From French influence to the birth of a vernacular architecture
Between 1660 and 1760, French settlers left their mark on the Quebec landscape. Seeking at all costs to defend its strategic positions and clearly separate the city from the suburbs, the colonial administration erected numerous fortifications, such as the ramparts of Quebec City, which surround the city for nearly 5 km. Alongside these defensive works, the French developed an architecture steeped in classicism. Everything was a quest for elegance and refinement in the purest "Grand Siècle" style. While the Château Saint-Louis in Quebec City, with its elegant classical symmetry, has now disappeared, the baldachin of the church in Neuville (the most imposing piece of furniture in New France at the time) and the bell tower of the Sanctuaire de Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré, with its double drum and domes, can still be admired. Religious architecture took on great importance during this period, and some of the province's oldest buildings were religious. In Montreal, the Séminaire de Saint-Sulpice, begun in 1685, follows a palatial plan with three main buildings surrounding a courtyard of honor. The Récollets chapel in Quebec was built in 1670, with a square apse and a single nave covered by a false semi-circular vault to isolate it from the roof.
It was the climate that gradually transformed the province's architecture, giving it its own identity. This is most clearly seen in the evolution of individual housing. On arriving in Quebec, the settlers could hardly draw inspiration from the habitat of the nomadic Amerindian peoples, since they were seeking, on the contrary, to become sedentary. As a result, the first homes were built in the Breton, Norman or Occitan styles. But these early houses, built of stone or a mixture of stone and earth, with thatched roofs and dirt floors, were hardly suited to Quebec's harsh climate. From then on, settlers drew their inspiration from shipbuilding techniques, favoring wood, double partitions and the use of insulating materials (foam, rags, etc.). Floors were now made of stone, and roofs were steeply pitched to prevent snow from piling up. Climate dictated the birth of an architecture intimately linked to nature. In the late 17th and early 18th centuries, the urban and rural worlds began to diverge. While the countryside retained this wooden architecture, numerous fires prompted municipalities to pass urban planning laws and regulate construction. Wood was banned, and ashlar houses were favored. The double-sloped roof was supported by a lighter framework, which could be removed in the event of fire.
British Classicism
From the Conquest in 1760 to the mid-19th century, the English left a lasting impression on Quebec, both in terms of architectural style and urban planning. They imported the Palladian style, which was very much in vogue at the time. Inspired by the 16th-century architect Andrea Palladio, this classical style featured pediments, pilasters and other Doric and Ionic columns. In 1781, the governor of the province had an incredible villa built on the heights of the Montmorency Falls. The Manoir Montmorency bears the mark of British Palladian villas, but also that of American colonial plantation houses with its galleries and curved roof. England also had to impose itself in religious matters. To establish the power of its church, it built the astonishing Anglican Holy Trinity Cathedral in Quebec City. Its sober, symmetrical lines, rectangular plan and three naves under the roof make it an example of the colonial version of the Palladian style. The English also made many changes in urban planning. Residential neighbourhoods with single-family homes proliferated, large commercial streets linking the city to the suburbs appeared, and the city centres were transformed into institutional centres - as in Quebec City, where the cathedral and the courthouse were built around Place d'Armes. The British also built the Citadel of Québec. Nearly 100 metres high, this fortress follows a Vauban-style polygonal enclosure plan... defensive architecture or the fusion of colonial influences!
Advent of "neo" styles
In the 19th century, Quebec sought an identity, a style, without ignoring past contributions. By drawing on the sources of history and appropriating its codes, Quebec produced a sort of astonishing synthesis, with architects creating according to their whims. The neoclassical style was the first to be widely used. Inspired by Antiquity, it advocated order and rigor, and paid particular attention to interior and exterior decoration. The Bonsecours Market in Old Montreal, with its Doric portico and dome, is a fine example. The Plymouth Trinity Church in Sherbrooke, for example, features Doric columns and a portal with two columns on the façade between the wall extensions. At this time, architecture was becoming an art form and a discipline taught in art schools. Among Quebec's first great architects was the Baillairgé family, whose son Thomas designed most of the province's religious buildings between 1825 and 1845. After the neoclassical period, many other styles appeared. The Château style, with its most beautiful and famous representative: the Château Frontenac by architect Bruce Price. Turrets and battlements are a reminder of the province's history and grandeur. H. H. Richardson, on the other hand, endowed Montreal with a neo-Romanesque building featuring semicircular arches, buttresses, columns and arcades: this is Windsor Station. The ornate Second Empire style was popularized by architect Eugène-Étienne Taché, who designed theHôtel du Parlement in Quebec City. One of the great Second Empire buildings is the Shaughnessy House in Montreal, a double villa with mansard roof, arched lintel windows and wrought-iron roof ridges. Today, it houses the Canadian Centre for Architecture. In Quebec City, a purely American style also made its appearance, notably in the Faubourg Saint-Jean. The alignment of flat-roofed houses is a direct borrowing from the "boomtown" architecture that developed in American boomtowns, where building had to be done quickly and with minimum waste of space.
The 19th century was also the great century of the Church. The Church was the guarantor of Quebec's values and defended the interests of the French-speaking community. It took charge of all important social issues, such as health and education. Religious buildings must underline this power. TheSaint-Jean-Baptiste church in Quebec City, largely inspired by the Trinité church in Paris, was long considered the national monument of French Canadians. But the greatest testament to the Church's hegemony is, of course, the Basilica-Cathedral of Marie-Reine-du-Monde in Montreal. The bishop himself commissioned architect Victor Bourgeau to build it. And its location is not without irony: this mecca of the Roman Catholic Church is built right in the heart of the former British and therefore... Anglican stronghold! The bishop wanted the basilica to be similar in every respect to St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. Symbolizing a resolutely neo-Baroque style, the basilica is particularly impressive for its baldachin, which is a perfect copy of Bernini's in Rome. In rural areas, the Church is also very present, generating a kind of religious urbanism organized around the parish complex and continuing along the roads with wayside crosses, calvaries and chapels.
Between tradition and modernity
The early 20th century was to profoundly change Quebec architecture. By incorporating classical vocabulary into monumental buildings, the Beaux-Arts style made an impression. Cultural and financial institutions used it to assert their importance. Such is the case of the Sun Life Building and the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, whose monumental staircase and colonnaded portico bear witness to a certain academicism. Benedictine monk and architect Dom Paul Bellot introduced a modern Gothic style to Quebec, tending towards rationalism. He favored polychrome bricks and alternated between parabolic and polygonal arches, as atSaint-Benoît-du-Lac Abbey andSaint-Joseph's Oratory on Mont-Royal in Montreal. This classical rationalism was to be found again in buildings influenced by the French architects of the time (Perret, Garnier), to which was added the contribution of Art Deco, whose geometric forms and elegant decoration transformed the province's first skyscrapers. The Aldred building in Montreal and the Price building in Quebec City are fine examples. In the face of this surge of modernity, some tried to "resist" and imagine a regionalist style highlighting Quebec's history. Such is the case of the Manoir du Saguenay in Jonquière, which celebrates the Normandy of Jacques Cartier, the great discoverer of the province.
From the 1950s onwards, Quebec prided itself on being a progressive society, and its architecture became more functionalist. In 1967, as part of Expo 67 in Montreal, Moshe Safdie, a young architecture student, presented his graduation project: Habitat 67, a reflection on large-scale housing projects in the form of prefabricated concrete cubic modules that could be stacked and assembled in staggered rows. This rendering, reminiscent of cubism in painting, was intended as an original response to the usual monotony of standardized housing estates. At the same Expo 67, American Buckminster Fuller created the astonishing USA pavilion: a giant geodesic dome supported by a spider-like tubular structure. This weightless architecture represents the dream of a climatic envelope totally independent of the outside world. In the early 1970s, renowned architect Ieoh Ming Pei redesigned Montreal's Place Ville Marie. Its cross-shaped floor plan, innovative office tower and glass-and-aluminium curtain wall façade give the square the appearance of an American city. This vertical city is matched by Montreal's astonishing underground city. with 32 km of corridors and pedestrian passageways, this is the world's largest urban underground network. Finally, in 1976, French architect Roger Taillibert designed Montreal's new Olympic Stadium. Its elliptical shape is reminiscent of a shell. Its skeleton is made up of 34 brackets comprising 1,500 parts, assembled and glued together with cantilevers. In all, 300,000m3 of concrete and 30,000 tonnes of steel were needed to build it. What makes it special? The 1,800 m², 20-tonne removable velum, supported by a 168-metre-high tower to protect it from the elements.
From post-modernism to the architecture of tomorrow
From the 1980s onwards, Quebec entered the era of architectural post-modernism. Functionalism was rejected as too elitist, and the emphasis was placed on making buildings distinctive by borrowing from historical symbols and a strong attachment to the local context. In 1989, one of Montreal's most emblematic skyscrapers was erected: 1000 De La Gauchetière. Capped by a triangular crown, all glass, marble, granite and aluminum, it imposes its mannered geometry from its 205-metre height. In 1992, the firm Kohn-Pedersen-Fox reinvented the skyscraper with 1250 René Lévesque Ouest, playing on both textures and volumetrics, creating an astonishing rendering that changes according to light and viewpoint. Artist and architect Melvin Charney imagines "sculpture-houses" for the streets and squares of Montreal, creating a kind of landscape architecture perfectly integrated into its environment. Also in Montreal, the elegant archaeological site of Pointe-à-Callière provides a modern setting for the city's oldest past. More recent buildings include the superb Grande Bibliothèque in Montreal, with its glass exterior and light wood interior, and the 184-metre-high L'Avenue skyscraper. In Quebec City, a pharaonic project almost saw the light of day: "Le Phare de Québec", the brainchild of a real estate developer, was a densification project, i.e., a vertical district capable of accommodating tens of thousands of people. It consisted of 4 towers, one of them 250 meters high. However, the project was abandoned, possibly to make way for HUMANITI by Montreal developer COGIR Immobilier, another project that will never see the light of day. To be continued...
But in the face of these real estate follies, a different kind of architecture is being imagined... or rather, Quebec is returning to its fundamentals, to that architecture linked to nature that has been its hallmark since the 17th century. It's all about building with respect for nature and the environment. Eco-buildings are on the rise, especially as Quebec is a major producer of materials that can be used for construction (wood) or insulation (flax, hemp). In Gaspésie, the Maison ERE 132 at Jardins de Métis was a showcase for eco-construction, advocating an architecture that combines economy, environment and community. In the Lanaudière region,Val Notre-Dame Abbey is a superb example of sustainable architecture. The purity of its volumes blends perfectly with the surrounding natural environment, which is also visible from the monastic cells. And the building has been designed to minimize its energy and environmental impact (solar energy, geothermal energy, water recovery...). At Parc national du Mont-Tremblant, the La Diable Discovery Centre is an astonishingly slender and light wooden structure, also designed to minimize its impact on the environment. Sustainable architecture is possible, and Quebec wants to be one of the driving forces behind it!
