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.

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 was moved to further enhance the possibilities for foot traffic.

Speaking before his death in 2020, Cobb commented: “The Esplanade revitalization has been thoughtfully conceived and brilliantly imagined. This work will greatly enhance Place Ville Marie’s contribution to the civic life of Montreal, fulfilling the promise of our original vision and thereby making me enormously happy.”

“We wanted to propose a refreshed vision for the Esplanade, one which preserved some of the natural elements from its last transformation, while restoring its original formal qualities and minerality,” Sid Lee’s Principal Jean Pelland added of its scope. “We accepted from the outset that recreating the public square was going to require some real finesse and that the primary objective was to preserve spatial continuity while multiplying opportunities to create places of socialization.”

The 150,000-square-foot total project forms part of a larger investment that developer Ivanhoé Cambridge has made in revitalizing Montreal’s public spaces from Robert-Bourassa Boulevard to Mansfield Street, and again from René-Lévesque Boulevard to Cathcart Street in the downtown area. 

Sid Lee says their approach to the Place Mille Marie site was based on the idea of continuity, preserving the fluid layout of the existing space (which plays host to the International Style Royal Bank of Canada headquarters) in a way that refreshes it in line with other recent revitalization efforts that are changing the pace and structure of civic life in the city's most heavily-trafficked area. 

The firm added finally: “The simplicity of detail makes the space easy to read. It dissolves the boundaries between the business district, social areas, and cultural areas. The renewed Esplanade thus captures the abundant dynamism of its urban environment and links life on the street to the interior of the buildings.”

The firm also collaborated with Ivanhoé Cambridge on the Projet Nouveau Centre action plan, which will include a revitalization of the historic Fairmont The Queen Elizabeth Hotel downtown. NCK Inc. and Bouthilette Parizeau (BPA) served as engineering consultants on the Plaza Ville Marie construction. Additional project images can be viewed in the gallery below.