French actress and director Mireille d'Arc at Terre des Hommes, in front of the Biosphere. | Photograph: Gordon Beck / Archives de la Ville de Montréal / VM94-TDH69-066-002
French actress and director Mireille d'Arc at Terre des Hommes, in front of the Biosphere. | Photograph: Gordon Beck / Archives de la Ville de Montréal / VM94-TDH69-066-002
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If you exit the Green Line at Montreal’s Berri-UQAM station and descend, the gate awaits: An entrance to the Yellow Line, a subterranean maw where a great slab of a sign remains reading ‘Expo 67: Terre des Hommes’ or ‘Man and His World’ in equally sized lettering below it (a relic from before Quebec’s modern language laws).
This ‘theme’, for lack of a better term, dates back to sometime in the early 1960s when Claude Robillard, a man running Montreal's planning department, delivered a verdict on what a world's fair should be: The era of exhibitions built around the newest screwdriver was finished, he said, and it was time to put the emphasis on people instead of their inventions.
That instinct became Expo 67's governing idea, but how it got there is a better story than the one we usually tell, because there are two of them.
American singer and actress Pat Suzuki visiting Man and His World on August 5, 1968. | Photograph: Robert Vandensteene / Archives de la Ville de Montréal / VM94-TDH68-030-003
The version everyone knows
In late May of 1963, the Seigniory Club at Montebello: a private resort on the Ottawa River about a hundred kilometres upstream from Montreal, built in the 1930s on land that once belonged to Louis-Joseph Papineau. Here, fifteen or so of the country's most prominent minds were summoned there for three days to decide what the fair was going to be about: Gabrielle Roy, neurosurgeon Wilder Penfield, Alan Jarvis of the National Gallery, geophysicist J. Tuzo Wilson, poet F.R. Scott, journalist André Laurendeau, and Robillard himself along with architects Victor Prus and Raymond Affleck.
They emerged with Terre des hommes or ‘Man and His World’. La Presse dubbed the result the exhibition's Grande Charte, a charter written by twelve wise men (though accounts of who was actually in the room have never quite agreed on the number).
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Share your thoughts and join the conversation. Please be respectful and constructive.
What began as a complaint about grading bias escalated into a two-week occupation, a fire, and one of the most consequential reckonings with institutional racism in Canadian higher education.
The St. Lawrence River, French colonial planning, and centuries of habit created a directional system where “north” has almost nothing to do with a compass.
A near-forgotten movie palace that's outlasted demolition plans, disco dreams, and decades of decline to become one of Montreal’s most resilient cultural landmarks.
The Main is reader-supported. Subscriptions are what keep us independent. Five dollars a month — the restaurants, the guides, the weekly bulletin, and what to do each weekend. Support us today.
If you exit the Green Line at Montreal’s Berri-UQAM station and descend, the gate awaits: An entrance to the Yellow Line, a subterranean maw where a great slab of a sign remains reading ‘Expo 67: Terre des Hommes’ or ‘Man and His World’ in equally sized lettering below it (a relic from before Quebec’s modern language laws).
This ‘theme’, for lack of a better term, dates back to sometime in the early 1960s when Claude Robillard, a man running Montreal's planning department, delivered a verdict on what a world's fair should be: The era of exhibitions built around the newest screwdriver was finished, he said, and it was time to put the emphasis on people instead of their inventions.
That instinct became Expo 67's governing idea, but how it got there is a better story than the one we usually tell, because there are two of them.
American singer and actress Pat Suzuki visiting Man and His World on August 5, 1968. | Photograph: Robert Vandensteene / Archives de la Ville de Montréal / VM94-TDH68-030-003
The version everyone knows
In late May of 1963, the Seigniory Club at Montebello: a private resort on the Ottawa River about a hundred kilometres upstream from Montreal, built in the 1930s on land that once belonged to Louis-Joseph Papineau. Here, fifteen or so of the country's most prominent minds were summoned there for three days to decide what the fair was going to be about: Gabrielle Roy, neurosurgeon Wilder Penfield, Alan Jarvis of the National Gallery, geophysicist J. Tuzo Wilson, poet F.R. Scott, journalist André Laurendeau, and Robillard himself along with architects Victor Prus and Raymond Affleck.
They emerged with Terre des hommes or ‘Man and His World’. La Presse dubbed the result the exhibition's Grande Charte, a charter written by twelve wise men (though accounts of who was actually in the room have never quite agreed on the number).
Comments
Welcome to The Main's comments section!
Share your thoughts and join the conversation. Please be respectful and constructive.
What began as a complaint about grading bias escalated into a two-week occupation, a fire, and one of the most consequential reckonings with institutional racism in Canadian higher education.
The St. Lawrence River, French colonial planning, and centuries of habit created a directional system where “north” has almost nothing to do with a compass.
A near-forgotten movie palace that's outlasted demolition plans, disco dreams, and decades of decline to become one of Montreal’s most resilient cultural landmarks.
If you exit the Green Line at Montreal’s Berri-UQAM station and descend, the gate awaits: An entrance to the Yellow Line, a subterranean maw where a great slab of a sign remains reading ‘Expo 67: Terre des Hommes’ or ‘Man and His World’ in equally sized lettering below it (a relic from before Quebec’s modern language laws).
This ‘theme’, for lack of a better term, dates back to sometime in the early 1960s when Claude Robillard, a man running Montreal's planning department, delivered a verdict on what a world's fair should be: The era of exhibitions built around the newest screwdriver was finished, he said, and it was time to put the emphasis on people instead of their inventions.
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If you exit the Green Line at Montreal’s Berri-UQAM station and descend, the gate awaits: An entrance to the Yellow Line, a subterranean maw where a great slab of a sign remains reading ‘Expo 67: Terre des Hommes’ or ‘Man and His World’ in equally sized lettering below it (a relic from before Quebec’s modern language laws).
This ‘theme’, for lack of a better term, dates back to sometime in the early 1960s when Claude Robillard, a man running Montreal's planning department, delivered a verdict on what a world's fair should be: The era of exhibitions built around the newest screwdriver was finished, he said, and it was time to put the emphasis on people instead of their inventions.
Free account required
For readers who care about Montreal
Create a free account to read this story and access 3 articles per month, plus our weekly Bulletin.
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