The conceptual approach and the formal resolution
In 1878, in response to the social life that was being organized in Quebec City at the time, the Young Men Christian Association entrusted architect Peachy with the mandate to draw up the plans and specifications for the first YMCA in Quebec City, Place d'Youville. The building has stood the test of time and despite the transformations that its facades have undergone, they are rightly attributed a heritage value that calls for their conservation. On the whole site where other buildings were erected, which are to be demolished, the Diamant must now be housed.
The setting
Faced with the exiguity of the site, the program, of a remarkable density, dictates the position of the broadcasting room and the creation studio. These form the heart of the project. The architect had to set them in a case whose exterior walls integrate and extend the facades of Peachy while continuing a dialogue with Place d'Youville, Saint-Jean and des Glacis streets.
The setting in question is not only formed by the building's envelope, it encompasses all of the spaces that are grafted onto the hall and the creation studio on either side. In these spaces, a path is drawn, which links them to each other and to the city, through the views it gives.
The facades
A curtain, a glass veil and the facades inherited from the YMCA building make up the facades of Le Diamant. Limestone and glass are the dominant materials. On the Glacis side, they form a curtain whose profile responds to the broadcasting room. Its folds are spread out or piled up according to the views that are to be released. While the clear glass panels are generous in relation to the public spaces, they become opaque in relation to the stage house, except near the ground at the northwest end, when they illuminate the green room below.
The profile of the curtain meets the cornice of the Peachy façade. Behind the windows of the latter, the second floor houses the hall's foyer, while the second floor contains the commercial use, as originally designed, which promotes exchange with the street. Taking advantage of a favorable floor height, a mezzanine extends the commercial function along the curtain, rue des Glacis.
A glass veil replaces the mansard roof and is placed on the cornice of the Peachy façade. It covers the entire length of the façade to continue and form the entrance to the theater to the east. There it slopes towards it and receives the marquee and the sign of the theater, inherited from the old Cinema of Paris. It gives off a luminous wall that attracts the eye and announces the entrance. Through its transparency, it reveals the reception hall.
The term veil refers to the effect produced by the variation in transparency of the glass, which goes from opaque to clear, filtering and inflecting the light, both interior and exterior, in a differentiated way, and modulating the views. The game is played both horizontally and vertically, in connection with the interior path, which will be discussed below.
Set back from the street facades, the volumes of the upper floors are covered with the same veil, adding to the economy of the means of expression. The veil connotes here the lightness of these high perched facades, in order to lighten the scale of the dominant volumes of the project compared to its immediate neighbors. At the top of these facades, on rue Saint-Jean and rue des Glacis, the glass forms the translucent screen of solar panels that will preheat the fresh air that feeds the building's ventilation systems.
The interior path
A pathway runs through the spaces, from the lobby to the creation studio. The front doors of the theater open onto a two-story lobby that continues to the foyer. In its upper part, it is intertwined with the latter and offers a perspective from the foyer, the luminous wall, adjoining the Capitol.
From the reception area, a staircase connects all floors up to the creative studio. From the third floor on, its shaft is surrounded by a glass partition, both to restrict the communicating areas (in the sense of fire safety) and, depending on the time of day and the events, to restrict access to the floors beyond the foyer to authorized users.
The staircase allows the daily user, as well as the occasional visitor or the spectator invited to Studio 1, to walk through the vast volumes, to see what is going on. Glimpses of the square through a window, discovery of a detail that one had never noticed, the senses and the mind are solicited during the course of the journey. A plant wall, lit from the skylights of the terrace, clings to the stairs. One will concede that a good dose of oxygen is required to climb the stairs, but one will also admit that physical exercise is a healthy habit.
At its conclusion on the floor of Studio 1, the path undulates to become more playful and lead to the terrace, where it continues. Well situated in the topography of Place d'Youville, the terrace also offers more distant views, some of which are pointed out on the drawing of the overall plan. Partly vegetated, the terrace responds to the green glacis of the neighboring fortifications. Together with the high vegetated roof of the upper volume, the terrace completes the wall of the setting and offers the occupants of the neighbouring towers a civic view of this well-groomed fifth façade.
Integration
The challenge is to give the Diamant its own identity on Place d'Youville, while integrating it and welcoming the built heritage it inherits. The integration of the heritage in question here is situated in a broader perspective of interpretation and formal exchanges between the new and the old, in similarities and oppositions (of scale, materials, colors, modenature), and not in a perspective of restitution of elements that are no longer there. This would be the case if we were to restore the YMCA building, but we are building the Diamond, integrating valuable elements of the YMCA. Thus, the proposed language goes beyond the mere reference to Peachy's work. If, for example, the metaphor of the stone and glass curtain seems at once to refer to the language of the stage, the idea is first derived from an examination of the art deco triangulated patterns of the old Paris Cinema.
It is also to the neon lighting characteristic of the marquee and the sign of the old cinema, to this signalling luminosity in the landscape, that the inflected glass veil of the entrance appeals, marked by a different luminosity, interpreted, because it is transparent, as opposed to the opaque façade of the old cinema. The interior radiates and the route reaches the square. From there, multiple urban routes are printed according to the destinations. The square is then perceived as an enlarged forecourt of the Theatre. The position of the Theatre in the curved layout of Saint-Jean Street is privileged. The original designers of the marquee and sign understood this.
The foyer
The Theatre's foyer is superimposed on the first floor commercial space. These spaces are partitioned by the restored facades of the Peachy building. Brick, salvaged from the dismantling of the interior masonry walls, forms the interior lining of these walls. If technically this choice gives back to the walls of the facades their aspect (and their properties) of massive masonry, it is primarily due to the will of a simple reading, which underlines the scale and the arched shape of the openings designed by Peachy.
A wood paneling, made of boards cut from the existing wood framing elements, covers the wall of the broadcasting room and goes up, with the staircase, to the studio 1, unifying the floors.
The integration of heritage thus passes through the memory of the place, drawing elements from the architectural periods that constitute it today, consolidating the facades of the YMCA, using recovered materials.
The functional solution
From the point of view of the Théâtre Le Diamant, of its primary function, the creation, broadcasting and rehearsal spaces must be the architect's primary concern. If the foyer is too small, we will first talk about the show we saw and what it provoked in us. Conversely, if the room limits the director's imagination, the large foyer will not redeem the fault.
Although the importance of the rehearsal studio (# 2), located in the basement, is not apparent from the program, we have placed it next to a storage room, in order to safeguard its future flexibility. The partition itself could be removable from the outset. The creative studio (#1) extends above the broadcast room from the F axis wall. This is the wall that spans all floors, the side load wall from a structural point of view, the backdrop of the course from an architectural point of view. This position allows for a high foyer, which opens onto the terrace, and lateral walkways at the level of the technical walkways.
The stage house of the broadcasting room is enhanced. On the edge of the Capitol, its volume is not truncated, compared to that proposed in the preparatory studies. Grill and walkways can therefore continue. That said, honesty demands that we mention that this possibility will depend on the wind studies and the resulting snow loads on the Capitol roof below. Ultimately, the functional benefit would be to make the grill accessible from the freight elevator, which the plans do not show at this time.
The entire structure of the three acoustically key volumes, the broadcasting room, the mechanical room and studio #1, was designed to minimize the structural connections between them and to concentrate the treatment of sound transmission at key points.
Mentioned for illustrative purposes, these material concerns express our approach, which consists in thinking of the enclosure that supports the work of creators and artists who will develop their ideas and show their art there with the greatest possible freedom of action. For the time being, the programmed scenography is certainly illustrated, in a way that is coherent with the structure and the architecture. But it is a working outline, a step towards a solution in the making.
(From competitor's text)
(Unofficial automated translation)
- The concept respects the integrity of the YMCA but this is overpowered by the strength of the envelope treatment, the stone curtain;
- the concept of "Seen and Being Seen" is exploited with great discretion, the identity gesture
being far from the image of Ex Machina;
- there is no link between the curtain and the heritage masonry, between the two entities;
- the notion of curtain is admissible but its treatment in stone represents a technical feat disproportionate to the effect produced;
- the monochrome choice is surprising; respectful of the heritage context of Old Quebec, it does not contribute to the enhancement of the uniqueness of the Diamond;
- the technical and structural aspect is well developed and seems to take over the architectural party;
- the concept proposes a classic solution, rich in terms of envelope research, but poor in terms of ideological renewal.
(From jury report)
(Unofficial automated translation)
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