The Places We Love

Our University of the Streets Café public conversations are much like any you’d have with friends or family around a dinner table, except with more people, more points of view, and slightly more structure. Conversations are hosted by a volunteer moderator who is there to welcome everyone and keep things on track. To get things started, there’s a guest, or sometimes two, who get the ball rolling by sharing their ideas, experiences and questions. After that, it's all up to the participants.

Our built environments offer spaces in which to live, work, and through which we navigate our cityscape. They are also a testament to Montréal’s heritage and a rich history that characterizes different neighbourhoods as sites with enduring and changing vocations. In our appreciation of the urban environment, can we acknowledge a division between public and private spaces? This public conversation will consider our relationship to the architecture in public spaces. Whether it is through the design of the Montreal metro, or the planned future of contested sites such as the Empress and Snowdon Theatres, our city’s built environment lends itself to many a debate and polarized viewpoint with regards to preservation, policies, politics, accountability, construction and demolition. Are there any buildings or architectural projects in your area that you feel strongly about? To what extent should we go when it comes to maintaining or altering a public or historical building’s original vocation?

Guests:
Lisa Waite is passionate about the arts, architecture, design and built heritage. She obtained a bachelor’s in fine arts from the University of Manitoba and a certificate in translation from McGill University. She has worked as a freelance translator for 6 years. In her free time, she strives to be an engaged citizen, through attending public events and conversations, such as those organized by University of the Streets Café, and through her memberships with organizations, like Heritage Montreal.

Nancy Dunton has worked on architectural projects and organized public programs about architecture since 1981. Recent projects include curating the exhibition Imprimer la ville / Printing the City and teaching Reading the City: Montreal and its neighbourhoods at the McGill School of Architecture. With Helen Malkin, she is the co-author of A Guidebook to Contemporary Architecture in Montreal, Second Edition which was published in June 2016. Her volunteer activities include serving on the Board of Directors of Heritage Montreal.

Moderator:
Jimmy Ung has worked at the intersections of education, culture, politics, policy development and community engagement. He has held positions at the Canadian Commission for UNESCO, the Canadian Parliament, as well as with international charity Free The Children. Passionate about learning from people, Jimmy has also ridden a motorcycle across the Americas, conducting photo interviews with 150 individuals in the 18 countries he visited, for which he recently self-published a book titled "Americano".

Accessibility info: Cafe Les Oubliettes is located on the ground floor. A wooden ramp is set up in order to allow access past one step. The venue is spacious and there are private unisex washrooms which are not wheelchair accessible and are not equipped with grab bars.