The Mayor of Montréal, Gérald Tremblay, is pleased to announce a nationwide ideas competition for the redesigning of the area around Champ-de-Mars metro station. The purpose of the competition is to solicit explorations and illustrations of a variety of development concepts made possible by the planned covering of the Ville-Marie expressway and the potential reconfiguration of its exit ramps.
Champ-de-Mars station, with its magnificent glassworks by renowned artist Marcelle Ferron, is one of the few landmarks remaining from the time before the construction of the Ville-Marie expressway. The immediate perimeter of the station forms a link between downtown Montréal and Old Montréal, and is one of the main pedestrian access routes to the historic district.
The competition invites entrants to submit development proposals that integrate smoothly with the existing public spaces and take into account the current and future built environment, including the impending Centre hospitalier de l’Université de Montréal. Proposals must promote citizen appropriation of the urban environment and provide a development framework that facilitates movement through the city.
The concept competition is being held on an anonymous-entry basis and is open to all design professionals, students or consortiums whose main place of business is located in Canada. It is a single-stage competition, with two submission categories, one for professionals and the other for students. The language of the competition is French. However, the conceptual approach may include a text in English.
Proposals received will be studied and evaluated by a jury on the basis of the following criteria: enhancement of the architecture and glassworks of Champ-de-Mars metro station; reinforcement of the pedestrian links and access routes leading from the station to all of the surrounding areas; and the innovative and esthetic qualities of the project as well as the atmosphere created by the planned action.
Registration is free and mandatory. Each entrant must complete the form available on the realisonsmontreal.com website, by January 15, 2010.
The jury members are:
- Melvin Charney, architect;
- Odile Decq, architect and Director of the École Spéciale
d’Architecture, Paris;
- Jacques Des Rochers, Curator of Canadian Art, Montréal Museum of Fine
Arts;
- Michel Dionne, architect, Cooper, Robertson & Partners, New York;
- Raphaël Fischler, urban planner and professor at the School of Urban
Planning, McGill University;
- Mario Masson, landscape architect and Division Manager, Service du
développement culturel, de la qualité du milieu de vie et de la
diversité ethnoculturelle, Ville de Montréal;
- Alessandra Ponte, associate professor, School of Architecture,
Université de Montréal;
- Philippe Poullaouec-Gonidec, landscape architect and holder of the
UNESCO Chair in Landscape and Environmental Design at Université de
Montréal.
