Art & Architecture

Originally a single-line station on the orange line in the initial part of the metro network, in 1986 this station was adapted to serve as the first transfer station on the newly-created blue line. The blue line station was tunnelled under the original orange line trainroom, with an expansive set of corridors and galleries to connect the two. It is therefore Montreal’s only transfer station that was not purpose-built for that function. Unfortunately, the result is a rather confusing patchwork of awkward spaces, often poorly maintained and shabby at that.

The original trainroom, built in tunnel out from a cut-and-cover access, is a reasonable, if unspectacular, example of the unadorned architecture common to the initial north-south section of the orange line. The majority of the trainroom, built in tunnel, is clad in vertical off-white brick interspersed with thin bands of cobalt blue ceramic tiles, and paved in irregular pieces of grey and olive-coloured stone arranged in squares.

The broad volume at its south end is now partially taken up by the elevator shafts, whose installation has also somewhat obscured a row of three handsome columns on either side. The arrangement of these columns, elliptical in section and clad in stainless steel and blue ceramic, recalls the colonnades at Rosemont station, by the same architects. Both platforms feature a redundant hallway leading toward the stairs to the ticket hall, a vestige of the one-way passenger flow scheme used in the initial network but soon abandoned.

The ticket hall, overlooking the orange line platforms at the southern end of the station, is a rather cramped, crowded linear concourse linking several different accesses: the Jean-Talon Nord and Sud headhouses on the west end, and the Tour Jean-Talon entrance and the underground city link to the same building on the east end. The passageways to these accesses are separated from the fare-paid zone by metal grilles, which add to the visual clutter. A few wall sections are enhanced with square blue ceramic tiles with an interesting repeating geometrical texture.

Access to the blue line is provided by two large galleries: deep pits dug cut-and-cover on either side of the orange-line station. Each has an upper level providing access to the orange-line station, and a lower level providing access to the Snowdon platform and to stairwells leading down to the Saint-Michel platform. The levels are visually linked by openings, providing striking views from the parapets overlooking the platforms below. Overhead, the roof beams take the shape of shallow, angled arches, inspired by the Dombellotiste architectural style.¹ Both galleries are lit with skylights.

Several corridors – some of them quite long – lead from the original station to the blue line galleries. The middle of each orange-line platform is joined to one of the two galleries. The two galleries are also linked by a corridor running underneath the orange line tracks, allowing access from either gallery to both orange line platforms. Finally, another corridor, added after the construction of the blue line,² connects the foot of the ticket hall stairs on the Côte-Vertu platform with the western gallery, providing a more direct link between the station’s entrances and the blue line. All these tunnels give a rather labyrinthine effect.

The blue line platforms are stacked one on top of the other, rather than the usual side-by-side arrangement. This was done to reduce the width of the blue line trainroom so that it could be dug underneath the orange line without having to close the latter. Most of the platform area is in tunnel, though the western gallery provides a high volume rising above the Snowdon platform.

The decoration of the blue line platforms and galleries is entirely different from the orange line. much bolder and more colourful than the plain design of the original station. However, the motley result of combining the two is not always advantageous. The walls of the new section are mostly clad in dark grey blocks, while the walls above the rails are decorated with arrow motifs representing the direction of movement of the train.

One of the most striking features is the use of brightly coloured Sialex stoneware floor tiles, in shades of blue and orange to represent the connection between the two lines. The floors on the orange line level are paved in orange tiles, those on the levels of the blue line platforms in blue tiles. The overhead sign holders are also painted to match this colour code. The floors are also punctuated with motifs in the form of concentric circles or semicircles; these serve as directional indicators, marking the path toward the line corresponding to their colour.

The floor tiles are not only found in the galleries and blue-line platforms, but were also inserted into the orange-line platforms outside the hallways leading to the blue line. The floor motifs and the arrow murals mentioned above were created by the architect of the new part of the station, Gilbert Sauvé.

The station’s most prominent work of art is a huge mural of 256 panels by Judith Bricault Klein on the platform-side wall of the western gallery, towering above the Snowdon line and continuing down to the Saint-Michel level. Its train motifs in orange and blue symbolize the dynamism and movement created by the encounter of lines at this junction. The shapes and colours also harmonize with the architect’s floor tiling.

Another interesting feature is the outcroppings of the native Chazy limestone, preserved in their natural state behind the staircases connecting the Saint-Michel line to each of the galleries. This is one of the only places in the network where the surrounding bedrock has been kept on display, along with Snowdon and the REM station at Édouard-Montpetit (by coincidence, the blue line’s other two transfer stations). Unfortunately, these displays are somewhat dark and neglected,

The large floor space of the upper level of the western gallery contains office space for station staff, while the eastern gallery includes a second, unstaffed gateline providing access to the far-flung Saint-Hubert headhouse. This entrance, serving the Plaza Saint-Hubert, was added during the construction of the blue line transfer station; it occupies a small brick and concrete building.

When the station was first opened, it had two headhouses: today’s Jean-Talon Sud and Tour Jean-Talon entrances. The Tour Jean-Talon entrance, the station’s most spacious, was integrated into the ground floor of the tower when the latter was built in 1977. It is decorated in the same horizontally laid pale brick as the ticket hall and accessorized with large mirrors. The tower and its shopping mall also have a direct underground city access to the ticket hall, a curved hallway with bright, verging on loud, orange glazed brick.

The Jean-Talon Sud entrance has been completely rebuilt twice. A headhouse built during Réno-Métro 1999-2000 to replace the original temporary entrance was itself demolished in 2015 and rebuilt to accommodate an elevator. The new headhouse is a plain, rectangular building in slate-grey bricks, well-supplied with natural light.

The reconstruction brought with it a new work of art, on the wall above the stairwell: a photomontage on aluminum panels, by Yann Pocreau, entitled Correspondances. It combines plans of the station and the colours of its lines with excerpts from the first census of New France, conducted in 1666 by Intendant Jean Talon.

The Jean-Talon Nord entrance was built shortly after the station was inaugurated, in 1968-69; it was delayed out of a desire to minimize traffic disruption, then moved forward to improve safety by sparing pedestrians from the north the need to cross Rue Jean-Talon.^3, 4 The short delay was enough to lead to a change in architectural style, and the headhouse is one of the earliest Brutalist elements in the metro network. Built largely in reeded concrete, it features triangular wall sections in a sawtooth shape framing triangular windows. It has since been integrated into an apartment building, but, uniquely, much of the original building has been preserved.