Hotel Monville

Montreal is a conglomeration of cultures that have come to influence the city’s eclectic offerings and help to attract nearly 11 million visitors in 2017. Take chef Marcus Samuelsson’s latest, Marcus, inside the upcoming Four Seasons Hotel Montreal. It exemplifies the amalgamation of two worlds, says Zébulon Perron, whose namesake firm outfitted the space with French and Scandinavian references. Meanwhile, the boutique Birks Hotel honors the historic city jeweler, Maison Birks, with a gilded concept that preserves the building’s soaring 19th-century columns and original ceiling moldings. Looking ahead to 2020, the Andres Escobar-crafted Hotel Humaniti will serve up several new spaces as the first Autograph Collection hotel in Quebec.

Hotel Monville > In the shadow of the Palais des congrès convention center, the former 1870s dry goods warehouse-turned-269-room hotel, the latest from hotelier Nathaniel Fraiberger and courtesy of ACDF Architecture, first makes an arresting impression with its façade, a glass base climbing up to a grid of black and white concrete squares. Inside the triple-height lobby, wooden fins that angle inward add both texture and a sense of privacy from the street. The room is dominated by soaring concrete columns that are painted matte black on the top half and clad in white terrazzo, an organic continuation of the flooring, at the bottom. “We wanted a dialogue between materiality and to bring back the energy to the human scale,” explains CEO and lead creative partner Maxime-Alexis Frappier of locally based ACDF. That’s also the thinking behind the three Jenga-like stacked oak wood boxes, which house two F&B outlets and a balcony, while a floor-to-ceiling black and white photo montage is an homage to the city. Upon checking in, guests make their way to petite but thoughtfully laid out rooms with floor-to-ceiling windows, oak headboards, and baths done in concrete. “Everything is exposed to give the illusion of more space,” adds Frappier.

Four Seasons Hotel Montreal > When the Four Seasons comes online this spring, it will be a welcome addition to the city’s chic Golden Square Mile neighborhood. Connected to the Ogilvey department store, local firms Lemay and Sid Lee Architecture constructed a showstopping exterior that is wrapped in a gray-tinted glass curtain with a gold finish and incorporates noble materials like granite and marble. This hints at the tantalizing look inside. Owner and developer Andrew Lufti wanted something bold and surprising but also radically different, recalls Four Seasons’ vice president of design Dana Kalczak. Enter Paris firm Gilles & Boissier, which translated that brief into seductive details, including a guestroom cocktail bar installation housed in a round brass metal frame that doubles as a piece of art. “The entire design is based on providing the ultimate haven for relaxation and fun,” she says. A highlight will be Samuelsson’s namesake restaurant on the third floor. Modeled after a traditional brasserie, local firm Atelier Zébulon Perron crafted a series of spaces that combine the chef’s Scandinavian background with the city’s French influences. “We had a lot of ambitions for the space,” says founder Zébulon Perron, but the biggest challenge was “making sure the sequence [of rooms] works well and people feel comfortable.”

Four Seasons Hotel Montreal

Espace C2 > Situated atop the city’s Fairmont Queen Elizabeth Hotel is a new kind of conference space, the creativity-driven Espace C2. The standalone glass structure offers unparalleled views of Montreal’s skyline and is topped by a butterfly roof, a reference to the 1960s when the building itself was constructed. “We tried to imbed the project with the very essence of what was there,” explains Jean Pelland, partner at Montreal firm Sid Lee Architecture. A lot of the elements are flexible in nature, including retractable bleachers in the main room and modular features throughout. “The biggest challenge was the structural aspect,” he explains. “To make it stand out, we had to work through all the details.”

Espace C2