Quartier des Spectacles

Quartier des Spectacles is an entertainment district located in the eastern section of Downtown Montreal. The area is currently undergoing gentrification and urban renewal that will turn it into the centre for Montreal's cultural events and festivals.

With a total area of almost a square kilometre, its boundaries are City Councillors Street, Berri Street, Sherbrooke Street and René Lévesque Boulevard, encompassing all of the district known as Montreal's Latin Quarter.

The area will be home to 30 performance halls totalling almost 28,000 seats, including the Place des Arts cultural complex, as well as international festivals, art galleries and centres for the exhibition and broadcast of alternative culture. The Quartier des spectacles hosts nearly 8,500 jobs linked to cultural activities, from education and creation to production, exhibition and broadcasting.^[1]

New facilities

New additions to the Quartier planned, underway or completed include:

• Place des festivals, a new urban square located on the "Balmoral Block" on Jeanne Mance Street, facing Place des Arts, which has become a focal point for outdoor events.^[2] The square features an automated vacuum collection.^[3]
• A cultural centre and ticket office at the corner of Saint Catherine Street and Saint Laurent Boulevard, designed by French architect Paul Andreu.^[4]
• Théâtre Telus, a 12,000-square-foot (1,100 m²) theatre, formerly the Berri Cinema.^[5]
• An expansion to the Society for Arts and Technology.^[6]
• A new cultural space over the Saint-Laurent metro station, housing LADMMI, Les Ateliers de danse moderne de Montréal.^[7]
• A new lighting plan by Axel Morgenthaler.^[8]
• Maison du festival de Jazz, occupying the former Blumenthal Building.^[9]
• Maison du développement durable, adjacent to the Théâtre du Nouveau Monde, only the second in building Canada to obtain the sustainable building certification LEED Platinum.^[10]
• Louis Bohème, a 28-storey condo tower, approved by the city despite objections from Montreal International Jazz Festival president Alain Simard.^[11]
• L'addresse Symphonique, a new house for the Montreal Symphony Orchestra.

Pre-existing facilities

Cultural facilities already in the area include:

• Place des Arts
• Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal
• Grande Bibliothèque
• Cinémathèque québécoise
• Théâtre Saint-Denis
• Salles du Gesù, Montreal's oldest theatre
• Théâtre du Nouveau Monde
• Monument National, home to the National Theatre School of Canada
• National Film Board of Canada's CineRobotheque^[12]

Demolished features

The area lost a key arts venue with the demolition of the Montreal Spectrum.^[13]

Sixty-seven mature crabapple trees were cut down in a small square, Place Albert-Duquesne.^[14]

Launch and projected investments

The first phase of the Quartier des spectacles will be ready for the 30th edition of the Montreal International Jazz Festival, according to Mayor Gérald Tremblay, who also stated that $120-million project should come in at budget and will spur development in the immediate neighbourhood, with a projected $1.9 billion in private investment.^[15]

References

External links

• "Official Web site, Quartier des spectacles". http://www.quartierdesspectacles.com. Retrieved 2008-03-27. 
• Harvie, Ronald T. (March 2006). "Montréal's Creative Core" (PDF). MONTRÉAL BEHIND THE SCENES. Tourisme Montréal. Archived from the original on 2008-04-10. http://web.archive.org/web/20080410190055/http://www.tourisme-montreal.org/Download/behind_scene_mars2006.pdf. Retrieved 2008-04-02. 
• Montrealbits.com: Quartier des Spectacles