Museum Complex

The new museum, designed by architects Edward and William S. Maxwell, with its white marble facade, tall colonnaded portico and monumental staircase, was soberly imposing. It included spacious exhibition galleries, a lecture hall, a library and studios for the art school.

A pavilion devoted to the decorative arts and design: A major asset for Montreal as a UNESCO City of Design! Stunning, provocative, elegant and playful—those are just some of the words that can be used to describe the presentation of the Museum’s decorative arts and design collection, unveiled in 2012. It showcases, as never before, the close to 900 objects—furniture, glass, silverware, textiles, ceramics and industrial design—on display.

Inaugurated on November 21, 1991, and unanimously hailed by the critics, this pavilion is home to the galleries used for major exhibitions. The funds bequeathed by John W. Tempest in 1892 and Horsley and Annie Townsend in 1955, as well as the generosity of the Museum’s Volunteer Association, were crucial over the years in building the ambitious collection housed in the Jean-Noël Desmarais Pavilion.

The Claire and Marc Bourgie Pavilion is a remarkable showcase for our country’s artistic heritage. Expanding the Museum’s total gallery space by 20%, over two thousand square metres are devoted to the exhibition of Quebec and Canadian art, with a gallery layout designed to feature some 600 works!

The Michal and Renata Hornstein Pavilion for Peace has been home to over 750 works, from Old Masters to contemporary art, since 2016. The only collection of its kind in Quebec and the second largest in Canada, it is enhanced by many outstanding loans from private collections.