2005

Quartier des spectacles — Montreal
: visual identity, wayfinding system, urban design, and lighting

The competition organized by the City of Montreal and the Quartier des Spectacles Partnership followed an urban planning study. The goal was, through design interventions: – to raise awareness of the existence of a non-administrative neighborhood that includes a significant number of the city’s cultural hubs, primarily related to the performing arts, – to lend credibility to this neighborhood, making it visible, understandable, and attractive, – to create a synergy between the institutions and cultural activities taking place there, and finally, – to accelerate the cumbersome process of urban development.
Our proposal revolved around two concepts: light (the neighborhood’s primarily nocturnal activities, spotlights, the stage…) and deployment (the extreme contrast in this city between the introverted winter and the extroverted summer). It seemed important to us not to view the neighborhood through its outer boundaries but rather from a central axis capable of directing the public toward the neighborhood’s various activities. But the most difficult question remained that of identity—both that of the neighborhood as a territory and that of the collection of multiple and diverse institutions that comprise it, not to mention the festival-style activities that take place throughout the summer. It was clear that the goal could not be a visual unification of the whole, but rather the creation of a language that allows each element to stand out as much as possible while making its connection to the territory perceptible. Design

team — Ruedi Baur, Jean Baudoin, Axel Steinberger, Antje Kolm, Simon Burkart