Art & Architecture

The first impression of this station is of a relatively plain original network station. The randomly distributed colours of the glazed wall tiling are consistent through most of the station: pale tan and grey with blue, orange, and white accents. In the centre of the platforms and behind the benches, the tiling becomes more variegated, with brown, green, black, red, and teal added.

In the platform walls within the transept, these darker colours are densest at the top and form a gradient down to the floor. These colours are a real period piece: distinctly not to modern tastes but an historic example of quintessential 1960s styling. Sadly, it has suffered in places from inept repairs that tried and failed to be consistent with the original colours.

Structurally, the deep-level trainroom, built in tunnel, is connected to the single access by two long, straight flights of stairs and escalators. Much like its neighbour Beaudry, a transept contains the crossover between the platforms, allowing passengers to see the platforms and orient themselves, but the staircases to the platforms are separate from the transept and enclosed.

The station’s high point is its impressive mural cycle commemorating the Patriotes rebellion of 1837-38. The central panel commemorates Louis-Joseph Papineau, leader of the uprising in Lower Canada (now Quebec), and occupies the wall at the end of the crossover to the Angrignon platform. The other two murals, on the tympanums between the tunnel vault and the transept ceiling, are friezes that make up a timeline of the rebellion’s events.

The murals, executed by Jean Cartier according to designs by George Juhasz, are entitled Les patriotes de 1837-38. They are among the most striking exemplars of the policy of historical, didactic art espoused by the metro’s first art director, Robert LaPalme.

The station is also enhanced by its postmodern headhouse in concrete, steel, and glass. As at the neighbouring Berri-UQAM, Beaudry, and Frontenac stations, this headhouse was constructed in 1999 to replace the original headhouse, which had been intended to be only temporary. The two exits, on either side of the building, are sheltered by canopies whose perimeters form part of a large continuous quarter-circle with one of the headhouse walls; this curve is continued and emphasized by a decorative beam that extends out from the eastern end.

The interior, containing the station’s ticket hall, is a square room illuminated by windows that extend up to form a clerestory around the whole perimeter of the ceiling, as well as by a skylight in the centre. Other surfaces are clad with a mosaic of small blue and cyan tiles.

The construction of the new headhouse was soon followed by the reclamation of a former parking lot surrounding the station. To the south is a plaza hosting a public market; to the north, an attractive square (Place Emmett-Johns) was created and embellished with a monumental sculpture in homage to Montreal’s distinctive outdoor staircases, Révolutions by Michel de Broin.