On November 11, 2020, Ville-Marie decided to protect 19 commercial signs of heritage interest in the neighbourhood, including the Pure Milk Bottle and the famous Five Roses sign.
While this is great news for these signs, it comes too late for others that have already disappeared. Thankfully, the Montréal Signs Project (MSP), initiated by Professor Matt Soar at Concordia University, is coming to the rescue of endangered signs around the city.
The Montréal Signs Project is born
The Montréal Signs Project began in 2010 with the goal of saving commercial and civic signs of exceptional cultural and historical interest to Montrealers.The first signs included Monkland Tavern, Warshaw Supermarket, Paramount Cinema, Bens Restaurant and Monsieur Hot Dog. The collection is made up of some 30 signs from all over the city, including downtown and the Plateau, of course, but also Ahuntsic, Ville-Émard, NDG, Old Montreal, and even the Metro and the Montréal-Mirabel International Airport! Concordia University students can see them every day, exhibited at the CJ Building on the Loyola Campus.
The fruit of both research and fortuitous encounters, the collection features the signs from various businesses that have disappeared in the last decades. The MSP team researches the history of each sign, first by talking to the sign’s owner and conducting archival research. Inspection cards provide additional facts. Some of you may ask: “What’s there to say about signs?” Matt Soar’s answer: “The myriad stories behind just one sign—who commissioned it, designed it, built it, maintained it, saw it, worked under it, etc.—could fill a book.”
Local memorabilia and pieces of our heritage
Do you remember when the removal of Archambault Sign sparked citizen protests two years ago? Matt Soar says that, "if a huge sign stays up long enough, the public will grow attached to it in ways far beyond its narrow promotional purpose, most obviously as a familiar landmark.” While conducting tours of the exhibition, he has noticed that the signs "spark stories, jog memories, and elicit appreciative comments.” For Matt Soar, the signs are “a personal portal to a particular time and place in the past.” He also teaches us that while the current Archambault sign is not the original, "the idea of the sign is at least as powerful as the sign itself."
"Signs are a personal portal to a particular time and place in the past."
Matt Soar.
Beyond their memorabilia value, the signs are also the focus of Professor Soar’s academic research. His research, which led to the organization of anInternational Symposium on Signs, Brand Identity and Lettering in the Public Space called
Logo cities in 2007, and a short documentary about Montreal’s high-rise signs, won Concordia’s approval for his exhibition. He also taught an undergraduate course on signage and public lettering, and co-directed the documentary Les Enseignistes de Montréal in 2018.
His first encounter with these signs was in 2003 when he moved to Montreal. He said he was “struck by all the giant illuminated logos on so many highrises in the downtown core.” He began to reflect on heritage and commercialism, and was fascinated by the tension between these two realities, one being long-term and the other short-term. So, where does that leave our heritage signs?
A collection that captures the city’s evolution
Montréal, like most cities, is in a constant state of flux: evolving bylaws and planning regulations; the shifting identities and socioeconomic fortunes of individuals and neighbourhoods; the ebb and flow of certain stores, cafés, restaurants, cinemas, and clubs, through renovation or reinvention. All these changes are sooner or later signalled through the sudden removal or appearance of commercial and civic signs. .
MSP website
Unfortunately, the MSP cannot accept every old sign. To warrant a place in the collection, each piece must meet various criteria: Is it free? How much time does the MSP have to retrieve it? How important is the sign to local communities? How was it built and is it old and/or unique? What is its condition? Is it too big to save? The team has had to refuse entries in the past due to the sign’s poor quality or the fact that the MSP could not get permission to claim it. Sometimes local organizations are successful in protecting the signs, as in the case of the Milk Bottle and the Farine Five Roses—two battles waged with the help of Heritage Montreal.
With respect to the quality of the signs, the MSP is able to repair them if needed, thanks to the skilled work of a few professionals. “We've received some incredible support from a few folks in the Quebec sign industry over the years, most notably veteran sign designer Mr. Bill Kovacevic, and, more recently, skilled neon artist François Mignault. Both of them have a keen appreciation for the heritage value of old signs,” says Matt Soar. Most repairs consist of removing graffiti, commissioning some remedial neon work, replacing wiring, removing blemishes, adding new trim or customizing display frames.
Matt Soar's goal is to display the signs where the public will be able to enjoy them, preferably indoors because some of them would not survive another harsh winter, such as the sign Silver Dragon Mets Chinese. It's one of the most extravagant and flashy pieces in the collection, at least for us! More recently, the MSP has accepted new retailers: Steinberg supermarket, La Boite Noire video store, Rapido restaurant, Club 281, MacDoherty's Ice Cream, and MARS Comics. Once the pandemic restrictions are lifted, visitors will be able to enjoy the exhibit in the CJ Pavilion on the Loyola campus. In the meantime, you can take a virtual tour of the collection with sign designer Bill Kovacevic by clicking here.
To find out more, check out the Montréal Sign Project’s website
To watch the documentary Les enseignistes de Montréal, click here. And follow the MSP on Instagram!
All photos are fromHéritage Montréal and were taken in March 2020.
