The retained façade of a former commercial building on The Main maintains the continuity of the street wall.
 
PROJECT Montauk Sofa Montreal, Montreal, Quebec
ARCHITECT Cohlmeyer Architecture
PHOTOS Nanne Springer
In the summer of 2021, Montauk Sofa discreetly inaugurated its new flagship showroom on Montreal?s well-known St. Laurent Boulevard. The three-storey structure is barely noticeable among the heterogenous mix of buildings, which line what was once The Main for successive waves of European immigrants. Today, amid grocery stores, restaurants, bars, and businesses of all kinds, Montauk Sofa?s disconcertingly quiet presence conveys a timeless message, refreshingly at odds with its surroundings.
Five years in the making, the 1,200-square-metre showroom is the result of an intense collaborative effort between Montauk Sofa co-founders Tim Zyto and Danny Chartier, Cohlmeyer Architecture, and HETA landscape architect Myke Hodgins. The flagship replaces the company?s first store, opened in 1995 further up St. Laurent Boulevard. Like Montauk?s later showrooms in New York, Chicago, Vancouver and Calgary, several of which were designed with Cohlmeyer Architecture, the present commission involved the transformation of an aging structure, with the architects taking the lead in carefully uncovering an industrial backdrop and accenting it with understated contemporary interventions. Behind the façade, a new courtyard garden is an oasis of green in downtown Montreal.
 
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