Ottawa concert hall

The new issue of Canadian Architect magazine has a dynamite article about a jewel I’ve been dying to visit since it (re-) opened in March 2007, the Palais Montcalm concert hall in Quebec City. An ambitious four-year renovation — they sunk the floor so the room could be taller, the seats sloped and the airspace more resonant — has produced a 979-seat main hall that, I’m told, is aesthetically gorgeous; sounds superb; serves as a fitting headquarters for the city’s world-renowned chamber orchestra Les Violons du Roy; and consolidates Place d’Youville, just outside the St. Jean Gate to the Old City, as Quebec City’s main public square after too many years of neglect.