The Montreal Insectarium has undergone a veritable metamorphosis, both in its architecture and in the approach adopted, which aims above all to provide visitors with sensory and emotional experiences to induce wonder, respect and the desire to value these little beasts that play a major role in the biosphere.
Visitors will be able to discover this extraordinary new museum from April 13th.
It was in 2009 that the idea of this metamorphosis germinated, says the current director of the Insectarium, Maxim Larrivee. After having obtained all the approvals under the impetus of director Anne Charpentier, the museum team began in the spring of 2012 to define the “essence and foundation” of its new version with the Living Lab. For the design process, we adopted a fairly new approach at the time: the co-design (or collaborative design), which includes the participation of some twenty creators and architects from all over the world, but also employees of the establishment and ordinary citizens.
From this work then emerges the outline of a new museum which would transform the attitude of the visitor towards insects, explains Mr. Larrivee. The team also agrees that “this reframing of the visitor’s perception is done not by a simple presentation of didactic information on insects, but by sensory and emotional stimuli focused on biophilia”, this range of emotions aroused by the beauty, colors and shapes of nature, he explains.
To carry out the project, Space for Life, which includes the Montreal Insectarium, launched an international architectural competition in February 2014. A jury of personalities from the world of architecture, design, sustainable development and biophilia (including Stephen Kellert, a great pioneer of the concept) finally selects the Berlin team of Kuehn Malvezzi and the Montreal firm Pelletier de Fontenay.
First and foremost insects
The founding idea of the design of this new insectarium was not that of a building in which we insert exhibitions, but rather the life of the insects themselves, underlined the German architect Wilfried Kuehn, present at the conference. Tuesday press release.
Indeed, the architecture is quickly forgotten in favor of these creatures with varied and fabulous shapes, colors and skills. Visitors are more absorbed by their multisensory encounter with these little creatures, which occupy a large place in our environment, than by the design of the place itself.
Inspired by various habitats, the architectural gesture is more noticeable inside. Upon arrival, the visitor takes a long winding corridor, plunged into darkness, which leads to an underground cave. A descent “designed to destabilize the visitor and for him to evacuate the thoughts that had been inhabiting him until then, so that he truly enters the world of insects”, underlines Mr. Larrivee.
The cave has six alcoves that are intended to resemble the chambers of a nest of social insects and that aim to propel the visitor to “the spatio-sensory scale of insects”. Each of these alcoves allows the visitor to feel the world in their own way. In the first room, a screen shows us that the vision of insects is not as precise as ours, but that it captures movements very well. In a second, we weave between twigs of grass like those who find their way around this miniature forest using their legs and antennae. In yet another, the vibrations of the ground remind us that these movements serve as a mode of communication for several species. In another, we walk on a ground covered with flowers whose pollen reflects ultraviolet rays which attract pollinators.
After completing this route, the visitor is invited to have a one-on-one with living insects – porthole grasshoppers from Malaysia, orchid mantises from Asia, tiare stick insects from Australia – which are found in vivariums all around.
After these intimate encounters, we enter the dome, a large room with a cathedral ceiling whose walls are covered with 72 showcases displaying 2,500 stuffed specimens belonging to more than 1,500 species. The top row dazzles with the diversity of colors and shapes of insects it features. The bottom row presents 36 biological adaptations, such as mimicry and camouflage, which explain how insects managed to become the most diverse organisms in the living world.
“In this place of meditation, the arrangement of the specimens aims to arouse biophilic emotions, induced by the beauty, colors, shapes and diversity of insects,” says Mr. Larrivee.
Butterflies, stick insects and phylia
We then enter the Grand Vivarium, which, like the Botanical Garden during the event Butterflies on the loose, hosts Lepidoptera that hover where they please. But other insects — two species of small beetles, stick insects, phylia, ghost mantises and a colony of Atta leafcutter ants — also roam free alongside them. “There were 75 species of tropical butterflies during the season of Butterflies on the loose. As the vivarium will be open all year, we should now reach more than 150 species during an annual cycle. The assembly of butterflies will evolve during the year. In addition, we now have two chambers with controlled conditions that favor the emergence of more fragile species,” explains Michel St-Germain, Head of Collections at the Montreal Insectarium.
The walls of this vivarium are transparent and reveal all the activities that contribute to maintaining the life of the insects. In particular, you can observe the breeding and emergence areas of the butterflies as well as the greenhouses for the production of the plants that inhabit this ecosystem.
Leaving the building, the public will walk through a garden designed to attract our native pollinating insects. “Transformed by their experience, visitors will see this space designed to protect biodiversity from a different perspective. This is what Mr. Larrivee hopes.