Landmark legacy

Architectural landmarks from Expo 67, as it was commonly known, still stand, as does the avant-garde stadium from the 1976 Summer Olympics, all put to new uses. Other innovations from the Expo days, such as the "underground city" linked to the Metro subway system, are going strong. But the most lasting legacy of the Quiet Revolution may be the city's reputation as a design capital, not only in architecture, but also in landscape architecture, fashion, and industrial design - prompting the United Nations to dub it one of the world's three UNESCO Cities of Design in 2006. Where else in North America would a fashion runway cut through an underground food court?

May finds Montreal in full flower, design-wise, opening with this weekend's Design Montreal Open House, followed by the Environmental Design Exhibition at the University of Quebec, Montreal, and, at the end of the month, Art Deco Montreal, the 10th World Congress on Art Deco.

May is also the 40th anniversary of John Lennon and Yoko Ono's Bed-in for Peace (May 26-June 2, 1969) at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel, where the newlyweds composed "Give Peace a Chance." In honor of the event, which followed the couple's first bed-in, in Amsterdam, the hotel (now the Fairmont Queen Elizabeth) is offering an "Imagine" package in the Lennon-Ono suite that includes breakfast in bed. "Imagine" is also the title of an exhibition at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, which features photos of the couple, their artwork, and footage from the turbulent decade.

Thanks to the efficient Metro and a navigable city layout, visitors can conduct self-guided tours of design landmarks, including the futuristic structures left after Expo 67. The US pavilion - a 250-foot-wide, 200-foot-high geodesic dome designed by Buckminster Fuller - is stunning in its ethereal perfection. It now encloses the Environment Museum, an industrial-looking structure with cantilevered wings by architect Éric Gauthier. Renamed the Biosphère, the complex from afar looks like a bubble of smoke with a space station inside.

Across the St. Lawrence River stands Habitat 67, architect Moshe Safdie's warren of interlocking concrete boxes completed for Expo. Each box contains an apartment with views on three sides and a garden. Safdie meant to create a model of affordable housing for the world's increasingly crowded cities. Building the pueblo-like apartments proved too pricey at the time, but the experiment has proven valuable in the long haul, piloting prefab, modular construction - units were cast on the site - and interior innovations that are now standard, such as molded-fiberglass bathroom units and preassembled kitchens. Now privately owned, the cubes are among Montreal's most expensive apartments. Visitors can't go in, but the variety of intricate forms is pleasing even from a distance.

About four miles northeast of the old fairgrounds and accessible by Metro, the 1976 Olympic Stadium complex squats like a gravity-bound soulmate of the Starship Enterprise. Designed by Roger Tallibert, the stadium complex, which includes the former velodrome, or cycling track, and a curved, tilting tower (known as the Montreal Observatory), was unfinished when the games began, and the city has struggled to "repurpose" it. Despite its white-elephant reputation, it's a marvel to look at. Cables from the tower suspend the stadium's roof in a series of meringue-like peaks. The sleek, slanted tower has an exterior elevator car that whisks visitors to an interior observation deck.

The velodrome houses the Montreal Biodome, which replicates four ecosystems of the Americas, complete with living plants and animals. Children and adults seem most taken with the South American rain forest, home to parrots, piranhas, and sloths.

One of the most useful innovations of the 1960s is the underground city. On a cold day, pedestrians make like moles, hitting the spacious plazas to shop, eat, get a haircut, or sip a latte. Montreal finished the Metro and the first underground shopping plaza in time for Expo 67. (The fair unfolded atop two new islands in the St. Lawrence River built with dirt from the subway tunnels.) Since then, the underground city has added node after node, linked by Metro stations, to form a 21-mile pedestrian network. City maps usually include shaded areas locating the underground complexes.

Above ground, the International Quarter is design central, with about 30 works of public art and a cluster of glass-and-steel skyscrapers. On the Avenue Viger, the transparent, multicolored convention center, Palais des congrès de Montréal, presents a refreshing change from the usual somber metallic towers.

Within walking distance of the Museum of Fine Arts, the Center for Canadian Architecture contains a library holding one of the world's largest collections of architectural documents. The public exhibits on a recent visit were a tad cerebral for this average visitor, and confusion about where to enter the fortress-like building seemed to signal a failure of design.

Across from the Fairmont Queen Elizabeth Hotel, architects Henry Cobb and I.M. Pei built the urban plaza Place Ville Marie in 1962, capping an underground rail station. Montrealers tend to navigate by the plaza's signature aluminum skyscraper, which has a cruciform shape that allows light to penetrate to the building's core. (Club 737, a restaurant on top, offers a 360-degree city view.)

Fashionistas love to roam St. Laurent Boulevard and St. Paul Street, where local couturiers display their wares, and chic restaurants and hotels draw an au courant clientele. In the quarter known as Old Montreal, a cavernous, neoclassical market building, the Marché Bonsecours, makes for one-stop shopping in numerous boutiques.

If you're looking for a taste of the optimism that inspired Expo 67 and the Quiet Revolution, stay alert for Yoko Ono's voice, randomly broadcast in Metro stations throughout the duration of the "Imagine" show: "Hi. This is Yoko! It's time for action, and action is peace. Think peace; act peace; spread peace, and tell your friends to imagine peace. I love you!"

Jane Roy Brown can be reached at regan-brown.com.