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The urban meadow rewriting the map and memory of Montreal

The Ville-Marie Expressway cut its city in two. This civic space honouring 21 women with flowers, architecture, and intention stitches it back together.

J.P. Karwacki

J.P. Karwacki

June 27, 2025- Read time: 4 min
The urban meadow rewriting the map and memory of MontrealPhotograph: Lemay – photograph Vincent Brillant

Nine years ago, the City of Montreal made a quiet announcement that signalled a major shift: a new civic space would be built to honour 21 women who helped shape the city.

Not with statues or street signs, but with something alive that could grow, change, and be experienced: The Place des Montréalaises, a sprawling inclined meadow and civic plaza that floats above the Ville-Marie Expressway, reconnecting Old Montreal to the downtown core and offering a corrective on what remembrance looks like in the city.

21 women, names engraved

“The project has different layers of appreciation at the scale of the city, the space, and the user,” explains the design team at Lemay. “We carefully developed the concept to create a dialogue with the monumental context, while offering a space of respite in the city.”

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