Montreal, the cultural heart of Canada, is a vibrant city that blends European charm with modern North American energy. Known for its rich history, stunning architecture, and thriving arts scene, Montreal offers something for everyone. From its cobblestone streets in Old Montreal to the bustling downtown filled with trendy shops, restaurants, and cafes, the city is a perfect mix of old and new. It’s also home to a diverse culinary scene, world-class festivals, and lush green spaces like Mount Royal Park. Whether you’re a history buff, foodie, or adventure seeker, Montreal promises an unforgettable experience.
1. Habitat 67
Habitat 67 was designed by Moshe Safdie as his graduate thesis while an architecture student at McGill University, and was later built to temporarily house workers, who came from all over the world, to work on Expo 67, the 1967 World’s Fair. The design is an experiment in modular architecture meant to imitate an organic growth, bringing together nature and geometric patterns. It’s in the metabolism style that was popular in Japan in the 1960s, commonly associated with the Nakagin Capsule Tower. While often called a Brutalist masterpiece, Safdie insists instead that it is actually a reaction against the Brutalist movement at that time. Safdie designed the Habitat for people in the middle class, as a way to improve quality of life in an urban environment.
2. Notre Dame Basilica
In 1824, the Montreal flock had outgrown its church, and it was time for something bigger and better. Commissioned to design a new place for the congregation to call home, Irish-American James O’Donnell, a New York Protestant, had a grand vision. Obsessed with the intricate, dramatic trappings of the Gothic Revival architecture movement, O’Donnell took the style and ran with it. Seas of color, intricate carvings, and ornate stained glass covers palatial floors and soaring ceilings in the spectacular church that remained the largest in North America for over 50 years. The church was so decadent a smaller, more modest chapel was built behind it for more practical use.
Another noteworthy attraction of this breathtaking basilica is its famous Casavant Frères pipe organ – 92 electropneumatic action stops, 4 keyboards, and a sound-bending 7,000 individual pipes. This massive instrument of heavenly chorus put Casavant Frères on the map as master organ builders back in 1891.
3. Biosphere of Montreal
As their contribution to Montreal’s 1967 World’s Fair Exposition the United States government commissioned architect, scientist, and well-known genius Buckminster Fuller to design a pavilion for the Canadian exhibition.
Fuller, who popularized, perfected, and named the Geodesic Dome, designed a 20-story-tall dome in the fashion of his hallmark design to represent the USA. Done in a full two-thirds sphere, rather than the typical half dome, the massive steel structure was seen and admired by over 5.6 million visitors who went into the dome to see exhibits from actual spaceships from the Apollo missions to American works of art. The dome’s steel skeleton was fitted with a clear acrylic covering, making the structure look like a massive, glittering jewel.
4. Redpath Museum
“This museum belongs in a museum!” is not a phrase often uttered about the bland buildings that typically house even the most interesting of curated collections. But the opposite is true for the Redpath Museum. Built in 1882, the museum is named for its donor, Peter Redpath, who was a sugar baron and industrial magnate at the time. Redpath wanted to create a place for carefully curated natural history of every stripe, from geology to anthropology.
And that’s exactly what the Redpath Museum is.
The building rests on the campus of McGill University in Montreal, and shares a name with the Redpath Sugar Museum (what else?) in nearby Toronto. The building is old and beautiful, and its status as the quintessential “oddball” or just plain old museum have earned its use as a set in more than one film and television production.
5. Gibeau Orange Julep
What North American city skyline includes the likes of a giant orange? None other than the city of Montreal.
This giant orange that stands a monstrous three stories high and 40 feet wide started out as nothing but an ambitious “casse-croute” with a quirky, mysterious beverage to offer. It is now one of the oldest and most iconic fast-food joints in the city.
6. Oratoire St. Joseph
One man with a vision—isn’t that where many great works begin?
The man was Brother Andre, and the vision was to build a cathedral atop a mountain to honor his most beloved St. Joseph, to whom he attributed all of his healing powers. Construction of St. Joseph’s Oratory in the Côte-des-Neiges area of Montreal was finally completed in 1967, 30 years after his death. It is visited by over two million people a year who go to admire the Italian Renaissance architecture, to worship, or in search of some sort of healing.
7. Our Lady of La Difesa
Our Lady of La Difesa is located in the heart of Little Italy in Montreal. Inside the church are several frescos, including one that adorns the ceiling. The massive image features various scenes, such as the depiction of Benito Mussolini riding a horse in front of cardinals and Pope Pius XI. The painting commemorates Mussolini’s signing of the Lateran Accords prior to World War II, which designated Vatican City as a separate state.
The fresco also depicts the Virgin Mary on the top level and the triumphant Church with its saints in the middle. The church was completed in 1919 and was designated a National Historic Site by the Canadian government in 2002.
8. Twilight Sculpture Garden
Since 1999, a motley assortment of metal sculptures have been taking over a vacant lot in Montreal’s vibrant Mile End neighborhood. Welded together from scrap iron, the constructions loom over the lot like ghostly totems of the area’s industrial past. The Twilight Sculpture Garden (or Jardin du Crépuscule) is the creation of artist Glen LeMesurier, who keeps an eye on it from his studio just down the street. Like any garden, its renewal has been the result of patient, caring stewardship.
9. ‘Trois Disques’ (‘Three Disks’)
Montreal’s Expo 67 was an architectural banquet of glitzy pop-optimism. Its whimsical fairgrounds served up the future in endless flavors, including a monorail, a geodesic dome, the world’s first interactive movie, and even an Asbestos Plaza. Attracting over 50 million visitors at a time when Canada’s population was only 20 million, it’s widely considered the most successful World’s Fair. Celebrity attendees included Jackie Kennedy, Bing Crosby, Thelonious Monk, and Jefferson Airplane.
For Alexander Calder’s “Trois Disques” (“Three Disks”), the party never ended. The monumental steel sculpture still sashays across the skyline of Île Sainte-Hélène, one of two islands used as the site of Expo. At 72 feet (22 meters) tall, it can easily be spotted from Montreal’s Old Port, where it might be mistaken for a colossal six-legged critter scuttling out of the Saint Lawrence River.
10. Paris Métro Sign at Victoria Square
The sign was installed in 1967 to celebrate the collaboration with Parisian engineers on the construction of the metro. The idea for bringing the iconic entrance to Montreal stemmed from a fact-finding visit by then-Mayor Jean Drapeau to Paris while the metro was being planned. He saw the Guimard entrance at Étoile station (now Charles de Gaulle–Étoile) station being demolished and suggested that a Guimard could be brought to Montreal.
During a recent restoration, it was discovered that the entranceway still had its original glass lamp globes—the only surviving examples in the world, since Paris had already replaced all its globes with plastic ones.
