Montreal's Newest Concrete-Slab Building Is Brightened With Film Stills by Thomas Edison

On a cold day in March of 1901, Thomas Edison filmed Montreal's fire department rolling down a snow-covered street. It wasn't a particularly captivating film, just a continuous shot of horse-drawn carriages with members of the city's fire-fighting crew in tow. But over a century later, the film has found new life as the face of Montreal's newest student apartment building.

The Edison Residence, designed by local architecture firm KANVA, is an infill project just completed near McGill University. Built on what had been a vacant parcel since the house that once stood there burned down in the early 20th century, the architects used Edison's film as a way of referencing the site's own history while cleverly playing with notoriously unplayful concrete.