PROJECT Amphithéâtre Trois-Rivières, Trois-Rivières, Quebec
ARCHITECTS Paul Laurendeau Architect (design and project architect)

in joint venture with Beauchesne Architecture Design
TEXT Odile Hénault
PHOTOS Marc Gibert, unless otherwise noted
The fly tower?s aluminum cladding is carefully composed into a striated pattern with three shades of red.
Prologue: The Context
The city of Trois-Rivières, midway between Montreal and Quebec City, rarely makes the architectural headlines. But it did so this summer, with the opening of its new amphitheatre, an impressive construction on a unique St. Lawrence River site. Impressive because of its strong design concept but also because of the process that led to it: an open competition, rarely used anywhere in Canada of late, including in Quebec. With this recent project, Trois-Rivières comes full circle, connecting with an affinity for modern architecture that was first felt more than 50 years ago. In 1964, in a climate of effervescence around the newly created profession of urban planning, a conference was held in the city and was attended, among others, by young local architect Jean-Claude Leclerc and André Wogenscky, a lifetime collaborator

of Le Corbusier. The two became friends and Leclerc soon visited Wogenscky in Paris. Not long after his return to Trois-Rivières, he and Roger Villemure would build the Mausolée des évêques (Bishops? Mausoleum), considered to be the first manifestation of modern architecture in the c...