Intégral jean beaudoin
Jean Beaudoin
Christian Barré
Fabian Rendon
Viorel Indries
Montréal, Québec
Le champ des citoyens
The jury viewed this proposal for a vast, authentic civic square as a celebration of public space: a re-invention of Champ-de-Mars consistent with the institutional context of the buildings bordering its southern perimeter. The empty space allows for development of an area reserved for media and technology firms, a field of excellence in Montréal. The room afforded for citizen expression, manifest in the lighting design and a proposal for a voice-amplification structure, testifies to Montréal’s democratic traditions and projects a renewed image of them. Note the treatment of the site’s northern interface to the existing street grid through construction of a “citizens’ reflecting wall.” The proposal is the expression of an idea taken to its extreme, which need not necessarily be fully implemented in the final design. The project would also benefit from greater respect for existing components of interest, such as the métro entrance—i.e., juxtaposition rather than smothering.