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| The Palais des congrès de Montréal |
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Bold artistry
Québec creativity is well represented at the Palais, where art plays a prominent role: a diptych is featured on the west glass façade, a brilliant demonstration of land art adorns the roof terrace, 15 works of art line the walls of the original building, and bold landscape architecture adds personality to the two large halls.
The Palais houses two works of art that were chosen from a national competition integrating arts and architecture held as part of the Palais’ expansion project::
- Translucide, a diptych by Jean-François Cantin, Michel Lemieux and Victor Pilon, in tandem with Martin Leblanc of N.O.M.A.D.E., illustrates the vocation of the Palais as a place where people and ideas converge and interact, as exemplified by the face and hand that touch through the interplay of light and shadow;
- La poussée vers le haut, by Francine Larrivée, symbolizes a major encounter atop the Palais, while serving as a reminder that the Palais stands on what was once a river;
Claude Cormier's highly original and colourful Jardin Nature légère / Lipstick Forest, located where Place Jean-Paul-Riopelle and Viger halls meet, features 52 pink coloured trees made of concrete. This surrealist installation produced by sculptors from the Aquanov Group is intended to reproduce the trees lining Montréal’s Park Avenue. This nod to nature living in harmony with the city’s centre was awarded the first prize in the landscape architecture category by the Institute of Design Montréal, and the second prize by the Canadian Society of Landscape Architects.
Finally, facing the Palais is the Esplanade, a slab of concrete transformed into a magnificent garden where 31 crab apple trees planted in oval mounds intersect with cobblestone lanes so typical of Montréal. The crab apple is the city’s official tree, and in May, they blossom into an explosion of pink!
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