Opened in 1865 as the academic hall of the Jesuit-founded Collège Sainte-Marie, Le Gesù occupies the basement of one of downtown Montreal's most striking Baroque Revival churches, a Patrick Keely-designed building modeled on the Church of the Gesù in Rome. The venue has been a fixture of the city's cultural life ever since, hosting landmark productions from companies including the Compagnons de Saint-Laurent, the Théâtre du Nouveau Monde, and the Rideau Vert, and welcoming the first Nuit de la poésie in 1970. Classified a historic monument by the Quebec government in 1975, it underwent major renovations in 1992 that reconfigured the space into its current form: a 425-seat main amphitheatre, an intimate 83-seat second hall called the Salle d'Auteuil, two exhibition galleries, and a conference room. Today it operates as a centre de créativité, with programming that spans contemporary and classical music, theatre, and poetry.