Place des Montréalaises transforms a sunken expressway in central Montreal into a layered public landscape that bridges Old Montreal and downtown. Conceived by Lemay in collaboration with artist Angela Silver, the project combines infrastructure decking, memorial space, and ecological planting into a continuous civic ground that inscribes the memory of twenty-one women into the city’s topography.
Place des Montréalaises Technical Information
- ArchitectsLemay
- LocationMontreal, Canada
- Project Years2017 – 2025
- Photographs© Vincent Brillant
We approached the project as a layered landscape where infrastructure, memory, and daily life coexist, embedding commemoration directly into movement and topography.
– Lemay
Covering Infrastructure: Reclaiming the Expressway as Civic Ground
Place des Montréalaises occupies a site long defined by mobility infrastructure. A sunken expressway and rail corridors carved a physical and perceptual gap between Old Montreal and the downtown core. Rather than treating these elements as obstacles, the project builds above them, transforming residual space into a suspended esplanade that reconnects fragmented urban fabrics.
The design operates through stratification. At the metro level, a grounded plaza negotiates pedestrian flows from the Champ-de-Mars station and adjacent streets. Above, an inclined plane forms the primary public surface, while traffic and rail continue beneath. This sectional layering converts a former void into connective tissue, allowing pedestrians to move seamlessly between heritage civic buildings, contemporary towers, and distant views toward Mount Royal.
Memorial as Landscape: Inscribing Women’s Memory into Urban Form
The plaza responds to the underrepresentation of women in Montreal’s toponymy by embedding commemoration into space rather than isolating it in a singular monument. Twenty-one women, including the fourteen victims of the 1989 École Polytechnique femicide and seven historic figures, are acknowledged through spatial devices that extend across the site. Memory is distributed through circulation paths, planting patterns, and material surfaces.
A cylindrical mirror near the metro entrance anchors this commemorative strategy. Its reflective steel surface is perforated with the names of the honorees. During the day, the lettering fragments across the pavement and the adjacent staircase. After dark, light emanates through the perforations, projecting the names onto the ground in warm tones. The object functions as both a threshold and a mnemonic device, drawing visitors into an environment where remembrance unfolds through movement.
The plaza also establishes a visual dialogue with Marcelle Ferron’s stained glass at Champ-de-Mars metro and with the adjacent Place Marie-Josèphe-Angélique. By aligning new interventions with existing works dedicated to women, the project situates itself within a broader cultural landscape, extending commemoration beyond the deck’s boundaries.
The Inclined Meadow: Topography, Structure, and Ecological Strategy
The dominant gesture of the project is an inclined concrete plane that appears to float above the expressway. Punctured by eighty-six circular planting beds, this surface reads as a graphic field when viewed from above and as a textured meadow at eye level. The planting palette shifts seasonally, with grasses and perennials producing variations in color and density that contrast with the mineral continuity of the deck.
At the center, a circular oculus opens the plane to street level, framing a mature elm whose canopy reaches toward the elevated meadow. Structurally, the void reduces load on the deck. Spatially, it establishes a vertical connection between strata, revealing the site’s layered condition and transforming an engineering constraint into a focal point.
Vegetation occupies more than half of the total surface area. To the north, an urban forest is constructed above active rail tunnels and limited soil depths. Species were selected for resilience and adaptability to shallow substrates, forming a buffered transition between surrounding streets and the elevated plane. The result is a hybrid landscape where infrastructure, horticulture, and structure are tightly integrated.
Public Life in Section: Movement, Thresholds, and Night Identity
A monumental staircase runs along the southern edge of the inclined plane, mediating between the lower plaza and the meadow. Its generous width accommodates circulation, seating, and informal assembly. Letterforms derived from the mirror’s inscriptions are dispersed across the concrete risers, extending the commemorative narrative into the act of ascent and pause.
The project’s lighting reinforces its sectional clarity. Linear LED strips integrated into each step emphasize horizontality and render the stairs as a luminous datum within the city at dusk. The mirror’s perforations glow in parallel, projecting names onto the paving and amplifying the memorial’s presence after sunset. Bollard lighting traces paths through the urban forest and lower plaza, establishing a network of illuminated thresholds.
Movement unfolds across a sequence of calibrated transitions. Visitors emerge from the metro into the lower square, gather near the mirror, ascend the stairs, and navigate the meadow’s pathways before reaching the tree-lined edge overlooking downtown. These layered thresholds accommodate daily commuting as readily as public gatherings, allowing the plaza to operate simultaneously as a passage, a stage, and a place of reflection.
About Lemay
Founded in 1957, Lemay is an architecture and design firm based in Montreal, Canada. Bringing together over 500 architects, designers, and industry professionals, the practice operates through a transdisciplinary approach that integrates architecture, landscape architecture, and urban design. Guided by its NET POSITIVE™ framework, Lemay emphasizes sustainable innovation and human-centered design, creating spaces that engage communities and foster meaningful collective experiences.
Credits and Additional Notes
- Structural engineers: AtkinsRéalis and ELEMA experts-conseils
- MEP consultants: AtkinsRéalis (Civil/Mechanical/Electrical Engineering)
- Client: City of Montreal
- Construction company: Construction Génix
- Artist and Project Partner: Angela Silver
- Lighting: Ombrage
- Site Supervisor: EXP
- Planting Strategy, with Lemay: Isabelle Dupras
