Montreal, Canada
Designer
Born in Paris in 1942, Michel Dallaire studied at Montreal’s l’Institut
des Arts appliqués and at the Konstfackskolan, Stockholm’s High Faculty
of Industrial Arts. Later on, he specialized in design management at
l’École des Hautes Études Commerciales and in Polymer transformation
at l’Institut de génie des matériaux of the National Research Center in
Montreal.
As far back as 1967, Michel Dallaire asserted himself as an independent
designer and created his own design firm that was soon most successful
both professionally and commercially.
Canada Awards for Excellence Gold Award recipient in 1986, he has since
then been granted numerous prestigious Canadian and international
awards,namely the Grand Prize at the 27th Salon International des Inventions
de Genève in 1999 and at the same Salon, from 1998 to date, five Gold and
one Silver Medal. In 2003, The Institute of Design Montréal has awarded
him the IDM Career Prize and the Special Award for Research. Québec’s
Ministère des Affaires culturelles has rewarded his achievements in 1991
through the Paul-Émile-Borduas Prize, Government of Québec’s highest distinction in the visual arts field.
Michel Dallaire’s practice covers a wide range of activities, and particularly consumer, industrial and institutional products design, as well as urban
furniture and transportation material design. He has been senior consultant
for Air Canada. Among his latest prestigious projects was the design of the
street furniture for the Quartier international de Montréal for witch he
received over 17 prestigious national and international awards and just
recently; the design of the entire public furniture for the new Bibliothèque
national du Québec. Most recently he designed the Montreal Public Bike
System that has won the Bronze Award of the International Design Excel-
lance Awards 2009, the Gold Edisson Award 2009 and was selected by Time Magazine as the 19th best invention in 2008 out of the first best 50 projects.
This Public Bike System was recently bought by London city in England,
Boston, Mineapolis, Washington, New York cities in USA and Melbourne
city in Australia. Lately in Ottawa and Toronto.
