Our ArchitecTours for summer 2020 will take you to the schools on Saint-Joseph Boulevard and in the Saint-Jacques district.
Located in the heart of the city's population centres, primary and secondary schools play an important role in daily life and in the city's architectural landscape (see our article on places of knowledge in Montreal).
Let's look back at the history of a typical Montreal school, the Académie des Saints-Anges, located at 1351-1371 St. Joseph Boulevard East.
Boulevard Saint-Joseph: a grand boulevard à la Parisienne
In the 19th century, several municipalities occupied the territory of the present-day Plateau-Mont-Royal: Saint-Louis-du-Mile-End to the west, Côte-Saint-Louis in the centre, De Lorimier to the east, and Saint-Jean-Baptiste to the south. While Saint-Jean-Baptiste and Côte-Saint-Louis were annexed to Montréal in 1886 and 1893 respectively, the other two municipalities remained independent until 1909-1910.
Sections of street, not connected to each other, already exist in the axis of what will become Boulevard Saint-Joseph. The most important one is the one that crosses Saint-Louis-du-Mile-End, between Saint-Laurent and Henri-Julien streets. Although the project to link all the sections had been mentioned as early as 1876, it was not until 1903 that construction began under the direction of Joseph-Émile Vanier, architect and civil engineer for the City of Saint-Louis (du-Mile-End). Vanier was inspired by the major boulevards parisiens : a tree-lined axis with a grassed median in the centre.
Opened in 1905, boulevard Saint-Joseph finally joined rue Papineau in 1911. Ville de Montréal adopted a residential and institutional zoning bylaw in 1915, which explains why there are no businesses or industries along this boulevard!
Many professionals set up their offices there, but also their homes: doctors, lawyers, notaries, dentists... To complete these nuclei of population, churches (Saint-Enfant-Jésus, Saint-Stanislas-de-Kostka, Saint-Pierre-Claver) and schools (primary, secondary and professional) also set up there.
New neighbourhood schools, including the académie des Saints-Anges.
Starting in 1900, the Académie Saint-Stanislas, on Gilford Street, welcomed children from the area. Rapidly, the large increase in population overloads the school. Plans were made to build a new school for girls.
The académie des Saints-Anges was founded shortly afterwards. The teaching of young girls is entrusted to the Sisters of Saints-Noms-de-Jésus-et-Marie, who are very active in the neighbourhood, and who are also in charge of other convents on Mont-Royal, Rachel and Marie-Anne streets. This school thus came under the jurisdiction of the Montreal Catholic Schools Commission.
Built between 1908 and 1909, the school was one of the first institutions to be established along the prestigious Boulevard Saint-Joseph. The plans were entrusted to Charles Bernier (1864-1930), who also designed other school buildings in the area, including De Lorimier School.
The architecture of the académie des Saints-Anges is typical of the classical style due to the symmetry of its ornamented façade and the slightly projecting side wings (front stall). The entrance to the school stands out in the centre with its richly ornamented stone portal.
The building is clad in brick, with stone bands framing the windows, reinforcing the horizontality of the building. The blue painted cornice contrasts with the sobriety of the school.
But the problem of overcrowding arises again at the turn of the années 1920, and a new mixed school, the Paul-Bruchési school, is built to accommodate the youngest children up to grade 4, before they are redirected to the academies.
A new vocation from the 1980s onwards
The académie des Saints-Anges closed its doors at the beginning of années 1980. It has since been converted into a housing cooperative, like other former schools on the Plateau, including the Académie Marie-Immaculée on Marie-Anne Street, built in 1915 by Charles Bernier, and the Enfant-Jésus school, also presented in the visit to Saint-Joseph Boulevard.
The academy was divided into two buildings, separated during the renovation by a common wall. The wing overlooking Boulevard Saint-Joseph, which housed the classrooms, was converted into a 27-unit housing cooperative. The building overlooking Garnier Street, which housed the sisters' convent, is now a HLM, managed by RESAC.
The académie des Saints-Anges, an emblematic school on Boulevard Saint-Joseph, was also immortalized by the author Michel Tremblay in the book with the ambiguous name Thérèse and Pierrette at the School of the Holy Angels.
ArchitecTours is a project funded under the Agreement on the cultural development of Montreal between Ville de Montréal and gouvernement du Québec.
4 comments
Wonderful idea to teach us about these treasures. Thank you for your initiative!
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!
This is the neighbourhood where I grew up and my two sisters went to St. Angels School. Michel Tremblay even wrote a book about it. Thank you for these beautiful memories in one of Montreal's largest parishes.
I had a religious aunt who cooked there. My mother's sister spent a few years there and my first outing after I was born in 1948 was to visit her. Throughout my childhood I spent several Sundays there with my parents. Another of my mother's sisters, the youngest, also taught there for a few years. My religious aunt used to receive us in the kitchen and there was always a drawer of surprises, usually homemade sweets cooked by my aunt.