Renewed modernist Esplanade Place Ville Marie opens in Montreal

2023-04-18T14:46:00-04:00

A comprehensive overhaul of Montreal’s Esplanade Place Ville Marie by Sid Lee Architecture and Menkès Shooner Dagenais LeTourneux Architectes (MSDL) is now complete, marking the end of a $200 million revitalization project that’s brought much-needed civic life back to a busy section of the city’s downtown commercial core.

Originally constructed in 1958 and designed by I.M. Pei and Henry Cobb, who had opened their practice in New York just three years before, the site had become shopworn since its last redevelopment was completed in the 1980s.

Image: David Boyer

The new Esplanade PVM comes with improved pedestrian access, a modernized shopping mall, and reconfigured underground entrance to public transit. MSDL worked to enact new monumental staircases and a horizontal floating glass structure it says is the longest in North America. The perimeter of the plaza area is also reopened to attract circulation between the street and raised public level, and the original parking lot entrance ...

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Renewed modernist Esplanade Place Ville Marie opens in Montreal