Montreal Gazette

Whatever happens tonight in the Bell Centre, Montrealers can congratulate themselves at least on their city's prodigious success in the 2006 Governor-General's Medals in Architecture. Of the 12 medallists announced yesterday by the Canada Council and the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada, the joint administrators of the awards, eight are for projects by Montreal architects. Seven of these are in or around the city. What is the explanation for this dominance? The city's unequalled educational infrastructure, led by four universities, is clearly relevant, as are its vibrant gallery scene and surplus of performing-arts companies. Practitioners of the fine and lively arts tend to demand spaces of similar imagination and calibre. Two of the winners, Espace Libre and Theatre du Vieux Terrebonne, are theatres. Another, the studios of the Cirque du Soleil, is attached to a performing-arts company.