Jack Diamond

John Fraser on the drama behind Canadian architect Jack Diamond’s St. Petersburg masterpiece

A number of Canada’s top architects have been leaving their mark on the American capital

This morning in Montreal, Jean Charest unveiled the design for the new concert hall for the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal. Kent Nagano was on board, as was Lucien Bouchard, who’s the chair of the orchestra’s board, and who brings poignant irony with him wherever he goes. Architect for the new hall is Jack Diamond of Toronto’s Diamond and Schmitt Architects, which may help explain why the new hall looks eerily like Schmitt’s Four Seasons Centre, his downtown Toronto opera house. The shape’s different because this room isn’t for opera. But the room vocabulary — Blonde! Beige! — is pure Diamond. Here, they made a video:

Jack Diamond built a very good opera house in Toronto (pictured here), and now his firm has been chosen to build the Montreal Symphony’s new concert hall. Everyone plays to type in their coverage: The Gazette‘s story concentrates on the (much higher than expected) price tag; La Presse notices that locals didn’t get the gig. I’m just happy when a good orchestra gets a good room to play in.