LEFT: Les Quatre Arbres project | Photo credit: Odile Hénault | RIGHT: Raouf Boutros | Excerpt from interview on Les Quatre Arbres project, winner of a 2011 Award of Excellence in Architecture from the Ordre des architectes du Québec
On April 7, 2024, Quebec architect Raouf Boutros died suddenly. He was 76. I lost a dear friend, but the Quebec architectural community lost an important figure. Raouf?s relationship with architecture was passionate?if not obsessive?as he tried to turn every commission into a unique project.
Demanding on himself and on his collaborators, Raouf Boutros was to have a profound impact on Montreal, the city he adopted as a 19-year-old immigrant from the Middle East. A graduate from the Université de Montréal, he eventually joined forces with fellow architect Normand Pratte. Parallel to his practice, he taught at his alma mater, as well as at McGill?s School of architecture. Les Quatre Arbres project by Boutros + Pratte. Photo © Robert Etcheverry
Boutros + Pratte?s award-winning partnership was to lead to significant accomplishments, building what architectural writer Rhys Phillips once described as ?a series of public/private initiatives combining quality architecture and thoughtful urban design to rehabilitate badly frayed downtown districts? (CA, July 2006). Boutros + Pratte?s residential work, which went from small-scale housing to larger projects, derived from an ?intent to assemble a plan and section that eschewed the typical double-hung s...