The Gazette

If asked to imagine Montreal, you might think of signature buildings like Place Ville Marie, Place des Arts or Sherbrooke St.'s elegant Maison Alcan. They are as much a part of the landscape as Mount Royal and the St. Lawrence River. The same is true of the Arcop Group, ARchitects in CO-Partnership, the firm behind the design of these and dozens of other notable projects erected in the last 50 years. Arcop has shaped the Montreal skyline without itself becoming a household name, mostly because, its partners would say, the firm has preferred to let the buildings do the talking. These days, they are likely to do the talking in places like China, India and Afghanistan, where Arcop is busy designing hospitals, hotels and resorts. They blew their low-key cover for a recent 50th birthday bash. The fete for 200 or so guests was held at the Canadian Centre for Architecture, where waitresses in elbow-length gloves swanned silently about, bearing endless trays of lobster, foie gras and other dainties. There was so much seafood on hand that Phyllis Lambert's august temple of architecture at one point smelled pleasantly like a seaside town.