Built in 1931 as a municipal bath house, Bain Mathieu served the working-class Sainte-Marie neighbourhood until it closed in 1990 and sat abandoned. The Société pour promouvoir les arts gigantesques took the building on at the end of the decade and rebuilt it as an event venue, keeping the original pool basin intact: the main hall is still shaped around it, sloped tile and all. That room holds 400 people standing or 235 seated cabaret-style, with a second space in the basement for roughly half that.

Concerts, dinners, dance parties, fashion shows and corporate bookings all pass through, and revenue from the rentals funds artist residencies in theatre, circus, film and design. The building was headed for demolition; it now anchors the Quartier des faubourgs as one of the few Montreal venues where the architecture does most of the work.