Place des Montréalaises

Place des Montréalaises transforms a section of the Ville-Marie Expressway into a democratic gathering space, reclaiming infrastructure for commemorative placemaking and long-term biodiversity. Healing a decades-old fracture between downtown and Old Montreal, the site intertwines memory and daily life while giving the city a universally accessible route between the two neighbourhoods. The landscape weaves a living tribute to 21 Montreal women, a memorial that blooms, fades and returns with the seasons. A cylindrical mirror reflecting the skyline and bearing their names invites contemplation, its extracted letters engraved onto a monumental staircase that guides visitors upward. From there, a meadow of 86 flowering perforations spreads across an inclined plane, an immense bouquet whose 21 perennial species each honour one of the women, serving as belvedere and promenade. Built over active highway lanes, metro tunnels and dense utilities, the project treats vegetation as essential infrastructure, calibrating soil volumes, rooting conditions and species zone by zone with the same precision as structural and civil systems. The result gives Montrealers a democratic gathering place that supports biodiversity and shows how a large-scale landscape can catalyze urban transition, proving that urban repair can be commemorative, sustainable and beautiful while setting a new precedent for who is recognized and honoured in civic space.