Architecture at the service of the arts
As Claude Provencher notes, “A successful museum is a space that invites visitors to a sensory experience that can transport them to an unexplored universe.” The architects therefore decided to create a crescendo of experiences from the basement to the fourth floor of the new pavilion. To start this experiential ascent, the designers excavated under the church’s floor to create an entrance for the pavilion and service areas (ticket office, coatroom, restrooms, and so on). Behind, five levels offer a chronological scenario, from the colonial era and the galleries for nineteenth-century art to the period of the Refus global and its heritage, as well as Inuit art. As visitors travel through time and rise physically in the building, the natural light becomes more intense, reaching a climax with the panoramic glassed-in atrium on the top floor.