Founded in 1997, Atelier TAG (technique + architecture + graphisme) is a partnership between Manon Asselin and Katsuhiro Yamazaki, both architects with degrees from McGill University. Asselin also studied in the studio of Rem Koolhaas, in the Netherlands, and she is a professor in the School of Architecture at the Université de Montréal. In public art, Atelier TAG produced, in collaboration with Allison Tett, the visual concepts for the works Équinoxe and Polaris, presented, respectively, at the Old Port of Montréal and Place d’Armes.
Artwork description
The artwork is situated in Place De La Dauversière; its axial position in relation to the door to Montréal city hall, on the other side of Rue Notre-Dame, contributes to its symbolic reading. It is composed of a wide horizontal rectangular panel made of Corten steel, the oxidized surface of which bears pierced inscriptions that give a short historical description, as well as the names and ages of the members of the first family in Ville-Marie. In the evening, light comes through the clefts in the letters, which are reflected on a tempered-glass plate placed on the ground. Articulated around a symbolic representation of the door, open and closed, the artwork creates a link between past and present, between de La Dauversière’s original vision and today’s images retransmitted by the glass plate.