Art & Architecture

The first remarkable feature noticed at this handsome and sober station is that its main entrance is integrated into the natural slope of the mountain. This discretion lets the station melt gracefully into the beautiful wooded landscape around it, crowned by the Université de Montréal buildings.

This broad, glazed entrance and its short staircase lead to the ticket hall, overlooking the volume above the platforms and facing a wide clerestory window that illuminates the space. The central area of the station is constructed with strong angles and dramatic lighting, giving a range of interesting perspectives and aspects. Surfaces throughout the station, including the trainroom built in open cut, are soberly clad in terra cotta blocks and flat or ridged concrete. The trainroom and ticket hall feature light fixtures with unique, bracket-shaped yellow housings.

There are two other accesses to the station. One of them is situated uphill from the main entrance, behind the ticket hall; it is reached by a staircase up to a hallway that passes a dramatic point of view onto the main volume below. This access exits directly in front of the Tunnel de la Montagne (formerly La Rampe), a tunnel with escalators leading up to the main campus of the university further up the hill, with headhouses in front of the main building as well as interior access to the university’s underground city network.

(Renovations in the 2010s added a direct indoor access between the metro and the tunnel, but it has been closed since because the air currents caused by the metro’s “piston effect” created problems for the tunnel’s operation. For now, users have to pass outside briefly to get between the station and the tunnel.)

A third access to the metro is found at Avenue Lacombe and Avenue Louis-Colin, at the western end of the station. It is linked to the ticket hall by a very long walkway, a unique and visually striking feature, that passes through and along the length of the trainroom directly above the tracks, supported on diagonally placed beams. The headhouse, a small triangular building, is constructed of rough stone in harmony with the neighbouring buildings.

Finally, two attractive terra cotta murals by architect André Léonard, similar to the ones he created for Henri-Bourassa, decorate the station. The first one, representing the four classical elements, dominates the main volume; it is located on the wall under the clerestory windows and over the platforms, facing the ticket hall.

The second one, somewhat smaller and more discreet, is at the end of the long walkway leading to the Louis-Colin exit and serves as a directional guide.

The combination of dramatic, angular contemporary forms, elegant materials, and respectful integration into the surrounding environment is entirely fitting for a gateway to a place of higher learning.