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Square Viger
By : NIPPAYSAGE, Provencher_Roy, Lightemotion, François Ménard
GRANDS PRIX DU DESIGN – 16th edition
Discipline : Landscape & Territories
Categories : Special Awards / Landscape + Water : Gold Certification
Categories : Special Awards / Landscape + Lighting : Platinum Winner
Categories : Special Awards / Landscape + Art Integration : Silver Certification
Categories : Landscape Architecture / Landscape Architecture - Public Space : Gold Certification
The Viger Square revitalization project restores the emblematic character and richness of the historic site through a fine combination of commemorative issues and current concerns. The project presented constitutes a first phase of intervention affecting the two blocks to the west of the square. It conserves elements and transposes the artistic concepts of Charles Daudelin’s Agora work to create a new contemporary square that is inviting, safe and accessible to all. This large-scale gesture is part of the identity of the Ville-Marie Expressway overlay and the reweaving of the bordering neighborhoods.
As a topical issue, the project takes up the daunting challenge of reviving this symbolic site and opening it up to the urban population. It is a unifying response to the complex issues of history, highway engineering, modern public art heritage, social dynamics and urban ecology. Thus, the project is woven around the desire to make the new square, a place rich in history addressing the memory of Montreal’s first great 19th century square and addressing the legacy of modern public art, transposed into a contemporary and inviting place.
The involvement of the landscape architect thus focused on the delicate operation of consulting and gathering the concerns of all the entities involved by proposing a project and orchestrating its modifications in order to make it evolve, over the course of the consultations, towards a strong vision making the consensus necessary for the dissemination of the project to the general public.
The Viger Square project is a multi-layered operation whose complexity is addressed: in a very contemporary spirit, the project is inspired by the original figure of the Viger garden and its animation. It dialogues with and enhances a major urban ensemble that is distinguished by the presence of prestigious buildings. The vision implies the concern to create an open place, for all publics, whose programming offers the flexibility required to generate the affluence essential to the vitality of the public place. The overall scheme is woven to allow plants to benefit from spaces free of underground constraints where earth resources are available. It combines with complex underground conditions that required coordination with the various entities and properties involved, including the City, the STM and the MTQ. Integrated into this complex set is a major work of public art enhancement, at the very heart of the development project built on the creation of artist Charles Daudelin and giving pride of place to the historic monument in effigy of Jean-Olivier Chénier.
The heart of the square is animated by a set of fountains, transforming the space with enigmatic pools, appearing and disappearing and a programmed sequence of jets, lasting one hour, inviting an immersive and refreshing show, soothing the noise of the urban context.
Lighting work energizes the nighttime experience of the landscape ensemble with striking effects metamorphosing the spectacle of the water and the spatial qualities of the public art corpus.
The freshly realized 2022 project is the culmination of a long process initiated in 2015, inscribed in the legacies of Montreal’s 375th anniversary festivities and subsequently overcoming numerous constraints falling under the complexity of such an urban transformation. The long-awaited square is now part of the Montreal experience, as we impatiently await the reintegration of the Mastodo work, the large restored basin that will be the final touch of the show.
Collaboration
Landscape Architecture : NIPPAYSAGE
Other : François Ménard Génie fontainier
