Art & Architecture

Second only to Berri-UQAM among the busiest stations in the network, this handsome station is the starting point for over 7 million journeys annually. Located in the heart of downtown Montreal, it serves many shopping malls and office towers as well as the university that shares its name. It is a key component of the Underground City, an intermodal transfer station with the REM, and an exhibition space for several important works of public art.

The station is built cut-and-cover over its entire length, providing ample room for its huge traffic volumes. At the heart of the station, the platforms occupy a two-storey volume overlooked by the ticket halls and the circulation areas around them, creating an impressive, spacious effect. The columns supporting the ceiling are arranged in an elegant row along each platform, providing perspective and rhythm to the space and creating visual continuity with the areas above.

Owing to its high traffic, the station has ample passenger circulation areas on the intermediate level above the platforms. This level consists of two ticket halls at the eastern and western ends of the station, forming three transverse concourses (one at the east and two at the west) connected by walkways that run along the north and south edge of the volume above the platforms. These areas encircle the station and receive the numerous street-level and underground city entrances that converge on the station from all directions. They are also lined with several shops and services.

The western ticket hall has gatelines on both sides (only the eastern gateline is staffed), leading to two concourse areas connected by a fare-free passage south of the fare-paid zone. The larger central concourse gives underground city access to the Eaton Centre and Le 2020; two exit-only staircases from the platform also open onto this area. The western concourse, added after the station was built, leads to the McGill College, De Maisonneuve Ouest, and 705 De Maisonneuve Ouest exits, to the passage to the REM station, and to the western entrance to the Eaton Centre, located just inside that passage.

The installation of elevators brought some very unusual features to the western concourse. While the elevator to the Honoré-Beaugrand platform is fairly typically configured and built inside the turnstiles, the elevator connecting the 705 De Maisonneuve Ouest headhouse, the concourse, and the Angrignon platform is located outside the fare-paid zone. As a result, a separate small landing was installed at the foot of the elevator at platform level, with its own independent gateline leading to the platform. The new access also includes very narrow flights of auxiliary stairs from the headhouse to the ticket hall and then down to the platform gateline. Their purpose is to increase fire safety by eliminating dangerous dead ends.

At the other end of the station, the eastern concourse, serving the two Rue Union exits and the now-closed The Bay department store, is smaller but has a much larger fare-paid zone, with four separate staircases to the platforms. This zone offers an excellent view of the station’s volume and platforms.

Originally, the two ticket halls were joined by a single walkway, overlooking the platforms from the north. This wide passage also gives access to the Robert-Bourassa entrance as well as to 2001 Robert-Bourassa (Place London Life).

A second connection between the two ticket halls was added in the early 1990s during construction of the Tour KPMG. On the south side of the platforms, this narrower, sloping corridor provides access to the tower and the De Maisonneuve Est entrance on its ground floor, as well as to the Promenades Cathédrale shopping centre.

Access to the malls surrounding the station was made even easier by two one-way exits directly from the platforms, the only such accesses in the network. Though one of them (on the Angrignon platform, to 2001 Robert-Bourassa) has since been closed, the access to Centre Eaton from the tail of the Honoré-Beaugrand platform remains open.

After an interlude of several years with a green and burgundy colour scheme (then the signature colours of the Centre Eaton), in 2010 the station was returned to its original yellow and orange highlights, particularly on the parapets and the colonnade that lines each platform. The walls are largely covered with cream-coloured Italian travertine, a fine material that was chosen to emphasize the station’s prestige. Other sections of the walls are clad in vertically set brown tiles, punctuated with darker tiles that stand out slightly from the surface. The platform floors have been refinished with multicoloured earth-toned ceramic tiles; the floors on the ticket hall level are mostly in large red-brown stone paving, with the southern passage in smaller brown ceramic tiles and the western concourse and accesses dark grey.

Access to the station is provided both by the buildings connected to it by the underground city, and by the seven independent entrances mentioned above, all but one of which are incorporated into the façades of buildings.

The entrances, which open onto or near Boulevard De Maisonneuve, are distributed over the station’s length between Avenue McGill College and Rue Union. The only separate headhouse is the newest entrance, at 705 De Maisonneuve Ouest, which provides elevator access to the station.

The huge crowds that stream through this station can enjoy a number of important works of art. The most prominent is a series of five stained-glass murals by Nicholas Sollogoub, mounted above the Honoré-Beaugrand platform in the station’s volume. Entitled Montreal Scenes Circa 1830 (La vie à Montréal au XIXe siècle), these murals depict aspects of life in 19th century Montreal as part of the program of historic works installed in the original system.

Another important work of art, the earliest in the station, is a series of terra cotta murals on the entrance to the eastern part of the Centre Eaton. These works by Maurice Savoie depict graceful bunches of fruit, grain, and flowers, accompanied by imaginary animals.

Two further works of art accompanied the construction of the southern corridor and the Place de la Cathédrale. One of them, at the western end of the corridor, is a scale model of the Island of Montreal seen from above, covered with tiny, detailed, backlit buildings. Passengers have been known to spend several minutes with their noses up against the glass bricks, looking for particular buildings. The work by Les Industries perdues (Richard Purdy, Alain Cadieux, and François Hébert) is entitled To rise, we must push against the ground onto which we have fallen (in French, C’est sur le sol qu’on prend appui pour s’envoler).

Another work, at the other end of the corridor, represents the Gothic Revival forms of neighbouring Christ Church Cathedral in glass and metal, lit by a series of neon tubes flashing in sequence. Entitled Passūs, it is by Murray MacDonald.

Finally, the installation of elevators and the construction of the new headhouse were accompanied by a new 1% artwork by Mathieu Lévesque. These three painted aluminum murals, titled Vestiges, feature fine tracery in their gold and verdigris-coloured surfaces, referring to the historic architecture and opulence of the nearby Golden Square Mile. The works are located in the McGill College exit, one facing the entrance and one over the stairwell, with a third smaller element at ticket hall level near the elevator.

All in all, this station’s arrangement of spaces, its interior design, and its artwork merit an aesthetic visit even from those who don’t commute through it every day.

The REM station, opened in 2025, is located about 60 metres from the west end of the metro station’s ticket hall level, and was built in open cut under Avenue McGill College along the historic Mount Royal train tunnel. Surprisingly, it has no independent street accesses or other above-ground presence; it is accessed only from the metro station or the underground city.

From the metro station’s western concourse, a pedestrian tunnel leads to a gateline at the north end of the station, leading to a wide staircase to a landing that splits off to reach the platforms on either side of the train tunnel. Unusually, the southbound platform (platform 2) is somewhat wider than the northbound one (platform 1).

A larger ticket hall is located further south, incorporating the existing underground city link between Centre Eaton and Place Montréal Trust. This hall leads to a gateline on its south side, with a similar setup featuring a broad staircase down to a landing; in this case, passengers double back to reach the lower flights of stairs to each platform. The hall also includes the elevator to the northbound platform.

The two ticket halls are connected by a long corridor along the west side of the station; this leads to a separate fare gate giving access to the elevator to the southbound platform.

The REM station’s decor is completely separate from that of the metro station, and is quite plain. Elements such as the rectangular station box, pale grey tile floors (striped in darker in the ticket halls and corridor), platform screen doors, and linear LED light fixtures are shared with other REM stations. The station is part of the “downtown/emblematic” stylistic section of the REM, based around the colour white;¹ most of the station is clad in white enamelled metal panels whose varying widths create a certain aesthetic rhythm. The panels are horizontal on the platforms and vertical elsewhere. The stairwells to the platform feature square white ceramic tiles forming a characteristic pattern of matte and gloss, as with other REM stations; here, the pattern is inspired by the façades of downtown buildings.² Several areas throughout the station are accented with long panels presenting soft gradients from white to green or blue.