Sonic Interference: Echoes of a Displaced Montreal

Abstract

Montreal’s identity as a cultural hub is threatened by gentrification and the closure of independent music venues, as rising rents and noise complaints displace artists. This project explores how sound can preserve the city’s collective memory and support marginalized music communities through the adaptive reuse of post-industrial architecture. Focusing on the Lachine Canal, a site of historical significance and cultural tension, it examines sound as both a spatial and public resource. The CN Tour Wellington and its surroundings are reimagined as a sound lab—a network for listening, performance, and sonic experimentation. Inspired by musique concrète, the design splices, layers, and filters found sounds into spatial compositions, embracing interference as a generative force. Through sound mapping, spectrogram analysis, and auditory notation, the project critiques the policing of sound in urban environments, proposing an alternative approach—where noise is reclaimed, composed, and amplified rather than suppressed.