Art & Architecture

This was one of the showcase stations at the time the original network was opened, showing off both the metro’s architectural prowess and its signature integration of artwork.

The architects had to contend with spatial constraints that required a fairly narrow station box and a shallow excavation, providing limited height for the station’s levels. They were able to work within these limits to create a bright, airy space.

A distinctive feature of this station is the way in which its structural system is left clearly visible. The station is built in a rectangular, cut-and-cover volume, with the ticket hall level built on a mezzanine suspended in the middle of the space. It is borne aloft by a series of exposed concrete pillars and beams, fastened to the ceilings and floors by massive painted metal hanger assemblies. The exposed structural armature lends a unique interest to the space.

To enhance its “floating” quality, the mezzanine only contacts the walls of the station box at its ends, where transverse bridges link it to the station’s entrances and underground city connections, and at small landings that lead to the stairs to the platforms.

Although each pair of lozenge-shaped pillars is attached to one of the points of the zigzag-shaped ceiling coffers, the roof is actually supported by the outside walls;¹ the pillars that do not support the mezzanine are simply decorative, intended to provide architectural continuity.² The ceiling’s successive highs and lows were designed to avoid any feeling of pressure from the relatively low ceiling.²

Each platform has four flights of stairs to the mezzanine, arranged in two triangular masses; the two outermost flights on each platform are paired with escalators. Outside the central areas of the platforms, ample seating is provided in the bays between the pillars.

But the station’s most recognizable feature is of course its artwork: 37 circles in brightly coloured ceramic tiles arranged throughout the upper level of the station. These circles were created by Jean-Paul Mousseau, while the custom tiles were produced by ceramist Claude Vermette, with brilliant, lustrous glazes in the circles on the wall and a more matte non-skid finish for those on the floor.

All the circles are identical in size and shape, except for six huge ones, 3.6 metres across: four embedded in the floor of the mezzanine, and one at the heart of each platform, on the wall framed by the central staircases, facing each other. The carefully chosen colours and positions of the circles create a rhythm along the passenger’s path through the station. This was one of the few artworks integrated into the original architecture of an initial network station, setting the tone for the future extensions.

There were originally 54 circles. The rest were originally in the corridor to the former Peel Est exit; see Trivia below. Four of these circles are now behind pillars at the top of the staircases to the platforms, and two others are in the new Peel Est exit. Others have unfortunately disappeared from public view and may have been lost.

Jean-Paul Mousseau collaborated with the architects on the rest of the station’s decor,² and the result was a uniformly pale, luminous colour scheme that sets off the brightly coloured artworks. More noticeably, echoing the artworks, circles pervade the whole station: circular tiles on the floor and on the walls, circles in bright single colours on light panels framing the advertisements on the platforms, circles marked in the granite of the Peel Est entrance. Even the ventilation grilles on the technical facility at the end of one platform are circular!

This station’s four entrances have all been integrated into the ground floors of buildings, and as a result share the architecture of those buildings. For example, the Peel Est exit in the Cours Mont-Royal building uses more classic materials, whereas the Peel Ouest building shares the modern curtain wall of the steel-and-glass 2000 Peel building.

The stairs to the Peel Est exit are located next to the station’s connection to the main segment of the underground city, via the Cours Mont-Royal shopping centre; another segment to the north links to the bottom of the stairs up to the Metcalfe exit.

Long tunnels connect the station to the Stanley and Metcalfe entrances. The tunnel to the Stanley entrance contains a number of shops and services, while the hallway to the Metcalfe entrance has the largest collection of Mousseau’s circles, the perfect place to enjoy their vibrant colours and subtle rhythm.