The 2021 Venice Architecture Biennale?postponed from 2020?is posting sneak peaks of its national pavilions, a highlight of the exhibition.
Canadian cities often appear in movies, but standing in for other places.
The official Canadian representation to the Biennale, Impostor Cities, examines how Canadian cities stand in for other places in movies. It is curated by McGill professor David Theodore and Montreal-based T B A / Thomas Balaban Architect.
“You can almost say that in Canada, the measure of success of any piece of architecture is how badly movies want to make it look like the States,” says Douglas Coupland, who is interviewed as part of the two-minute video sneak peek.

“Canada?s architecture is film-famous but unlike Paris, New York, London, or Rio de Janeiro, our cities rarely play themselves in film and television. Toronto stands in for Tokyo, for example, while Vancouver and Montreal masquerade as Moscow, Paris, and New York,” write the curators. “Impostor Cities is an international exhibition that seeks to repatriate our architecture and celebrate the legacy of over a half-century of Canada?s most renowned architectural doubles. Impostor Cities also introduces a playful yet pointed counter-proposition to the popular image of our national identity by investigating why Canada?s buildings are so good at doubling as elsewhere. How do we think about authenticity and identity in an age where artifice in media becomes indistinguishable ...