Montreal-based firm Pelletier de Fontenay has designed a new entrance pavilion at the Montreal Botanical Garden. This project comes alongside the revitalization of the Garden’s insectarium and the entrance to the surrounding Parc Maisonneuve. 

The pavilion was developed in collaboration with a team of landscape architects from the City of Montreal’s Urban Parks Division and the firm Lemay. The main challenge of the project was to better orient and guide visitors towards the insectarium and botanical garden, while respecting the cultural heritage of the site. 

The firm drew inspiration from 18th- and 19th-century English gardens, specifically the romantic image of the overgrown ruin and how it reflects a close relationship between the built and natural world. The pavilion, purposefully limited in scale, will progressively blend into its surroundings, becoming an infrastructure for greenery, insects, birds, and small animals.

The pavilion’s triangular plan was designed to both create a focal point in the landscape and manage the flow of traffic. Visitors enter on one side and exit through the other in a natural pathway towards the entrance to the botanical gardens and the insectarium. At the base of the structure, the triangle’s corners form the pillars which support a wide, square-shaped roof. This combination of shapes allows for generous roof overhangs, which offer protection from the sun and weather while also creating space for congregating. 

In addition to the roof, the pavilion also functions to eliminate the boundary between inside and out through large sliding doors, which can remain open during the warmer months. The ability of the building to open to the landscape was fundamental to the firm’s approach to the project. 

The pavilion is covered by a skin made entirely of expanded Corten steel, except for the vertical interior faces, where the steel is left smooth. This uniform materiality gives the structure a more monolithic, enigmatic, and archaic representation. It seems as though the pavilion pre-dates its surroundings, worn and weathered with time. 

The Corten steel façade also provides an ideal support surface for vining plants. As the steel cladding gradually oxidizes and the structure is populated by plants, the pavilion’s appearance will transform over time. It will evoke a ruin slowly enveloped by nature.