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Port of Montréal Tower
By : Provencher_Roy
GRANDS PRIX DU DESIGN – 17th edition
Discipline : Architecture : Grand Winner
Categories : Special Award / Architecture + Light : Platinum Winner
Categories : Other categories in architecture / Infrastructure : Platinum Winner
Port of Montréal Tower:
Guardian of memories of the city’s industrial past
Breathing new life into an outdated port installation: Provencher_Roy’s mission in the Old Port of Montréal. An iconic 65-metre tower and its belvedere overlooking the waterway complete the Grand Quai transformation, proposing a spectacular observatory of the city and Saint Lawrence River.
The Tower: observatory in the sky and urban landscape
What are the advantages of constructing a tower on a shoreline? The first is experienced internally: the Port of Montréal Tower offers exceptional views of Montréal, the Saint Lawrence, and Mount Royal. The second is expressed externally: like a lighthouse, the Tower acts as a beacon attracting tourists, guiding them, and bringing them to unprecedented heights above the waterway. A cantilevered volume housing an observatory in the sky constitutes the culminating point of the experience. A new perspective for discovering the city is unveiled. The Tower therefore becomes a new urban landmark for visitors and passersby alike. Whether they discover it for the first time by boat on the water or along a pedestrian pathway in Old Montréal, the Tower not only signals the presence of a cruise terminal but also of a vast public place.
Highlighting a storied industrial past in Old Montréal
It is the Tower’s duty to pay homage to the site, as keeper of the traces of a rich industrial past. This duty is manifest in the rigorous concrete and steel structure, and compact pragmatic volumetry of the Tower. Stemming from a perfect square, the nucleus echoes the geometry of the neighbouring historic Old Port tower constructed at the end of the 1950s for the transfer of grain from ships to silos, located at the tip of the Quai des Convoyeurs. The Tower is cohesive with the other port structures, while cultivating its uniqueness. A symbol of the city, it overlooks the Promenade d’Iberville. Implanted on the rooftop-garden of the rehabilitated cruise terminal, it asserts itself as a main character of present-day Montréal. The Tower is the new guardian of memories of the site.
A new destination for unprecedented experiences
In addition to overseeing Montréal history, the Tower becomes a new destination, an attractive place inviting visitors to stroll. On the 13th floor, the cantilevered observatory offers 360-degree views of the city and Saint Lawrence. With a multipurpose vocation, this space in the sky is accessible to the public and rented out for events. A wooden helicoidal staircase visible from the exterior extends from the observatory towards the sky, inviting visitors to climb higher. As a sculptural object shining through the façade, its form is reminiscent of the typical Montréal spiral stairways, found in front of buildings in many of the city’s neighbourhoods. Its golden colour evokes wheat, the most common local grain characterizing the Old Port’s exportation boom. At the top, the experience is prolonged by a glass cage seemingly plunging visitors 55 metres above the Grand Quai. A vertiginous experience guaranteed!
A luminous design evocative of its time
The ambiance created with lighting was highly prioritized for this project. The Tower was conceived as a jewel to be accentuated as part of Old Montréal’s lighting plan, positioning the Grand Quai within the continuum of nocturnal aesthetics of the neighbourhood. The monumental lighting chosen for the Tower at the end of the pier works in visual symbiosis with the other landmarks along the horizon line. The use of white light with cold tones illuminates the structure, while white light with warmer amber tones distinctively highlights the helicoidal staircase, transforming the Tower into a shimmering beacon on the River. The building’s interior incorporates meticulously designed lighting to highlight the structure’s transparency while not eclipsing the night sky. The careful use of lighting serves to transform the Grand Quai and Port of Montréal Tower into nocturnal jewels adding a new dimension to urban life in the neighbourhood and enriching the experiences of residents and visitors alike.
Collaboration
Landscape Architecture : NIP Paysage
General Contractor : Pomerleau
