International design leader Lemay, interdisciplinary artist Angela Silver and SNC-Lavalin are the proud laureates of the City of Montreal?s anonymous International Multidisciplinary Landscape Architecture Competition to design the city?s new Place des Montréalaises, a vast public space in the Champ-de-Mars sector to honour 21 Montreal women who have shaped the city.
Lemay?s proposal stood out with its inclined plane connecting the top and bottom of the city, a grand gesture in response to the surrounding monumental landscape and institutions: the historic Champ-de-Mars, the new Centre Hospitalier de l?Université de Montreal (CHUM), Montreal City Hall and the municipal courthouse, among others. This suspended architectural piece becomes a floating flowery meadow, with integrated stairs inscribed with the names of 21 historic Montreal women: an accessible, intimate and evocative space. The meadow itself is a huge bouquet of 21 varieties of plants that will flower in sequence, constantly evolving in memory of les Montréalaises. ?The inclined plane is important because it allows us to repair the fracture in the cityscape left by the Ville-Marie Expressway when it was built,? said Lyndsay Daudier, a member of the selection committee and the Conseil des Montréalaises, referring to the sunken east-west highway that separated Old Montreal from its downtown counterpart for decades. Recently reconfigured, the covered thoroughfare and its inclined plane will make it possible to sa...