Viger Station Plaza and Hyatt Centric Forecourt

A safe, versatile, and warm place where the landscape connects old and new. The central space offers a large esplanade, a terrace, a lounge with pool, a wooded area, grassed exercise areas, and walkways open to the streets, while honouring the old station from different viewpoints and visual corridors. Corten steel insertions in the paving evoke railway tracks, and the materiality inspired by Montreal grey stone and Scottish orange brick reinforces the tribute to historical heritage.

The Viger Station project is an example of contemporary construction paying homage to its site, in an expanding Old Montreal where tall buildings sometimes overshadow existing heritage. In 2020, the large-scale new building, the Hyatt Centric hotel, designed by Provencher Roy, echoes the past through its similar placement at the corner of Notre-Dame and Saint-Hubert streets. The landscape’s aesthetic serves as a link between buildings from different centuries, while the old station, less imposing in volume, becomes the honoured backdrop.

On the Viger Station site, while the scale and bustle of railway activity once at the heart of Montreal are no more, the majestic buildings serve as reminders. The Jacques-Viger building, designed by Bruce Price and erected circa 1898, was joined by the Berri Station in 1912 to form an “L”-shaped building at the corner of Saint-Antoine and Berri streets. Surrounded by these buildings, the landscape connects old and new, through the development of a central space over underground parking, with a large pool placed on the slab rather than excavated. The project was meticulously reviewed from a regulatory standpoint, given the exceptional heritage value of the site. On the Notre-Dame Street side, the still-present viaduct recalls the extent of excavation work in the last century; this is where the Hyatt Centric hotel entrance is located. The forecourt leads to the restaurant terrace and the monumental passage to the inner courtyard offering a panoramic view of the “château.” The development of this large entranceway, with its cantilevered floor surrounded by safety barriers, was made warmer and greener by using large planting boxes to conceal the barriers. In collaboration with Studio Dikini, custom-integrated elements in the same evocative materials as the rest of the project were placed in the planers to complete the ensemble. Ambient lighting and lush vegetation perfect the experience.

Data sheet

Client

Groupe Jesta

Location

Montréal