Remembrance Gateway, Mount-Royal Park

As part of the orientations for the enhancement and accessibility of Mount Royal formulated by the City of Montreal and the Ministry of Culture and Communications of Quebec, the multidisciplinary team was commissioned in 2018 to design and carry out the redevelopment of the Remembrance Côte-des-Neiges intersection. The new geometry restores a level intersection that is safe and user-friendly for pedestrians and cyclists. A wide wooded median is introduced at the center of the Côte-des-Neiges road, connecting Mount-Royal’s ecosystem with the slopes of the Westmount summit.

The intersection is recognized as one of the four main entrances to the Mount Royal Heritage Site, along with the Rachel axis entrance and the Peel entrance. Following one of the key principles of Frederick Law Olmsted, the park’s designer, the new layout focuses on the experience of a slow climb from the city’s neighborhoods to the mountain peaks. The concept deploys the new section of the Mount Royal ring road along an undulating line adapted to the site’s strong topography, in a new forest environment. At the threshold, the Remembrance Côte-des-Neiges intersection is enhanced by a design celebrating the mountain’s three peaks. A triad of topographical knolls forms an evocative conceptual landscape. A meeting place and a moment of waiting before the ascent, the threshold of the three summits forms an outdoor hall, a temporary interiority in the general movement towards Beaver Lake.