Le Diamant transforms the former YMCA of Québec City, a Second Empire building constructed in 1879, into a multidisciplinary centre dedicated to theatrical creation and performance. Located at the edge of Place d’Youville, in the heart of the city’s cultural district, the project combines the preservation of the historic building with the insertion of a 625-seat multifunctional theatre, a creation studio and new public spaces for Ex Machina.
The project emerged from the encounter between the geometry of the existing building and that of Place d’Youville, whose distinctive L-shaped configuration generates two separate poles of activity. Rather than treating the former YMCA as an autonomous object, the intervention extends this urban geometry through the building itself.
A single gesture organizes the project: a diagonal cut carved through the existing structure.
This incision connects the two extremities of Place d’Youville and creates a semi-public interior space that traverses the building from one side to the other. Simultaneously a public passage, a place of circulation and a luminous interstitial void, it becomes the organizing element of the project. Rising through the full height of the former YMCA, the diagonal space separates the historic building from the new theatre while allowing both entities to coexist and maintain their own identity.
Inserted between the preserved YMCA and the new theatre volume, a glazed enclosure occupies this void. Screen-printed to control solar gain, the glass acquires an opalescent quality that changes according to light conditions. Through its transparency, the activity of the institution becomes visible from the city while daylight penetrates deep into the building.
Between the preserved façades of the YMCA and the new performance spaces, this diagonal void acts as a chamber of light and breathing room. It is here that the project reveals itself most clearly: neither preservation nor replacement, but the deliberate construction of a dialogue between past and present. The project never seeks to merge old and new. Instead, it is founded upon their coexistence.
The historic stone façades of the YMCA have been restored to their original appearance. Their mansard roof has been reconstructed according to the original volume using slate tiles and tinned copper cladding. Above the theatre, the creation studio emerges behind the glazed volume. Clad in stainless steel, it recedes into the sky and completes the composition.
Along Rue des Glacis, the stage tower presents an unavoidable blind façade. Rather than concealing this condition, the project transforms it into an architectural support for memory. The concrete panels cladding the façade are photograved with a full-scale reproduction of the sports wing designed by architect Joseph-Ferdinand Peachy in 1878 during an architectural competition but never built. Through changing shadows and light, this ghost façade appears and disappears throughout the day, extending the presence of the historic YMCA beyond what was actually constructed.
The visitor enters Le Diamant from Place d’Youville through the site formerly occupied by the lobby of the Cinéma de Paris. The new entrance hall recalls the infinite reflections of the former Art Deco interior through the use of parallel black reflective surfaces on floors, walls and ceilings. Artefacts recovered from the original hall have been reinstalled, while former display cases have been transformed into contemporary digital information devices.
Beyond this dark entrance sequence, visitors arrive in the luminous heart of the project. Looking across the space, they once again glimpse Place d’Youville through the secondary entrance on Rue des Glacis. Above them, the triangular void rises through several levels. On one side, a large glass wall cuts diagonally through the former YMCA, revealing the interior of each floor through layers of transparency. On the other, the exposed concrete volume of the theatre defines the space in contrast. A monumental timber stair occupies the centre of the void and connects the public levels of the building.
At ground level, the space opens onto a restaurant installed behind the historic YMCA façade and overlooking Place d’Youville. Ascending the stair, visitors arrive at the principal foyer suspended around the void. Reclaimed timber from former interior partitions has been reinstalled, while moulded ceiling compositions and floor patterns evoke the memory of the former rooms. The historic brick partition walls, once punctuated by arched openings of different dimensions, are reinterpreted as cast-in-place concrete walls incorporating the new structural system. The foyer continues into the glazed volume overlooking the city.
From the foyer, a bridge crosses the void and leads into the theatre. Within the large concrete volume of the performance hall, a transformable scenographic apparatus reinterprets the architectural language of the YMCA facade. In front of the exposed concrete walls and technical galleries, black-stained timber panels are engraved with the rhythm and proportions of the arches found on the historic façade, creating a continuity between the exterior and interior of the building.
Above the theatre and administrative level, the creation studio occupies the uppermost volume of the project. Adjacent to it, a terrace overlooking Québec City is installed on the roof of the former YMCA.
Although resolutely contemporary in its expression, Le Diamant respects not only the existing heritage, but also its ghosts.
CREDITS
Architects:
Coarchitecture + in situ atelier d'architecture + Jacques Plante Architecte
Lead Architect:
Alain Tousignant (Coarchitecture)
Design Team:
Annie Lebel (in situ atelier d’architecture)
Marie-Chantal Croft (Coarchitecture)
Jacques Plante (Jaques Plante Architecte)
Structural Engineer:
Martin Lemyre (Tetra Tech)
Pierre Laliberté (Tetra Tech)
Mechanical & Electrical Engineer:
André Dupras, mechanical engineer (Dupras Ledoux | Ambioner)
Rémy Parent, mechanical engineer (Dupras Ledoux | Ambioner)
Hieu Throng Nguyen, electrical engineer (Dupras Ledoux | Ambioner)
Acoustics:
Jean-Marie Guérin (WSP)
Scenography:
Pierre Lemieux & Yves Bouchard (Trizart)
