Quebec’s journey toward establishing public libraries was a unique and complex one, deeply shaped by its social and cultural history. Across much of 19th century North America, the Free Library Movement promoted the idea that libraries should be freely accessible to all. This movement enabled municipalities to establish and develop free public libraries, as opposed to philanthropic or private initiatives. This led to rapid public library development first in the United States and then across the Canadian provinces, starting with the 1882 Free Libraries act in Ontario.

In Quebec, however, conservative factions led by the Catholic Church fiercely opposed similar initiatives, fearing that publicly funded libraries would expose citizens to potentially subversive ideas. More importantly, the Church feared that this would place libraries under the control of secular elected officials and thus reduce its own power on the people. After years of bitter debate, Quebec Premier Honoré Mercier finally managed to pass a law similar to that of Ontario. Though more limited in scope, the Quebec 1890 law nevertheless laid the legal foundation for the province’s first municipal libraries, an opportunity quickly seized by the town of Westmount, who established theirs in 1899.

One of the first francophone municipalities eager to leverage this new law was Maisonneuve, a thriving industrial suburb of Montreal in the early 20th century. Determined to elevate its civic identity, Maisonneuve embarked on a series of ambitious public works projects inspired by the City Beautiful movement. Chief among these was its grand city hall, designed by Joseph-Cajetan Dufort in the Beaux-Arts style and completed in 1912. The structure, adorned with intricate classical details, symbolized the municipality’s aspirations. It also cost a whopping 3.4 times its original budget, forcing the city council to put a stop to other projects, including that of the library that was to be constructed nearby. Maisonneuve never recovered from its debt, leading to its eventual annexation by Montreal in 1918.

There was thus no library in Maisonneuve, and moreover, it no longer being a city, it had no use for the grandiose city hall that participated to its downfall. From 1925 to 1967, it housed the University of Montreal’s Institut du Radium, a pioneering medical facility where the renowned Quebecois singer La Bolduc was treated and passed away in 1941. In 1981, the building found new life as a branch of the Montreal public library network, finally achieving the goal of the ambitious but ill-fated Maisonneuve city council.
In the 21st century, the library underwent another transformation. Recognizing the need to modernize and expand, the City of Montreal launched an ambitious renovation project in 2017. The transformation was awarded to EVOQ Architecture and Dan Hanganu Architects who sought to bring back the building’s Beaux-Arts heritage while blending it with modern functionality. It was Dan Hanganu‘s last project before his death in 2017. His former practice is now part of EVOQ.


The earlier conversions had been done with little respect for ornament, drilling shafts into the mosaic floors and hiding plaster mouldings behind behind drab ceiling tiles. These were brought back to light through careful restoration wherever possible, but signs of the building’s past as a hospital are still visible to the keen eyed visitor, in particular through areas of the floor where mosaics are missing. Wiring and ductwork was rerouted underneath the floors to free up the ceilings again.

Two contemporary wings on either side of the former city hall building triple the usable surface of the library. Elevators in the eastern wing and a series of bridges passing through the former windows of the historic core enable accessible access throughout the building. The glazing on the new wings includes vertical fins that reference the columns of Dufort’s city hall, an effect further reinforced by floor to ceiling wooden shelves on the west wing, which trade some of their usability for shelving with strong visuals, particularly at night.



A children’s section in the basement that includes playful elements recalling the industrial port of Maisonneuve, a relaxed newsroom and café, and a modern media lab are among the many offerings, belying the notion that a library built around a heritage structure should be solely focused on the past. The exceptional transformation of the Maisonneuve library and its surrounding grounds was recognized with the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada’s 2024 National Urban Design Award.

Interior images date from my visit with cegep library students in April 2024, and exteriors were taken in February 2024.
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.