Montreal is home to a great number of museums, many of which are unique in their fields. If you’re looking to spend a few days kicking around these cultural attractions, here are the top five (plus one honorable mention) you should definitely check out.
Pointe-à-Calliere
350 Place Royale (Old Montreal)
Pointe-à-Callière Museum (photo by Flickr user mechanikat)
For those visiting Montreal for the first time, the Pointe-à-Calliere Museum is a great way to get to know more about the history of Montreal. The permanent collection at this archaeological museum takes visitors to the “birthplace” of Montreal, where you can see various layers of the building, the ground it stands upon, and various treasures that have been unearthed over the years. The tour spans six centuries, and leads you underground to the old Custom House, where the gift shop is located. A live archaeological site, Pointe-à-Calliere is definitely one of the most unique museums in the city.
Special exhibits: On now until January 3, 2010, “Pirates, Privateers and Freebooters”
McCord Museum
690 Sherbrooke West (Downtown)
For more Canadian history, check out the McCord Museum, just outside the gates of McGill University. Offering educational and cultural activities, colloquia and a variety of exhibitions, this museum is consistently ranked in the top three out of all of Montreal’s museums. Their permanent exhibition, “Simply Montreal: Glimpses of a Unique City” highlights the best of our city, with everything from First Nations artifacts to beautiful photographs and assorted antiques. You can even experience the thrill of a Montreal snowstorm, no matter what time of year!
If the entry fee seems a bit too steep, summertime is a great time to experience some of the McCord’s archival holdings. Every year the museum mounts an outdoor exhibition of photos from their collection on nearby McGill College Avenue. This year’s exhibition is entitled “1 Image 2 Eyes 3D,” and explores the invention of stereoscopic photography. Twelve scenes of historical Montreal and Quebec are available in 3D, totally free of charge, until October 18.
Biodôme
4777 Pierre De Coubertin (East End)
Rockhopper penguin (photo by Ken Fallu, image coutesy of Montreal Biodôme)
The Montreal Biodôme is actually an indoor zoo, located within the Olympic Stadium complex in the east end of Montreal. Inside, you’ll find animals from the St. Lawrence marine ecosystem and Laurentian forest (i.e. in and around Montreal), as well as creatures from further afield like the tropical forest, Arctic and Antarctic. Penguins and puffins are some of the most amusing animals in the Biodôme, and they’re the final stop on the tour, saving the best for last.
Special exhibits: Until November 15, be sure to check out the visiting lemurs in “VIP Visitors from Madagascar.”
Montreal Museum of Fine Arts
1379-1380 Sherbrooke West (Downtown)
Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (photo by Flickr user caribb)
The permanent collection of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (or Musée des Beaux-Arts de Montreal) is housed in three different pavilions, all under one roof. Located just up the street from Concordia University, the museum is a great place to spend the day browsing some of their artwork. The museum has work from European heavyweights like Edvard Munch, Pablo Picasso, and Kees Van Dongen (who was the subject of a recent retrospective), as well as paintings by contemporary masters like Joan Miró and Quebec artist Jean-Paul Riopelle.
Special exhibits: Currently on display are “Sacred Africa II,” 48 objects from sub-Saharan Africa on loan from the Cirque du Soleil collection and the Redpath Museum and “The Body in Glass,” 19 sculptures dealing with the human figure (to September 20); “Expanding Horizons: Painting and Photography of American and Canadian Landscape 1860-1918,” 200 landscape paintings and photographs by American and Canadian artists (to Sept. 27); and Karl Monkman’s “Dance to the Berdashe” video installation (until October 4).
Canadian Centre for Architecture
1920 Baile (Downtown)
Love architecture and design? Then you’ve got to check out the Canadian Centre for Architecture, complete with sculpture garden and an impressive architecturally-themed bookstore. This museum is a fantastic place to think about design both modern and archaic, with 150 archives filled with 100,000 prints and drawings, over 60,000 photographs, 215,000 volumes, and more than 5,000 periodical titles.
The CCA is a great place to spend a day, but I must admit that I find it more than a bit ironic that, for a city seemingly obsessed with architecture, Montreal’s buildings, bridges and the highway tangle known as the Turcot Interchange (all built in the 1960s) are so poorly designed and maintained. Indeed, it seems that it has become commonplace to hear that large slabs of concrete have fallen from great heights, crushing the random people that were unfortunately situated below. Should this be how a modern city is designed and built? Where does all the money for infrastructure maintenance and repairs go? Ask one of the people at the CCA to get their professional opinion.
Just For Laughs Museum
2101 St-Laurent (Downtown)
Although it’s not technically a museum, the Just for Laughs Museum regularly appears in the Montreal Mirror’s annual Best of Montreal survey under the “Best Museum” category. Undoubtedly the work of merry pranksters, the museum often hosts a variety of comedy shows and other types of entertainment, rather than staid permanent exhibitions or items kept behind glass. If you’re visiting the city, chances are you’ll end up spotting a few shows playing at this venue, which features a number of different spaces that can cater to anyone from musicians to burlesque performers to stand-up comedians.
