Art & Architecture

This attractive station was built in a large open cut adjacent to the Place des Arts cultural complex. Its stylish architecture gives a feeling of sophistication in keeping with the cultural complex above.

The central platform walls form an eye-catching zigzag layout, contrasting with the strictly rectilinear designs in much of the initial network. Most of the walls are clad in bricks glazed in light blue-grey shades spotted with darker blue in varying densities. The bricks are arranged in a pattern of light and dark similar to that seen at Atwater, one of the architects’ other stations. Much of the floor space is tiled in a coordinating shade of blue. The pillars and parapets are clad in small, sparkling white tiles, while the grilles demarcating the fare-paid zones and walkway edges are painted a contrasting maroon.

Like its busier neighbour McGill, the station has two ticket halls, one at either end, joined by two fare-free walkways above the platforms. These are supported by discreet hangers at the point of each zigzag, giving them an appearance of floating above the platforms. The twinned walkways are joined by two crossovers, but for most of their length overlook the platforms via their central opening. Overhead, transverse ceiling beams form coffers in which light fixtures are concealed. These coffers and the zigzags combine to produce interesting light and shadow effects on the walls.

The station box widens out at either end to accommodate the ticket halls. The western ticket hall is smaller, and connected by a hallway to the two De Bleury exits.

This fare-paid zone does not overlook the platforms, although the broad volume above the platforms on this end is visible from the walkways just beyond. Broad staircases lead to the wide platform ends.

The western ticket hall also houses the station’s elevators. The elevator down from the De Bleury Nord exit opens onto the rear of the ticket hall. The elevators to the platforms connect to the walkways over the platforms a short distance beyond the ticket hall. Since they are located outside the ticket hall fare-paid zone, each elevator has its own gateline on the walkway level.

The eastern ticket hall is located in a long, broad concourse that connects it with to the UQAM and Jeanne-Mance exits and with the underground city access to Place des Arts.

The parapet of the fare-paid zone, the screen walls along the platform stairwells, and the walkways over the platforms surround and define an impressive two-storey main volume over the platforms. The angled parapets give it a roughly hexagonal, bowl-like shape that might even suggest a sort of amphitheatre. In such a space, viewed from above, the comings and goings of passengers and trains can take on a theatrical, even balletic feeling.

As at McGill, in addition to the usual turnstiles, each platform is connected to the eastern concourse by way of a one-way exit. These exits, located east of the main volume, are equipped with full-height turnstile doors, the only ones located directly inside a metro station.

On the eastern wall of this concourse is the station’s main work of art, a beautiful illuminated mural of painted glass and iron by Frédéric Back. Entitled L’histoire de la musique à Montréal, it traces the development of music in Montreal from pre-colonial times and the first European concert given on the island in 1535 all the way to the jazz era and the popular and experimental music of the 1960s. It also depicts several of Quebec’s most important musicians, such as Calixa Lavallée and Dame Emma Albani. The work, sponsored by the defunct Steinberg’s supermarket chain, was the first work of art to be installed in the metro after its construction.

In 2005, a construction project to add technical facilities in the space above the Angrignon tunnel mouth included the installation of a brightly coloured decorative mural by mosaist Saskia Siebrand of the firm Mosaika Art & Design.

Each of the four entrances was originally housed in a temporary building, with the idea that they would later be integrated into the ground floor of buildings. However, all four temporary buildings remained for more than 25 years. The Jeanne-Mance exit, the only one actually on the Place des Arts campus, was rebuilt in 1992 upon the construction of the Musée d’Art Contemporain, and continues the museum building’s style. Despite being the first to be replaced, it is now the station’s only remaining freestanding headhouse.

The easternmost entrance was integrated into a new building of the UQAM sciences campus in 1998, and offers interior access to that building and the others connected to it.

The two Rue De Bleury entrances retained their temporary buildings for much longer. The tiny De Bleury Sud headhouse was demolished in 2007 to make way for a construction project, and is now integrated into the ground floor of a condominium building.

The De Bleury Nord entrance, the last holdout, was finally demolished in 2019, also for a condominium tower. Reopened in 2024, the entrance now occupies a two-storey space clad in white and blue brick. It hosts the station’s street-level elevator access as well as its latest work of art: a tall, brightly coloured aluminum mural with geometrical forms in purple, blue, and red. This work, La Réconciliation by Dominique Pétrin, is an homage to the humanist ideas that inspired Expo 67.