PROGRAM : Landscape Masterplan LOCATION : East Littoral, Montmorency Falls SURFACE AREA : 2,7 Km of highway COMPETITION PROMOTER : City of Quebec
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A BACKBONE LIKE A VEGETABLE TRACERY
The overall rmodernisation plan aims to reconcile the site’s natural components (The Montmorency Falls, the St Lawrence River, Coast Lake) with its humani elements (parking,Félix Leclerc motorway, Orleans Island Bridge, Montmorency Area). The project consists in grafting a green park onto the linear development above the Félix Leclerc motorway. This new backbone is a long tracery pattern worked from criss-cross of roads of the city network. Situated along the side of the St Lawrence River, it is connected to the existing roads, crosses the site sensuously from west to east and connects all its component parts.
A MOTORWAY BETWEEN TWO SCREENS OF WATER
This panoramic park recreates the strong links with the river by covering and incorporating the visual and physical border that the motorway represents. A new majestic walk is revealed to the visitors and to the local populations whether they are walkers, cyclists, skiers or skaters. The continuity and the functionality of the road network are thus magnified. The Félix Leclerc motorway becomes an aquatic tunnel bordered by two screens of water falling from the park’s raised cornices. Like a bridal veil, two long waterfalls emphasize poetically the meeting place between river and cliff, between Nature and Man.
MULTIFUNCTION AND INTERMODE IN ORDER TO OPEN PERSPECTIVES
The Montmorency Falls, the Coast and Mill Lake, the St Lawrence River, the Montmorency Area are all connected by this panoramic park that concentrates all currents. Inside the green tracery and under the inter-modal level that greets all kinds of sight-seers, there is a multifunctional platform that integrates along its side the new tourist and commercial attractions of the site. The bottom of the waterfall is visually clear and gives a new life by the effects of this landscaping. Indeed all car parks, restaurants, shops, tourist stations and landing stages are integrated in the thickness of the deck that supports the park. The landscape is thus restructured and breathes again.
