The facility addresses Elgin Street with a corner entrance, flanked by a French-language bookshop and boutique, and an already-popular bistro
PROJECT Place des Arts, Greater Sudbury, Ontario
ARCHITECTS Moriyama & Teshima Architects in joint venture with Bélanger Salach Architecture
TEXT Terrance Galvin
PHOTOS Tom Arban
Franco-Ontarian heritage spans over 400 years. When the CPR transnational railway arrived in Greater Sudbury (Grand Sudbury in French) in 1883, a large number of French speakers from Quebec moved to the area to work in agriculture, mining, and forestry. By 1911, Francophones represented 35 percent of the area?s population, and they remain 25 percent of Sudbury?s residents. The impact of la Francophonie is reflected in the city?s institutions, including the Jesuit Collège du Sacré-Coeur, a French-language educational institute established in 1913 that led to the creation of the University of Sudbury in 1957. Over time, generations of Francophones growing up in Sudbury ever more strongly embraced their uniquely French culture. In the 1970s, while nationalism was surging in Quebec, Grand Sudbury was the epicentre of its own Francophone ?serene revolution,? including the ?Nouvel-Ontario? movement, a collective of young artists which fought?and succeeded?in forging a distinctive Franco-Ontarian culture and identity. Those cultural and historical roots are still bearing fruit today, most recently made visible in the lyrical and urbane Place des Arts (PdA), w...