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Even for a metro system as profuse with art as Montreal's, this superb station is something else again: practically a work of abstract sculpture itself. The whole length of the station is decorated with astonishing angular forms in vivid shades of red, purple, and green. These forms, designed by Michèle Tremblay-Gillon, stand out from the wall and arch up the wall to the ceiling and back down the opposite side; around the mezzanine, they pierce up from the platform to the ceiling of that level, and also slide up to the kiosk. These forms contrast with the walls themselves, which are of more sober dark grey concrete with diagonal ridges.
Adding to the effect of these coloured masses are the peculiar angles formed by the walls and ceilings themselves. There are virtually no parallel or perpendicular lines in this station, an echo of the angled roofs of the factories that once occupied this site.
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Natural light is brought into the mezzanine area via an auxiliary light shaft structure and reflected and broken up by this huge stainless-steel mural sculpture by Peter Gnass, which mirrors both the sunlight and the movements of passengers.
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Light also enters the (likewise) angular and brightly coloured kiosk through its clerestory windows.
When the station was built (in a vacant industrial zone which later was developed into an attractive residential area), it was built in a shallow open cut and designed in such a way that a number of light shafts could be added later, illuminating the whole length of the station. This was a mistake - in the end, the light shafts were never added, though one can see rises in the ceiling where they were supposed to go. Unfortunately, this leaves the station somewhat dark, even with its electric light.
Graffiti is another problem, as everywhere, and some of the coloured forms are occasionally marred by whitewash stains. But these problems can't destroy the architectural delights of this station, which won its architects, engineers, and artists a well-deserved prize from the Canadian Architecture Review.
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