Team: Dino Barbarese, Vladimir Topouzanov,  Sophie Trépanier-Laplante, Anna Zakharova, Christopher Dubé, Flavia Socol, Julien Deneault, Marc Pape 

Enhancing the site’s existing structures underlies the concept. The first feature that catches the eye is the 1912 fire hall’s tower, designed by G.E. Tanguay, standing tall as the theatre’s visual beacon. At its base, a set of wooden doors, originally for firetrucks, now leads to the theatre. An opening between Dalhousie and Bell streets cuts through the conserved buildings. This is the foyer, which has two entrances: one for the public, on Dalhousie Street, and one on Bell Street for children, near where the buses drop them off. To mark the space’s entrance and new use, one of the wooden doors is doubled with a blue glass door. Once over the threshold, the floor will pick up the blue, as if the site were still part of the river. In the middle of the foyer, an open staircase leads toward the theatre, reading room and multipurpose room. While climbing the stairs, the tower is visible through a skylight high above.

On the second floor of the former fire hall, the reading room benefits from its tall windows. On the third, the dormers that punctuate the west side of the mansard roof provide borrowed light to the foyer of the multipurpose room. A small triangular terrace serves the theatre’s offices and open up river views.

The moods evoked by the shapes and colors of the interior spaces will create a playful path for children while also making visual connections with the old fire house. Thus, the grey stone of the ground floor corresponds to the mirror-polished stainless-steel paneling, which reflects the wood paneling of the auditorium and the people who climb the stairs. The orange brick of the second floor is recalled by the metallic copper color, while the golden metallic color and wood paneling of the multipurpose room’s foyer echoes the wood of the mansard.

Out of respect, the stage house is set back from the fire hall façade on Dalhousie Street. It will open up the view of the latter from the south and be connected to it by a staircase installed at an oblique angle. This staircase replaces the fiberglass trompe-l’oeil structure added in 1996 by Plante & Julien, a pastiche of the fire hall façade. The addition is clad in four shades of grey glass, becoming translucent and then transparent with the infection created by the oblique layout. The glass panels borrow the language of the grey stone façades of Vieux-Québec and the neighboring museum, though using a mega playful scale. Their horizontal lines follow those of the 1912 façade. The use of shades of grey reflects a desire to enhance the expressiveness of the Tanguay façade rather than compete with it. Large openings are cut out in the opaque granite façade on Bell.

The plaza created by the new volume’s setback will be the site of a new artwork. The stage spills out into the street.