Art & Architecture

Although centered like its neighbour Monk around an immense multi-storey volume, Verdun does not share the same theme of muted grandeur. Instead, it softens the space’s impact with lively colour and decoration.

Passengers descending on the escalators come upon a bird’s eye view of the station’s main volume, above the ticket hall area and transept.

The station uses a variety of unusual geometric forms to enliven the space. The most prominent are the bent columns that form five huge arches supporting the ceiling and road above. Other geometric features include the acute angles in the crossover and the oblique ‘giraffe-neck’ lamps.

The very high ceilings over the whole length of the platform are quite unusual. Owing to the weakness of the local bedrock (see De l’Église and Charlevoix), the whole station had to be dug cut-and-cover to a considerable depth. Remarkably, the ceiling and platforms taper towards the far end of the platform, creating a subtle forced perspective that adds to the impact of the huge room.

Another element that helps reduce the possible oppressiveness of the space is a towering skylight that sheds bright sunlight into the mezzanine. The skylight’s irregular pyramid shape emerges from the ground a short distance from the north entrance building. Unfortunately, the skylight is prone to leakage during heavy rain.

The volume’s walls are decorated with murals, giving interest and character to the lofty surfaces. The paler panels covering the lower sections of the walls are decorated with continuous, angled bands of lavender and red.

The bare concrete above is simply reeded in much of the trainroom, but in the main volume above the transept and ticket hall, the upper walls are decorated with a bas-relief pattern of geometric forms created by Antoine D. Lamarche and Claude Théberge (similar to their work at neighbouring De l’Église station). These angular forms give a subtle vibration to the grey expanses.

The lamps, sign holders, and grilles are painted bright yellow to brighten the space. In contrast, the black granite slabs of the platform benches stand out from the lighter colours.

The asymmetrical connections between the ticket hall level and the platforms are also unusual. On the Angrignon platform, staircases are located on either side of the crossover, forming a massive trapezoidal podium shape. On the Honoré-Beaugrand side, a single staircase turns back on itself, passing underneath the ticket booth and ending in a recess of the platform level behind the feet of the arches supporting the roof.

Stations near line ends, such as Verdun, usually have one platform mostly used by disembarking passengers (Angrignon, in this case) and one platform mostly used by embarking passengers (Honoré-Beaugrand). The embarking platform tends to see a relatively constant stream of passengers arriving in the station, but the disembarking platform must handle surge loads of passengers from arriving trains. At this station, the Angrignon platform’s extra flight of stairs help it handle these surge loads. The same arrangement can be seen at LaSalle station, but oddly enough, the opposite is true at Monk.

As for the entrances, the station has two headhouses, one on either side of Rue de Verdun. Both entrances lead to a landing at the top of the escalators to the ticket hall. This landing, located directly under the north headhouse, also houses the station’s concession.

The landing is connected to the north headhouse by a staircase and up escalator; these are separated by the entrance to a tunnel crossing under Rue de Verdun to reach the south headhouse. The tunnel mouth is framed by striking diagonal concrete pillars.

Both headhouses feature black-painted metal framing, with a planar space frame supporting an overhanging flat roof and glazed curtain wall façades. The interior fixtures copy the bright yellow highlights used below, while the benches combine the same black granite slabs as on the platforms with striking pyramidal supports in reeded concrete.

The north headhouse is a free-standing building in a corner of the park in front of the Verdun borough hall. On the inside, it straddles the unusual sloping tunnel that leads to the south entrance.

The red and lavender decorations continue all the way along the tunnel and culminate in a large painted shape within the south headhouse. This access stands semidetached in a row of buildings. In 2020, a technical facility was added to its roof. Happily, unlike similar additions to other stations, its façade of black glazed panels was designed to harmonize sensitively with the existing modernist architecture.