 in Boston, Massachusetts) is an American architect and founding partner in Pei Cobb Freed & Partners, an international architectural firm based in New York City. ... Ieoh Ming Pei (Chinese: 貝聿銘; pinyin: ) is a Chinese American architect born in Canton, (now Guangzhou), China on April 26, 1917. ... This article focuses on the cultural movement labeled modernism or the modern movement. See also: Modernism (Roman Catholicism) or Modernist Christianity; Modernismo for specific art movement(s) in Spain and Catalonia. ... Architecture (in Greek αρχή = first and τέχνη = craftsmanship) is the art and science of designing buildings and structures. ...

Conceived and built at a time when Montreal was the economic hub of Canada, the structure's largest occupant and anchor tenant was the Head Office of the Royal Bank of Canada, the country's largest bank. However, the Quebec sovereignty movement, the terrorism resulting in the October Crisis and the 1976 election of the separatist Parti Québécois as the Province's government brought a great deal of political uncertainty to the Montreal business world. When the Parti Québécois legislated the Charter of the French Language it made it impossible for the Royal Bank to maintain Head Office functions in Quebec. As a result, the bank began phasing out its many Head Office departments and transferred them to Toronto, Ontario. Over the ensuing years the bank built the Royal Bank Plaza in Toronto and eventually changed its official head office address to that city to reflect the reality. Today, all that remains of the bank in Place Ville-Marie is a small regional Business Banking Centre. The Royal Bank of Canada (TSX: RY) (NYSE: RY) is Canadas largest chartered bank. ... The Quebec sovereignty movement, also commonly referred to as the Quebec separatist movement and the Quebec Independence movement, is a political movement for the attainment of independence for the Province of Quebec from the nation of Canada. ... The term terrorism is controversial and has many definitions, none of which are universally accepted. ... The October Crisis was a series of dramatic events triggered by two terrorist kidnappings that occurred in Quebec, Canada, during the month of October, 1970. ... The Parti Québécois or PQ is a political party that advocates national sovereignty for Quebec from Canada. ... The Charter of the French Language (also known as Bill 101 and Loi 101) is a framework law in the province of Quebec, Canada, defining the linguistic rights of all Quebecers and making French, the language of the majority, the sole official language of Quebec. ... Motto: Diversity Our Strength Map of Ontario Counties, Toronto being red Area: 641 sq. ... Categories: Buildings and structures stubs | Skyscrapers | Toronto buildings | Canadian skyscrapers ...

In addition to being the only cruciform building in the core of the city, Place Ville-Marie stands out even more at night because of the rotating beacon on its roof. Its four spotlights are visible at more than 50 kilometres. The building's penthouse contains the Altitude 737 restaurant and nightclub (named for its elevation in feet from sea level) and opens onto a rooftop terrasse. In architecture, a penthouse is a building on the roof of another building, or alternatively, an apartment on the top floor of a building. ...

The complex is currently owned by the SITQ, a division of the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDP Capital), who bought the building in March 2000 for CDN$450 million.

See also

• List of Montreal's 10 tallest skyscrapers
• List of malls in Montreal

This is a list of the tallest skyscrapers in the city of Montreal, Quebec, Canada as of April 2005: 1000 de la Gauchetière : 205m/673ft, 51 stories - 1992 1250 René-Lévesque : 199m/653ft, 47 stories - 1992 Tour de la Bourse : 190m/623ft, 47 stories - 1964 Place Ville-Marie... The following is a list of malls in Montreal. ...

External links

• Official website
• SITQ datasheet
• Emporis datasheet
• SkyscraperPage datasheet