ARTIFICIAL LANDSCAPES OF THE SAINT-LAWRENCE RIVER

This private house project based its conceptual narrative on a critical analysis of its surrounding. This narrative calls for a broader approach to architecture as an unstable figure between landscape and art.

The Canadian landscape has a paradoxical quality: it can be as pristine and preserved as it can be harsh and remodelled by mankind. This house reveals a critical viewpoint on a broader landscape surrounding its location, that has been manipulated and transformed by the construction of large infrastructures.

The area of the city of Cornwall in Ontario has been dramatically modified in the mid XXth Century with the construction of the great St Lawrence Seaway, which would open up the river to commercial navigation and allow new power dams to be implemented. This operation caused the relocation of 6500 residents of six villages and three hamlets close to the city of Cornwall and completely reconfigured the shoreline of this portion of the St Lawrence river.