Surely you have happened to walk in a foreign city and come across a monument to an unknown person. As you read the sign, you discover that it is an architect or urban planner who left his mark on the city you are in.
Landscape architect and urban designer Claude Cormier is of this caliber. Through his formidable designs, he greatly contributed to forging the contemporary character of Montreal.
Everywhere in the metropolis, he left his mark. His immense talent can also be seen in other cities. In this sense, I would even say that Claude Cormier left traces of Montreal elsewhere in the country and in the world.
PHOTO IVANOH DEMERS, LA PRESSE ARCHIVES
Landscape architect Claude Cormier
The ring of Place Ville Marie, the famous ceiling of pink balls, then in the colors of the rainbow, of the Village, the sectioned fountain of Dorchester Square, all these achievements have in common that they challenge citizens. We are never indifferent to Cormier’s work.
Unlike certain creators who surround their work with an opaque intellectualism, Cormier has created public places which primarily address people’s emotions. He knew that those who walked on, under or next to his works would not form the same group.
He set out to amaze people and seduce them. And he succeeded.
This absence of snobbery meant that he was able to express his talent in very eclectic places. Those who frequented the Le Business bar in the 1980s and 1990s still remember its installation Enchanted Forest, a forest made up of real trees. At the same time, the artist Zilon (who died during the summer) also left his mark on this place. What a time anyway!
Claude Cormier was one of the urban architects who understood that it was not necessary to create a public square that was simply planted in a landscape, but that the entire landscape was entirely transformed by its presence.
And then, there is this mysterious mechanism in his approach which triggers a form of well-being and happiness, or something that looks like that. Why do we feel good when looking at a Cormier layout or design?
I have this inexplicable feeling every time I cross the ground floor of the Palais des Congrès and pass in front of its forest of pink trees, its favorite color, entitled Light nature.
Tens of thousands of Montrealers and tourists have also experienced this feeling of fulfillment while strolling under the rows of multicolored balls on Sainte-Catherine Street. After a year of reprieve, in 2018, this Cormier installation had to be dismantled.
A year later, Mayor Valérie Plante said she was “bored” of the presence of these balls which had become an international attraction. The best thing that could happen is that the City of Montreal, the SDC du Village and patrons work together to recreate this unique and spectacular concept.
We will long remember the reaction we collectively had when his Ring giant was unveiled after the difficult pandemic. God, we needed beauty, poetry, grandeur, madness… Claude Cormier was the one who gave us all of this.
We recognize the genius of creators by their ability to “solve a problem”. We have the impression that Claude Cormier has been fueled by this throughout his career. The bigger the challenge, the more spectacular the result.
In June 2019, I went to discover the development he created at Dorchester Square. This part of the park, which overlooks the Dominion Square building, was savagely mutilated several years ago with the construction of two entrances leading to an underground parking lot. In addition, the fountain he imagined risked encroaching on the tourist bus landing stage located there.
Do you know what Cormier did? He sawed his fountain in two. “Magic has appeared!” ”, he told me. These constraints served his work, they even provided a vision for his work. I understood that day who this creator really was and that the notion of freedom of expression was something profoundly elastic.
You have to hear him talk about his approach when he had the idea of The ring with his team of precious collaborators from CCxA (Sophie Beaudoin, Marc Hallé, Guillaume Paradis, Yannick Roberge). Faced with the archi-cubic aspect of Henry Cobb’s architecture, he did not let himself be intimidated. On the contrary, he had the idea of this immense circle which surprises and rebalances at the same time.
Cormier’s fame spread elsewhere. Toronto, which enjoys the presence of many of his achievements, was “his second city”. The inhabitants of the Queen City could no longer live without its fountain surrounded by dogs. As for its heart-shaped pool, it seems destined for the status of an emblematic symbol.
In this sense, we can say that thanks to Claude Cormier, the spirit of Montreal is found today elsewhere, in other cities.
A great artist is dead. I hope that we will find a way to celebrate his memory and that we will be able to give him a space in the city worthy of his contribution.
In a few years, foreign tourists will perhaps stop in front of a public square dedicated to him. They will discover that this man has breathed life into his city.