The Society of Jesus, commonly known as the Jesuits, is a religious order founded by Ignatius of Loyola in 1540, a time that in Europe was marked by the Reformation and the onset of exploration and colonization of the New World. Amidst this turmoil, the Jesuits saw themselves as the “Christ’s foot soldiers”, engaged in Counter-Reformation and missionary work. As such, Jesuit missions closely followed European settlements in North America. One such early missionary was Jean de Brébeuf, who came to New France in 1625 to study and convert the Huron-Wendat people. The college established in 1635 by the Jesuits in Québec boasted the first library in North America. However, the fall of Québec to the British in 1759 and the dissolution of the Society of Jesus in 1773 led to the closing of the Jesuit college and the confiscation of most of its library collections.

The restoration of the order by Pope Pius VII in 1814 heralded the return of the Jesuits to Canada, where they established new colleges and picked up the remnants of their erstwhile library. Three colleges were founded in Montreal over the following century: Collège Sainte-Marie in 1848, Scolasticat de l’Immaculée-Conception in 1882 and finally Collège Jean-de-Brébeuf in 1928. The college was built following the plans of Father Félix Martin by architects Dalbé Viau and Louis-Alphonse Venne, also known for their work on Montreal’s Saint-Joseph Oratory. The Neo-classical chapel at the heart of the T-shaped college building was inspired by the Basilica of Sant’Apollinare Nuovo in Ravenna, Italy.

Following the secularization of the college and the departure of the last Jesuits among the teaching staff, the chapel was eventually desacralized. In 1960, it was converted to become a meeting and exam hall. To save on heating costs, the chapel’s soaring hall was cut by a low ceiling: the students who toiled in this room in the following decades were entirely unaware of the architectural splendour hidden above the drab ceiling tiles. Meanwhile, despite the closure of their remaining teaching institutions, the Montréal Jesuits continued to maintain the library collections they had painstakingly reconstituted since their return to Canada. Consolidated from the former college libraries, the Jesuit library relocated to a basement room inside Collège Jean-de-Brébeuf in 1968, where it continued operating.

The magnificient chapel and the Jesuit library remained thus hidden and half-forgotten until the college’s 75th anniversary celebration provided the impetus for their spectacular return. Led by Jean-Pierre LeTourneux (now of Menkès, Shooner, Dagenais and LeTourneux – msdl) and Josette Michaud of Beaupré et Michaud architectes, the restoration and transformation of the chapel was completed in 2004 to great acclaim. Most of the original volume is given back as an event and concert space, from where the original ceiling can again be seen. An ethereal glass partition separates the event room in the nave from the choir, which is now occupied by the library reading room and its mezzanine. The library mezzanine connects to another room at the other end of the nave through two lateral spaces elegantly concealed underneath the side galleries. These meet in a loft space constructed above the entrance, where the library welcome desk and another reading room are located and which offers grandiose views to the chapel.




The library of the Society of Jesus now encompasses over 200,000 volumes. Its focus is on theology, but it also includes an important Canadiana collection, as well as the extensive documentation gathered by the Jesuits about the First Nation languages they studied. Primarily a research library, the space is nevertheless open to the public and is accessed through the main college entrance.


My thanks go out to Marc Umba, custodian of the library, who warmly welcomed me in April 2022, when I took the above images.
This post is part of a series on adaptive reuse in libraries. See the list of such projects I am maintaining or view other posts in this series.
References
- Bernier, M.-A. (2017). De la bibliothèque de l’ancien Collège des Jésuites de Québec à la Bibliothèque de la Compagnie de Jésus. In C. Corbo, S. Montreuil, & I. Crevier (Eds.), Bibliothèques québécoises remarquables (pp. 195–204). Bibliothèque et Archives nationales Québec : Del Busso.
- Plante, J., & Bissonnette, L. (2013). Architectures de la connaissance au Québec. Publications du Québec. pp. 132-135
- Colloque sur la transformation d’églises en bibliothèques: Le vendredi 4 mai 2012, Grande Bibliothèque, Montréal : est-ce qu’une église peut devenir une bibliothèque du 21e siècle? (2012). Montréal : Conseil du patrimoine religieux du Québec, 2012.
- Noppen, L., & Morisset, L. K. (2005). La Bibliothèque théologique et salle polyvalente du Collège Jean-de-Brébeuf. ARQ : La Revue des membres de l’Ordre des Architectes du Québec, 131, pp. 34–35.
- Une bibliothèque dans une chapelle. (n.d.). Collège Brébeuf. Retrieved April 2, 2023