Museum · Golden Square Mile
Montreal Museum of Fine Arts
Five pavilions on Sherbrooke Street, from old masters to Quebec painting, one of them a 19th-century church with Tiffany windows.
Look for: The Tiffany windows in the Bourgie Pavilion.
Go further, look closer.
Cities · North America · 45°30′N 73°34′W
Montreal
A French-speaking city of architecture: the utopias of Expo 67, a centre built for architecture itself, and a métro designed station by station.
Best monthsJune–September
Art calendarFestival international du film sur l'art (March) · Nuit blanche (early March)
This guide4 essentials · 3 places off-piste
Essentials
Museum · Shaughnessy Village
Canadian Centre for Architecture
Founded by the architect Phyllis Lambert in 1979, a museum and research centre built around an 1874 mansion. Across the road, Melvin Charney's garden of sculpted columns.
Look for: Charney's garden, at dusk.
Contemporary art · Old Montreal
Fondation PHI
A free contemporary art foundation in historic buildings in Old Montreal, with exhibitions that give artists whole floors.
Look for: The upstairs rooms.
Free
Contemporary art · Griffintown
Darling Foundry
A contemporary art centre in a 19th-century foundry, with artists' studios and big, raw exhibition halls.
Look for: The main hall.
Off the list
Off-Piste in Montreal
Rooms, ruins and curiosities: the city's other museum.
Architecture · Cité du Havre
Habitat 67
Moshe Safdie's housing for Expo 67: 354 prefabricated concrete boxes stacked like a hill village by the river. People still live in it; tours run in season.
See it from the Cité du Havre park.
Architecture · Underground
The métro
Opened in 1966, each station by a different architect, many with art built in. At Square-Victoria–OACI there is a real Hector Guimard entrance, given by Paris in 1967.
Marcelle Ferron's stained glass at Champ-de-Mars, and the Guimard entrance.
Architecture · Île Sainte-Hélène
Biosphère
Buckminster Fuller's geodesic dome, the American pavilion at Expo 67. Its acrylic skin burned in 1976; the steel frame stands, with an environment museum inside.
The dome from the metro bridge.
Nearby
Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec
Quebec City's museum of Quebec art, about three hours away by train or car.
If you have one day
Montreal Museum of Fine Arts at opening → the CCA and Charney's garden → lunch → Old Montreal and Fondation PHI → Darling Foundry → Habitat 67 at sunset.