This proposal broadens the Place so that it extends as far as the façades of the neighbouring buildings, the ground floors of which would be opened to the outside and housing cafés, restaurants and shops; this would also allow the banks to renew their image and assume a more forceful presence in the Place.

The central platform would be eliminated and the existing relief reversed, creating a shallow depression in the middle of the square to welcome public activities, e.g., a basin in summer and a skating rink in winter.

The topography of Place d’Armes here evolves into a “corporeal landscape,” suggesting a new relationship to the Maisonneuve monument, which would be deconstructed and recombined into diverse street furniture: “We wanted to bring the Place back to more human dimensions, taking a contemporary view of a historical site, which contains successive marks of the past that must not remain frozen in time.” (Le Devoir)

General traffic flow around and through the Place would be reorganized: tourist coach stops would be moved to the Ruelle des Fortifications and passengers would disembark through the ground-floor space between the old and new portions of the Bank of Montreal head office, converted into tourist facilities.

See also:

Presentation of the proposal in PDF format.

Video clip 4 and clip 8.
Comments by the designers on their respective proposals.

Further reading:

"Newsroom" section
Comments on the designers’ proposals by Emmanuelle Vieira (Le Devoir), Mario Girard (La Presse) and Sylvie Berkowicz (Créativité Montréal)