3. Montreal Botanical Garden

The Montreal Botanical Garden Administration Building is an Art Deco tour de force, with balanced composition, radiant brick and stone facades, vertical and horizontal texture, and thematic bas-relief ornamentation. It gracefully complements its beautiful landscaped settings.

Bas-relief by Henri Hébert

The Montreal Botanical Garden was a triumph of collaboration with the sum being greater than its parts. Its visionary founder, botany professor and Catholic monk Frère Marie-Victorin, secured funding from his former student Mayor Houde and assembled a team to execute his vision.

Bas-reliefs by Joseph Guardo

Lucien Kéroack (Marie-Victorin’s distant cousin) served as lead architect for the central part of the building constructed in 1932 and continued in this role, assisted by Emmanuel-Arthur Doucet, with the brick-faced wings completed in 1939. The bas-relief work was divided between sculptors Joseph Guardo and Henri Hébert. Garden Superintendent Henry Teuscher, a German-born horticulturist and landscape architect who previously worked at the New York Botanical Garden, designed the reception gardens and its water features.

“Queen of the Meadows, Tell Me the Truth”

In recent years, the building and the landscaping have been restored to mint condition.

Pouring maple sap into a barrel