Quebec's Beaux-Arts Expansion Design Competition

OMA's winning design
Proposal by BIG and Fugère Architectes

Quebec's Beaux-Arts is looking to expand the museum and recently held a design competition. One of the favored designs was submitted by the Danish firm BIG in partnership with Fugère Architectes, which features a sloping green roof that people can walk on. In a model it appears as a large rectangular box rising from beneath the earth's surface into the air. This innovation features large floor-to-ceiling windows with a sharp angle upwards creating the form of the roof's incline.

The winning design was created by OMA and features a design more reflective of the unity of the park, the museum's existing three buildings and the nearby landmarks in the city. This fourth building will be next to St. Dominique church and will be constructed of three blocks stacked upon one another that decrease in size and are angled to create a progression from the Parc des Champs-de-Bataille towards the city.

This competition demonstrates to architects world-wide that more and more, designs are admired for their site specificity rather than conceptual precedence.