Quebec City museum’s Pierre Lassonde wing a shining beacon of light
It’s lovely to enter Quebec City from along the Grande Allée, the Plains of Abraham on the right side, stately buildings on the other. Et oui, as a matter of fact, there are a couple of churches.
The new wing of the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec (MNBAQ) opened not coincidentally on June 24, 2016. The addition, which is called the Pierre Lassonde Pavilion, was designed by Shohei Shigematsu of the firm the Office for Metropolitan Architecture after a competition that included the major names from the international world of architecture. It covers 14,900 metres of surface area and sits right on the Grande Allée, giving the museum something it hadn’t had before: a window on the main drag.
The older wing is also a beauty, albeit of a different kind — one that occupies its space over the falaise more like it was built down into the ground, rather than rising above it like its new relative.
The buildings are connected underground by the Riopelle Passageway, which has three custom-made galleries that house Jean-Paul Riopelle’s triptych Tribute to Rosa Luxemburg. My first impression was that the whole project was undertaken just to have a place to showcase this work. An exaggeration, perhaps, but it certainly looks at home there.
As names go, MNBAQ doesn’t really roll off the tongue, but the place really feels like something new, something fresh, something certainly worth a visit.
Will it be to Quebec what the Guggenheim was to Bilbao in the Basque Country in Spain, and completely change its reputation worldwide? I suspect not, but it does make for a welcome addition to a city with which I have always had an ambiguous relationship.
Does everyone from Montreal have an ambivalent attitude toward Quebec City — one that has nothing to do with Les Nordiques (RIP)?
When I was younger, I thought it was far away, though it isn’t really; cold, which in a Canadian context is preposterous, because it’s cold everywhere; very white, which it still is; and somehow in a time warp.
A bit like when on CBC they say it’s 9 a.m., 9:30 in Newfoundland. In Quebec City’s case, it’s more like instead of 2017, it’s actually 1993.
Too many men still have that kind of beard, and white ponytails abound — I saw a calèche driver who had the same haircut as his horse’s tail. Not exactly a town filled with coureurs de bois, nothing sexy about the place, nothing very hip or happening.
Of course, it is not without its charms, as millions of tourists will attest: old standbys like the Assemblée nationale and the Château Frontenac, the Plains of Abraham and Upper and Lower Town, the Old Port and the architecture, the Musée de la civilisation, the old city walls, the restaurants, and the care with which much of the place has been preserved.
Their familiarity makes a trip there a bit like having a beer at Cheers. They don’t know your name, but you sort of feel you know theirs.
I suspect that at this juncture, Quebec City could use more visitors, some attention, some tacit sign of support. The population is undoubtedly still healing from the shootings at the Islamic Cultural Centre — a singular act of barbarity that cannot be forgotten and should not be dismissed.
It is a place where historically thousands and thousands of people have arrived and integrated and made new lives.
It bears witness to what one hopes for the future, a place where the citizens of Quebec, old and new, will not allow the actions of a lunatic to define them or make them lock their doors.
That context makes this wonderful new wing of the museum even more important, a source of light and inspiration. Now the denizens of Quebec City and visitors have a new place to go that celebrates creation and beauty — a museum whose structure, textures, colours and amenities, including a rooftop sculpture garden and a very cool bar, are a treat.
The people deserve at least that.
Courage, Quebec, and bravo on a magnificent new standby.