Call, Competition, Workshop, Follow-up
The Call for Submissions by the Quartier des Spectacles Partenariat



In early 2005 the Partenariat du Quartier des Spectacles, (which could be translated as the Theatre District  Partnership) published a call for proposals to provide an urban branding strategy for the crucial central precinct. The area is notable for its 28 venues, and some 28,000 seats, including concert halls, theatres, as well as for its bars, discos, strip joints and its distressed population, including street people, homeless youth, drug users and addicts, and prostitutes. Michel Tremblay’s famous transvestite characters frequented the section of St. Laurent between Ste. Catherine and Réné Lévesque, notorious as the red light district. The Partenariat, a consortium of quasi-public bodies that includes the organization known as ADISQ, or Québecois Association for Music Industry, and which organizes yearly Félix awards given out to best selling pop music in Québec,  similar to the Canadian Junos or the American Grammy awards, aimed to raise the profile of the area and market its music halls with a new visual identity strategy. The Partnership sought out designers through the competition, and showed remarkable initiative and a flair for innovation in the call for proposals, and a jury composition that included quite a few sympathetic members. The scenario and strategy were provocative, as if the American Grammy organization were to call for urban design proposals for troubled downtown Detroit. The dAb collective was enthused by the open Call for Proposals, and responded with a critique of the notion of urban branding as a means to conduct urban planning in such a vital part of town. With a Proposal Statement, published at the beginning of this text, that explicitly criticized the graphic emphasis of the Call for Proposals, selection of the collective as one of the finalist teams was a surprise.​