Biosphere

Aram Pooladian

People in Montreal don’t think that we have a real landmark that represents us, like the Eiffel Tower in Paris or Buckingham Palace in London.

After visiting the Biosphere, however, I think they would think differently, even though I don’t find a landmark useful because we already have too many tourists coming into this country because they ruin the view of the city when they take their silly pictures. I don’t mind if they don’t use flash but it’s not fun when you’re randomly walking and then: BAM!! You get hit by this strong light…

The Biosphere was built as the United States Pavilion during the 1967 World’s Fair in Montreal –more commonly known as Expo ’67—and was designed by Richard Buckminster Fuller. To give you an idea of how big it is, the diameter is 76 meters which is about four fifths of a football field. It’s made of steel pipes that had enclosed 1900 molded acrylic panels. When the geodesic dome was originally finished in April of 1967, it had an elaborate system of retractable shading screens that controlled the heat on the inside and a computer even adjusted the screens to match the sun’s rays, which was a pretty big deal to have technology like that in the late ‘60s.

One of the most interesting aspects of the Biosphere is its history. After the Expo, the USA decided to donate the pavilion to the city of Montreal instead of dismantling it. Later on in 1976, during structural renovations, a fire occurred and the acrylic panels were completely lost in only 20 minutes and were never replaced. It was only occupied by homeless people until 1990. When Environment Canada eventually bought the pavilion, they paid 17.5 million Canadian Dollars to turn the outside structure and interior building into the Biosphere, which was to be used as an attraction and/or museum. Architect Eric Gauthier was hired to re-design the interior while staying with Buckminster Fuller`s original plans (to some extent). I thought this was nice because the pavilion didn’t burn on purpose to be re-constructed from the ground up. It re-opened in 1995. At the end of the re-building process, the Biosphere consisted of a huge dome and a building inside it.

I didn’t see all of it, but I was on the roof of the building where there was a really cool exhibit on transportation and the conservation of energy. For example, there was a showing that covered around three quarters of the roof, which was a car, cut in half, leaving one half the way it was and the other half was distributed into its individual parts and then laid out, something I’m sure most dads will like to see. On the website of the Biosphere it says: “A perfect family outing for those in search of educational entertainment!”  But on Tripadvisor.com, two reviews both disagreed with that comment. They wrote: “Only if you have elementary school children in your group” and “Don’t bother unless you have kids … who will keep you amused”. The Biosphere contains a lot of hands-on experiments, which most kids enjoy. As for the building as a whole, the place looked very modern and very appealing. For example the elevator on the roof opens outward! That’s pretty awesome designing.

In general, most of the comments say that it’s great, but those groups all had kids in them. So the next time you and your family plan on visiting Montreal, go to the Biosphere. You just might learn something while your children are playing with frogs.  Judging from what I saw, even if you don’t have kids but you enjoy architecture, the Biosphere is an excellent place to visit. It really sticks out as Montreal’s highly un-necessary landmark.