Montreal Modern: Retro Culture and the Modern Past in Montreal

Abstract

Through analyses of the retro scenes in Montreal, Canada, the article discusses retro culture’s role as cultural memory. It is shown how Montreal’s cultural identity is formed by memories of modern culture such as the Red-light and Sin City reputation of the illicit nightlife of the 1940s and 1950s, and the space age modernism of the 1960s following the Expo 67 and Quebec’s Quiet Revolution. This is reflected in the city’s thriving retro culture through the study of two groups of retro shops. In circulating specific memories and objects in a specific context, retro is an important negotiation of the past in the present. Especially, it is stated that the retro culture displays “local accents” and a new focus on the specificities of modern culture giving a revaluation to a previously overlooked identity such as the Quebecité.

Keywords

• Retro
• cultural memory
• material culture
• second-hand culture
• Canadian culture
• kitsch