Habitat 67

No this is not from the set of Blade Runner it’s Habitat 67 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Designed by Israeli/Canadian architect Moshe Safdie in 1976 for the pavilion for Expo 67, the World’s Fair (in which one of its main themes was ‘Housing’), it is a great example of Brutalist architecture. Originally containing 158 apartments this has now been reduced to 146 with some been joined to create bigger units.

“The development was designed to integrate the benefits of suburban homes —namely gardens, fresh air, privacy, and multilevelled environments—with the economics and density of a modern urban apartment building. It was believed to illustrate the new lifestyle people would live in increasingly crowded cities around the world” (Wiki)

Habitat 67 gained worldwide acclaim as a “fantastic experiment” an “architectural wonder” and “redefined urban living”. Your probably thinking it has a Lego feel to it, well you’ll be right according to Safdie’s firm Lego bricks were actually used in the initial planning and models for Habitat and subsequent iterations. And in 2012 it won an online Lego Architecture poll which may see it one day be made into a special replica Lego set. It is now a model community and housing complex. View more images here by architecture photographer James Brittain.

(Source: Dezeen. Image: James Brittain)