The Guardian

Architecture is the secret autobiography of a city, and nowhere are bricks and mortar more revealing than in Montreal. Whatever the official history of a place, its buildings reveal the real story, and in the architecture of Montreal you can trace its turbulent evolution, from French trading post to British colony to the global conurbation you see today. The perfect starting point for an architectural tour of Montreal is Pointe-à-Callière, Montreal Museum of Archaeology and History, on the old waterfront, at the exact spot where this city was founded by the French in 1642. Montreal's sleek new archaeological museum is linked by a tunnel to the Old Customs House, built by the British in 1830. In the 19th century this was the hub of Montreal's rapidly expanding harbour, as it vied with New York and Boston to become the most important port in North America. The subterranean passage between these buildings passes through the foundations of the original French town, buried beneath the British city that usurped it.