A giant ring weighing more than 23,000 kilograms and 30 meters in diameter will be installed in the heart of downtown Montreal, on the Place Ville Marie esplanade, next June. The team of the landscape architect behind the project, Claude Cormier, has been working on this 5 million dollar project for nearly two years.
Posted at 2:39 p.m.
“What we often see in Montreal are temporary urban developments. But this is a permanent project. It’s here to stay, and above all to revitalize the city center, after two years of pandemic and load shedding, ”says Mr. Cormier, in an interview with The Press.
He states that the ring “fits into the emblematic axis of McGill College Avenue, where Place Ville Marie, McGill University, the former Royal Victoria Hospital and Mount Royal Park are aligned, thus revealing more than 200 years of our city’s history. “It also complements in a good way what has already been done at Place Ville Marie, where they have already invested 200 million in repair and rejuvenation work,” he notes in passing.
In December 2020, The Press revealed that the landscape architect had been commissioned by the owners of Place Ville Marie to work on this huge artistic installation project, called L’Anneau/The Ring. At the time, it was still the subject of consultations with the municipal authorities, namely the urban planning advisory committee of the borough of Ville-Marie.
Made of steel and designed by the Quebec firm Marmen, based in Trois-Rivières, the structure, 30 meters in diameter, will be suspended several meters above the ground, at the main entrance of the Esplanade of Place Ville Marie, above the “monumental staircase” built in the same place. Its installation is scheduled for next June, then the ring will be fully illuminated from September.
We really wanted to take advantage of the return from the holidays and the return to culture, in September, to mark the occasion, with the start of the illumination.
Claude Cormier, landscape architect
Worthy of “big cities”
At Ivanhoé Cambridge, the company that owns Place Ville Marie, we were delighted on Tuesday to be able to go ahead with the project. “With this masterful artistic installation, we are anchoring our presence in Quebec and making a strong gesture for the dynamism of downtown Montreal, while positioning the Esplanade as an urban meeting place worthy of the great metropolises of the world”, indicated its President and Chief Executive Officer, Nathalie Palladitcheff.
His group wants to make the ring a place of gathering and a “strong connection” with the already illuminated cross of Mount Royal. This all comes as McGill College Avenue, on which the ring will offer views, is to undergo a real makeover over the next few years, as promised by the Plante administration.
In particular, a fully pedestrianized public square should see the light of day in the long term and various urban developments will be developed there. Work on the Réseau express métropolitain (REM), however, delayed the delivery of the final project in certain sectors.
Well known in Montreal, Claude Cormier and his associates are also at the origin of multicolored balls which have been very noticed and appreciated in the Village. The installation lasted from 2011 to 2019. Beyond this project, several places in Montreal and Toronto also bear the mark of Claude Cormier.