A concrete museum

Are underground parking lots boring? According to Alizé Honen-Delmar, originator of the project P_ART_KINGand recipient of the Prix du public, maybe just a bit. “It’s a way of combining two worlds: that of parking lots, which are pretty depressing, and that of art and culture,” she states. The idea is to decorate the walls of downtown underground parking facilities with murals from local emerging artists,selected according to specific criteria of equality and the representation of Montreal’s diversity. Grouped together by themes assigned to the different parking levels, the works will reproduce the exhibition walls of museums. Honen-Delmar considers P_ART_KING asa collective, participatory work of art that incorporates the opinions of citizens through surveys conducted on social media.

While driving his son home from school, Nicolas Sangaré of design studio Rainville Sangaré realized that the long, tedious landscaping projects bordering the road could impact the everyday experience of residents. His project, Repenser la sécurisation des pistes cyclables (“Rethinking the safety of bike lanes”), convinced the judges: an arrangement of modular safety embankments for pedestrian and cyclist pathways composed of steel planters containing vegetation, flowers, and trees in the summer or urban art in the winter. “At that time, there were permanent solutions integrated into the roadway, but ours could be produced and set up quickly,” said Sangaré.

This made the idea as good for the long term as for temporary thoroughfares, such as the pedestrian zones that make their appearance on Sainte-Catherine Street in the summer, for which concrete planters cannot be used.

Rainville-Sangaré studio hopes to be able to promote their idea locally. “Our philosophy is based on local collaborations between all parties: the City, the trees, the manufacturing of pots… all this can be done locally,” states the entrepreneur. Set-up can begin next spring, just in time for the arrival of good weather. “We asked that projects be realizable within the year, before the end of 2020, but we’ll see whether this is possible given the constraints of the pandemic,” concludes Lafrenaye-Lamontagne.