Architecture of Montreal

The architecture of Montreal, Quebec, Canada is characterized by the juxtaposition of the old and the new and a wide variety of architectural styles, the legacy of two successive colonizations by the French, the British, and the close presence of modern architecture to the south. Much like Quebec City, the city of Montreal had fortifications, but they were destroyed between 1804 and 1817.

For over a century and a half, Montreal was the industrial and financial centre of Canada. The variety of buildings included factories, elevators, warehouses, mills, and refineries which today provide a legacy of historic and architectural interest, especially in the downtown area and in Old Montreal. Many historical buildings in Old Montreal retain their original form, notably the impressive 19th century headquarters of all major Canadian banks on Saint Jacques Street (formerly known as Saint James Street).

From the Art Deco period, Montreal offers a handful of notable examples. Ernest Cormier’s Université de Montréal main building located on the northern side of Mount Royal and the Aldred Building at Place d’Armes, an historic square in Old Montreal.

In fact, Place d’Armes, shown in panorama below, is surrounded by buildings representing several major periods in Montreal architecture: the Gothic Revival Notre-Dame Basilica; New York Life Building, Montreal’s first high-rise; the Pantheon-like Bank of Montreal head office, Canada’s first bank; the aforementioned Aldred Building. (1931) and the International style 500 Place D’Armes.

French regime
Although founded at the confluence of the Saint-Pierre River and the St. Lawrence River , the May 17, 1642 1 , it is a little further west, in Lachine , that we find the oldest example of architecture of the French Regime that has survived to this day on the island of Montreal . Located upstream of the Lachine Rapids facing Lac Saint-Louis , LeBer-LeMoyne House , built in 1669, served as a fur store for traders Jacques Le Ber and Charles Le Moyne 2 .

The house, like many buildings under the French Regime , is made up of thick walls of roughly squared rubble embedded in the mortar . Largely inspired by the rural and bourgeois architecture of Brittany , Normandy and the Île-de-France , the practice adapts to the harsh climatic conditions that limit the number and size of windows, for example, and requires systematic erection of chimneys 3 .

The oldest building in the Ville-Marie borough is the Old Seminary of Saint-Sulpice , the only surviving 17th century in Old Montreal . Since it opened in 1687, it has been home to the Saint-Sulpice Priestly Society , which had been granted the Island of Montreal in 1663. With the administration of the territory becoming more complex, the superior of the congregation François Dollier de Casson draws himself the building to be used as a seigniorial manor 4 .

The “U” building is inspired by the mansions of French classical architecture of the 17th century. It includes a main courtyard and an outdoor clock, installed in 1701, which would be the oldest on the mainland in northern Mexico 4 . The building will be enlarged and modified several times in the 150 years following its construction, first under the leadership of François Vachon de Belmont , who will lead the erection of the second phase in the early eighteenth century , then John Ostell , who, in 1848, rebuilt the East wing in neoclassical style 5 .

Several other buildings built for Montreal’s religious communities have also come through the test of time. This is particularly the case of the Maison Saint-Gabriel (1698), in Pointe Saint-Charles , two towers of the Fort des Messieurs (1685), on the southern slope of Mount Royal or the General Hospital of the Charon brothers ( 1693), on rue Saint-Pierre , outside the fortifications designed by Chaussegros de Léry and inspired by the work of Vauban . The fortifications will be destroyed between 1801 and 1817 at the request of the merchants because they impede the expansion of the trade 6 .

The French Regime ended with improvements to the design of the buildings, but it remains marked by great sobriety, lack of artisans and financial means. After a great fire ravaging the quarter of the intramural city in 1721, the intendant published in 1727 an edict forbidding the construction of wood inside the fortifications and imposing party walls higher than the roof, giving rise to the firewall 3 .

This obsession with fire will be an important consideration in the reconstruction of Château Ramezay in 1756 by the Compagnie des Indes Occidentales, which acquired it from the family of the former governor of Montreal, Claude de Ramezay . The rooms are separated by stone walls and the floors are covered with slabs or tiles. In the basement, vaults in basket handle are dug to store the furs.

Church architecture
Founded as a Roman Catholic French colony and nicknamed “la ville aux cent clochers” (the city of a hundred belltowers), Montreal is renowned for its churches.

The city has four Roman Catholic basilicas: Mary, Queen of the World Cathedral, Notre-Dame Basilica, St. Patrick’s Basilica, and Saint Joseph’s Oratory. The Oratory is the largest church in Canada, with the largest dome of its kind in the world after that of Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome. Other well-known churches include Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours Chapel, which is sometimes called the Sailors’ Church.

Following the British victory in the Seven Years’ War, many protestant immigrants came to the city from England, Scotland and Ireland. This led to various Protestant churches being built to accommodate the growing community. The two most notable of these are the Saint James United Church and the Anglican Christ Church Cathedral, which was suspended above an excavated pit during the construction of the Promenades Cathédrale mall, part of Montreal’s Underground City.

Skyscrapers
Skyscraper construction in Montreal has swung between periods of intense activity and prolonged lulls. A two-year period from 1962 to 1964 saw the completion of four of Montreal’s ten tallest buildings: Tour de la Bourse, I. M. Pei’s landmark cruciform Place Ville-Marie, the CIBC Building and CIL House. Its tallest buildings, the 51-storey 1000 de La Gauchetière and the 47-storey 1250 René-Lévesque, were both completed in 1992.

Montreal places height-limits on skyscrapers so that they do not exceed the height of Mount Royal. The city forbids any building from reaching an elevation higher than or 223 metres above mean sea level. Above-ground height is further limited in most areas and only a few downtown land plots are allowed to exceed 120 metres in height. The limit is currently attained by 1000 de La Gauchetière and 1250 René-Lévesque, the latter of which is shorter, but built on higher ground. The only way to reach higher than 1000 de La Gauchetière while respecting this limit would be to build on the lowest part of downtown near Tour de la Bourse; the maximum height there would be approximately 210 metres.

Expo 67
Pavilions designed for the 1967 International and Universal Exposition, popularly known as Expo 67, featured a wide range of architectural designs. Though most pavilions were temporary structures, several remaining structures have become Montreal landmarks, including the geodesic dome US Pavilion, now the Montreal Biosphère, as well as Moshe Safdie’s striking Habitat 67 apartment complex.

Montreal Metro
In terms of modern architecture, the Montreal Metro is filled with a profusion of public artwork by some of the biggest names in Quebec culture. In addition, the design and ornamentation of each station in the Metro system is unique, much like the Stockholm Metro and the Moscow Metro.

Other notable structures
Other significant works of modern architecture in Montreal include the Brutalist Place Bonaventure, the world’s largest building when it was completed in 1968, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s Westmount Square and Roger Taillibert’s controversial Olympic Stadium, which incorporates the world’s tallest inclined tower, at 175 metres.

Montreal architects Pierre Boulva and Jacques David completed a number of modernist landmarks in the 1960s, including the Palais de justice de Montréal, 500 Place d’Armes, Théâtre Maisonneuve, the Dow Planetarium and the Place-des-Arts, Atwater and Lucien-L’Allier metro stations.

In 2006, the city was recognized by the international design community as a UNESCO City of Design, one of the three world design capitals.

Heritage conservation
The Conseil du patrimoine de Montréal advises the municipal government on matters related to heritage building preservation. A pair of non-governmental groups have worked to preserve Montreal historic buildings since the 1970s: Save Montreal, co-founded by Michael Fish in 1974, and Heritage Montreal, founded by Phyllis Lambert two years later. In 1979, Lambert founded the Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA), an architecture museum and research centre located in downtown Montreal. In October 2009, Lambert, Heritage Montreal and others formed a think tank called the Institut de politiques alternatives de Montréal to advise the city on a range of matters including urban planning, development and heritage.

Source From Wikipedia