Quartier des Spectacles or Promenade des Artistes is located in Montreal Place des Arts, facing Sainte-Catherine Street.
Quartier des Spectacles is an arts and entertainment district located in the eastern section of Downtown Montreal, designed as a centre for Montreal’s cultural events and festivals.
The Quartier des spectacles is a member of the Global Cultural Districts Network. With a total area of almost one square kilometre, the Quartier is bounded by City Councillors Street to the West, Berri Street to the East, Sherbrooke Street to the North and René Lévesque Boulevard to the South, encompassing all of the district known as Montreal’s Latin Quarter. Sixty-seven mature crabapple trees were cut down in a small square, Place Albert-Duquesne.
Includes the Place des Arts cultural complex, international festivals, art galleries and various cultural exhibition and broadcast facilities. The Quartier des spectacles hosts nearly 8,500 jobs linked to cultural activities, from education and creation to production, exhibition and broadcasting.
It is home to many of Montreal’s major festivals, including the Montreal International Jazz Festival, the Francofolies and the Just for Laughs comedy fest.
Urban design features of the district include concert spaces, tiered green space and stonework, illuminated fountains, various forms of street lighting, mist machines, bike paths and illuminated walkways. [1] The central public space for the Quartier is the Place des Festivals, a new urban square located on the “Balmoral Block” on Jeanne-Mance Street, facing Place des Arts.
The latter has become a focal point for outdoor events. Features of the square include a water fountain with 235 in-ground jets, four light towers, two glass-encased restaurants, a grassy slope and granite walkways. [1] It has in and around most popular places to visit Place des Arts, Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, Grande Bibliothèque, Cinémathèque québécoise, Théâtre Saint-Denis Salles du Gesù, Montreal’s oldest theatre, Théâtre du Nouveau Monde, Monument-National, home to the National Theatre School of Canada, Club Soda, Belgo Building Édifice is a cultural centre specializing in contemporary art. Its ticket office at the corner of Saint Catherine Street and Saint Laurent Boulevard was designed by French architect Paul Andreu.
The Maison du développement durable, designed by Menkès Shooner Dagenais LeTourneux Architects and adjacent to the Théâtre du Nouveau Monde, was the second building in Canada to obtain the LEED Platinum sustainable building certification. Likely, the National Film Board of Canada is scheduled to move its headquarters to Montreal’s Quartier des spectacles, in a new building being constructed by the city of Montreal, adjacent to the Place des festivals square.
The 100th anniversary of the birth of Norman McLaren was marked by a National Film Board of Canada project entitled “McLaren Wall-to-Wall,” in which projections of short films inspired by four McLaren animated works were projected onto landmarks in the Quartier, from McLaren’s birthday on April 11 to June 1, 2014.
