Sure, there are frozen lakes and hibernating bears. True, everything seems to be “sleeping” under a blanket of snow. But actually, the Canadian winter is a dynamic time for Mother Nature. Seeking to myth-bust those traditional notions, and to encourage people to interact with winter in ways romantic, poignant and powerful, is Québec City, QC architect Pierre Thibault. Take his “Winter Gardens” installation of 2003. It transformed a nature reserve 135 km (84 mi) north of the city into an extraordinary—if temporary—art experience.
Blue blocks of ice, lit from within, appeared to march across a frozen lake in the Parc de Conservation des Grands-Jardins. The architect also cut monolithic slabs, representing icebergs, from the ice and erected them on the lake. On each of two nights, 50 fellow art lovers added 2,000 gently flickering candles to the scene, set up in a pre-arranged pattern. Capturing the breeze and turning it into music: 750 flutes with rotating heads set up on a grid across the lake surface. One night, Thibault welcomed campers into 50 polyester-domed tents, spaced precisely 20 m (65 ft) apart in a straight line connecting two lakes. Using the flashlights provided, campers turned their shelters into a row of “lanterns” glowing in the winter landscape.
“I want to make an architecture of accident and surprise and changing experience,” Thibault said in a Globe and Mail interview. That philosophy extends to his other award-winning work, including museums, private homes, performing arts venues, Aeterna Laboratories and the handsomely minimalist—and very organic—Cistercian Abbey of Saint-Jean de Matha, dubbed “a monastery for the third millennium.”
Thibault is currently lending his ingenuity to the redevelopment of a heritage site called La Ferme, in Baie-Saint-Paul, located in Le Massif, QC, a ski area that’s a 75-minute drive from Québec City. The project encompasses a hotel, rail station, performance hall and market, due to open in the fall of 2009.
“This site is shaped by natural forces that draw the eye toward an almost infinite succession of horizons,” says the master. His promise, as ever, is to create “uncluttered volumes and versatile, surprising spaces.”
www.pthibault.com www.lemassif.com