A site under tension, a restrained response

The site selected by the MNBAQ, located at the current central pavilion, is both highly symbolic and deeply complex. Surrounded by strong architectural and urban landmarks, including the Gérard-Morisset and Charles-Baillairgé pavilions, Wolfe-Montcalm Avenue with its monumental roundabout, the imposing Lassonde Pavilion, and, in the background, the Plains of Abraham, the site is marked by intense visual and spatial competition. In this context, rather than adding yet another architectural object, our proposal opts for a presence that is discreet, legible, and deeply meaningful.

Rooted in the existing, opened to the landscape

The proposal for the new Espace Riopelle integrates sensitively into its built and landscaped surroundings. It is based on extending and opening the historic axis of Wolfe-Montcalm Avenue, making the site more accessible, more porous, and better connected to the pedestrian network.

To achieve this, we chose to transform and expand the existing central pavilion, anchoring the intervention in existing conditions. The glass roof is dismantled, as are the two pointed porticoes that supported it, freeing an uninterrupted passage toward the Plains of Abraham. This liberated space becomes a public forecourt, an open and welcoming transitional place, defined by glazed surfaces that create visual connections between the museum interior and the outdoor space.

The limited above-ground height of the building gives this new forecourt a human scale conducive to gathering, relaxation, and contemplation, while preserving clear views toward the Charles-Baillairgé and Gérard-Morisset pavilions.

A fluid crossroads at the heart of the museum

The museum’s internal continuity is ensured by the gentle slope of this new public space at ground level. It integrates a short, intuitive circulation path that channels movement between the new Riopelle crossroads, the main hall, and the Gérard-Morisset Pavilion, while clarifying uses and guiding visitors.

The crossroads thus becomes a true point of convergence, widely open to the hall and café, and reinforced by a light restructuring of the tunnels serving the Lassonde and Charles-Baillairgé pavilions. This new centrality improves circulation fluidity and enhances the overall legibility of the museum complex.

A place for exchange, creation, and transmission

Beyond its role as a passage, the Riopelle crossroads becomes a place of exchange and experimentation, notably through the integration of a small workshop dedicated to exploring the artist’s techniques. It also serves as the starting point for the Riopelle exhibition, which unfolds in a new lower-level gallery to the south, extending beneath the monumental staircase that also functions as seating.

The intervention aims to transform the Riopelle crossroads into more than an internal meeting space, making it a true place of intersection between paths, disciplines, and audiences, visually and symbolically open to the city and the landscape.

Between architecture, landscape, and artwork

Our proposal deliberately seeks to blur the boundaries between architecture and nature, between interior and exterior, between existing and new. The Espace Riopelle is conceived at the intersection of a building, a landscape, an artwork, and a territory.

Guided by the desire to serve the work of Jean-Paul Riopelle, our vision was to create a generous space, a place for meeting, learning, and convergence, deeply rooted in the community. A place capable of becoming, over the course of the day and through changing seasons, the centre of gravity of the MNBAQ, a living heart and a focal point of Québec’s cultural life.

An opening onto Riopelle’s imagination

Through its program and its site, the proposal sought a close symbiosis with its natural and built environment, an intervention inseparable from its context. But above all, we aimed to create an opening, a breach into a world of colour, material, and gesture, a lasting link between the people of Québec and the monumental body of work of Jean-Paul Riopelle.