“I can’t feel better than in a library. I still remember the feeling when I was a little girl and told my father that I had read a book. For me, it was like having experienced a great escape. »
Cécile Bourdon was 6 years old when she read Jack and the Beanstalk. Today, she is 87 and we meet her in the magnificent new Maisonneuve library, inaugurated last June after three years of work.
“I have always lived in Hochelaga-Maisonneuve. I am part of the heritage. My father was a fire chief here,” she says, pointing through the window to the old post, which is now the Maison de la culture Maisonneuve, on which you can see a mural by La Bolduc.
La Bolduc died of cancer in 1941 in the Maisonneuve library building. From 1926 to 1967, the Radium Institute occupied the Beaux-Arts style building designed 30 years earlier by the architect Louis-Joseph Cajetan Dufort to house the town hall of the Cité de Maisonneuve.
Since 1981, 4120, rue Ontario Est has had its current vocation, explains Marie-Ève Leprohon, head of the library section for the borough of Mercier–Hochelaga-Maisonneuve.
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PHOTO MARTIN CHAMBERLAND, THE PRESS
The sumptuous period staircase
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PHOTO MARTIN CHAMBERLAND, THE PRESS
The restored mosaic floor of the old town hall of the Cité de Maisonneuve
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PHOTO MARTIN CHAMBERLAND, THE PRESS
You can admire the old building from the inside.
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PHOTO MARTIN CHAMBERLAND, THE PRESS
A very enviable reading nook
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PHOTO MARTIN CHAMBERLAND, THE PRESS
The roof garden
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PHOTO MARTIN CHAMBERLAND, THE PRESS
The children’s corner
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PHOTO MARTIN CHAMBERLAND, THE PRESS
A video games room
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However, the rehabilitation and expansion works have transformed the premises and tripled its surface area. The firm EVOQ Architecture was able to magnify the architectural heritage of the library while adding two contemporary wings. Result: 230 seats, not to mention multiple rooms and even gardens on the roof.
“It’s so beautiful, Marie-Eve! “says M.me Bourdon to the tall library manager, as we walk through one of the new parts that the lady thought was “too modern” before being blown away by the light the glass walls bring.
PHOTO MARTIN CHAMBERLAND, THE PRESS
Cécile Bourdon has borrowed books from Marie Laberge, Stephen King and Ian Rankin.
When there are books, we are never alone.
Cecile Bourdon
If the public no longer accesses the interior through the main door of the building, the old entrance is enhanced. On the ground, the original mosaic floor has been restored. We also find the superb staircase, the stained glass windows and even old aldermen’s chairs.
Mme Bourdon quoted Alphone de Lamartine to describe how she felt so well surrounded by a setting rich in history. “Inanimate objects, do you have a soul that attaches itself to our soul and the strength to love? »
The power of reading
“I am an eternal student,” says Cécile Bourdon, who could not better embody how public libraries have democratized access to reading, knowledge and culture.
“In the summer, I left the Hochelaga convent and went to the library. For me books were like my friends and I couldn’t get bored […] As a teenager, I found the books that were on the index. »
The writings of Honoré de Balzac and Émile Zola were censored by the Church, recalls the one for whom books are a reassuring presence.
“A living environment”
If the architecture of the Maisonneuve library combines heritage and modernity, the same can be said of its multiple and inclusive vocation.
PHOTO MARTIN CHAMBERLAND, THE PRESS
Marie-Ève Leprohon, section head of the Maisonneuve library
Next to us, in the coffee room, the two children in the middle of playing the UNO card game demonstrate that this is certainly not just a place of passage, but a beautiful and inviting place where one wants to stay. Each room has its purpose and its atmosphere: the quiet lounge, the medialab, the video games room or even the corner for children with portholes and colored cushions.
It is a living environment. We want the people of the neighborhood to make it their own, for it to be authentic and uninhibited.
Marie-Ève Leprohon, section head of the Maisonneuve library
Marie-Ève Leprohon reminds us that some people do not have the Internet at hand, and that children share a small apartment and a computer with several brothers and sisters.
A meeting place
After the 2,700 people who participated in the open house on June 10, more than 10,000 people visited the Maisonneuve library during its first week of opening alone. “It was highly anticipated. Here, the library makes a difference in the neighborhood,” says Marie-Ève Leprohon.
The many glazed spaces allow you to see life in the street while the roof allows you to contemplate Mount Royal. They also grow herbs, fruits and vegetables that are donated to the Chic Resto Pop (which offers meals at low prices and helps people enter the job market).
“The library is there to support the community and federate initiatives,” assures Marie-Ève Leprohon, citing urban agriculture and digital literacy projects.
“It’s an inclusive place and we want to highlight the neighborhood’s community resources,” she continues. When I arrived in office, I was told how tightly woven it is in Hochelaga-Maisonneuve. Quite precisely, we want to fit into the social fabric. »
For the official opening of the library, promoter Pat Laprade was commissioned to organize an outdoor wrestling gala. This sport has always been popular in the neighborhood, but it is also a symbol. “It’s the fight for inclusion, education and the causes of everyday life,” says the author and animator whose Maisonneuve library was the first he visited when he was little.
“It’s the fight to preserve heritage, the pleasure of reading, autonomy and the imagination,” adds Marie-Ève Leprohon.
“The library is for everyone,” she believes.