LIGHTING UP OLD MONTREAL
Lighting designer Gilles Arpin of Éclairage Public has been lighting Old Montreal since 1999 under the City of Montreal’s Plan lumière initiative. His work quite literally took the historic neighbourhood out of the dark, one landmark at a time. City Hall To highlight City Hall’s importance, both as a magnificent structure and as a significant institution, Arpin established the building’s grandeur from the bottom up. With light sources grazing the surface at ground level, illumination seems to emanate from City Hall’s very roots. Then, on the upper floors, uniform lighting defines the building’s height and stateliness. Jacques-Cartier Square Unlike City Hall, Arpin used a top-down strategy to light Jacques-Cartier Square. He wanted to bring attention to the fact that the buildings and the ground are made of a similar grey stone, while also emphasizing the structures’ generally short stature. Linear LED fixtures by Lumenpulse are installed above the second floors and directed downward. They provide warmth to the façade and illuminate some of the restaurant and shop entrances below, where much of the activity on this street occurs.
Bonsecours Market
Because the Bonsecours Market is mainly seen from the Old Port, lighting was focused on its signature dome. Thin accents were placed between the arched windows, and the roofing is flooded in white. Meanwhile, a dynamic coloured backlighting can be seen through the windows, changing tints every 15 minutes.
Custom House on McGill St.
Occupying a whole block, Custom House is the most monumental structure on McGill St., where Arpin lit four more buildings. The lower floors of Custom House were constructed with granite, while the top levels were made with sandstone. To emphasize the difference, Arpin lit the lower levels in a cool white colour temperature of 4,000 K, and the upper floors in a warmer 3,000 K, for a dramatic effect. The large building also brings comfortable ambient lighting to the street, making it more pedestrian-friendly.
De la Commune St.
The main goal for de la Commune was to articulate its crescent shape homogeneously using the buildings lining the street. Lamp posts on the sidewalks serve as markers, and lanterns were installed at the junctures in the row of buildings. Meanwhile, projectors set between second-floor windows outline the path of the curved street in a warm 2,950 K light.
St-Paul St.
During winter in Old Montreal, St-Paul is the street that shields pedestrians from those frigid winds. To give the street a cosy feel, lamp posts were removed from the sidewalks to make room for more foot traffic and were replaced by fixtures that are mounted on the buildings’s façades. These accents line the corridor and make it decipherable from Berri all the way to McGill St.
The Clock Tower
Though the Clock Tower is technically part of the Old Port’s own Plan lumière, it might never have happened had it not been for Arpin’s work in Old Montreal. For decades, the Clock Tower was garishly over-lit, flattening its ornate features. To draw the eye to its verticality, Arpin grazed the tower’s surface from the bottom up, also highlighting the cornices and details along the way. At a warm glow of 3,000 K for most of the structure, and a cool 6,500 K at the pinnacle, the sight of the Tower is now comfortable up close and from afar. Arpin also designed the lighting of the entire Clock Tower Quay area, including the parking lot, the pedestrian path and the beach.