The Jean-Noel Desmarais Pavilion of the Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal / photo Jean Gagnon
On Monday, the Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal moved forward into the next phase of its ongoing expansion plan, launching an architectural competition for a building to be constructed on Bishop Street south of the Jean-Noel Desmarais Pavilion.
The new Michal and Renata Hornstein Pavilion is due to house a collection of 75 old master paintings donated to the MBAM by the titular patrons in May.
A release from the museum states that the building is to be four stories high, offering 34,000 square feet of exhibition and storage space, with an entrance on Bishop Street and a bridge to connect it to the Desmarais pavilion.
The building is estimated to cost $25-million, the CBC reported. The Quebec government has already pledged $18.5 million towards the project on the occasion of the celebration of the 375th anniversary of Montreal. (The anniversary coincides with the planned completion date of the building in 2017.)
The decision to launch a new pavilion comes on the heels of another building project the MBAM recently completed: the Claire and Marc Bourgie Pavilion, which opened last fall.
The new Hornstein pavilion “will make it possible to display the museum’s international collections, unique in Quebec and among only a few in Canada, as well as the Old Masters section that will be greatly enriched by the Hornstein donation,” said MBAM director Nathalie Bondil in the museum’s release. “It will also house the recent donation of the late Ben Weider’s Napoleonic collection as well as the museum’s works of modern art from Rodin to Picasso that are so popular with our public.”
Starting today, the museum says, a call for applications open to all architects in Quebec with an office in Montreal will be available on the museum’s website. Three finalists will be announced in February 2013, with the winner to be announced in April 2013.
