Montreal Museum of Fine Arts

Stand for a moment on Sherbrooke Street and listen. Traffic hums past, and the stone under your feet is worn smooth by many winters of salt and snow. To the north, the green slope of Mount Royal rises behind the rooftops. In front of you, a row of classical columns in pale marble catches the light. This is the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, and you are standing at the doorstep of one of the oldest art institutions in Canada.

The museum's story begins in 1860, with a group of collectors and enthusiasts who formed the Art Association of Montreal. At that time the city had money from rail, shipping and trade, but it had no permanent home for art. The association held exhibitions, gathered works and slowly built a collection. For decades it moved between temporary spaces. That early hunger for a proper building is the seed of everything you see on this street today.

The neighbourhood around you matters to that story. This stretch of the city was known as the Golden Square Mile. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, many of the wealthiest families in the country built their mansions here, on the lower slopes of the mountain. Some of those families were also the museum's patrons. Their gifts of paintings, money and land shaped the collection. As you walk the street, look for the surviving mansions in grey stone and red sandstone. They are part of the same chapter.

The white marble building with the columns opened in 1912. It was designed in the Beaux-Arts style, a grand classical manner taught at the famous art school in Paris and popular for public buildings of that era. The architects were the Maxwell brothers, Edward and William, who designed many buildings in Montreal. Notice the symmetry, the broad staircase and the sense of ceremony. The building was meant to tell visitors that art deserved a temple. Today it is called the Michal and Renata Hornstein Pavilion.

Now turn and look across the street. Here is the first surprise for many visitors. The museum is not one building, but a campus of several pavilions on both sides of Sherbrooke. The modern pavilion opposite the marble one is the Jean-Noël Desmarais Pavilion. It opened in 1991 and was designed by Moshe Safdie, the architect also known for Habitat 67, the stacked concrete housing complex on the Montreal waterfront.

Look closely at the street front of the Safdie building. Instead of tearing down everything on the site, the design kept the old brick facade of an earlier apartment building. Behind that familiar face, the new galleries rise in glass and stone. It is a quiet gesture of respect for the street. Many people walk past without noticing that the front and the interior belong to two different centuries.

The second surprise is underground. The pavilions on opposite sides of Sherbrooke are linked by passages below the street. You can move from one building to another without stepping outside. In a city where winter can be long and very cold, this makes sense. It also gives the visit a strange rhythm. You descend, walk through a corridor of galleries, and then rise again into a completely different building and a different period of art.

A little further along the street stands a building with a very different character. It is a former church, built in rough stone in the late nineteenth century. Today it is the Claire and Marc Bourgie Pavilion, which opened as part of the museum in 2011. Inside, much of the collection of Quebec and Canadian art is displayed. The old nave has become Bourgie Hall, a concert venue, so on some evenings you may hear music coming from the building.

The church's greatest treasure is its stained glass. The windows were made by the studio of Louis Comfort Tiffany, the American designer famous for his rich, layered coloured glass. On a bright day, the light comes through in deep blues, greens and golds. Tiffany's glass is not flat. It has folds, ripples and streaks built into the material itself. If you go inside, stand still for a minute and watch how the colours change when a cloud passes.

The newest addition is the Pavilion for Peace, which opened in 2016. It holds much of the museum's international collection, from the Old Masters of Europe to modern and contemporary works. The building is arranged in levels, so you can move through the centuries as you climb. Large windows frame views of the city and the mountain. The museum also has a pavilion for decorative arts and design, where furniture, glass, silver and everyday objects sit beside paintings and sculpture.

This mix is the real character of the place. In one afternoon you can see European painting, Indigenous and Inuit art, Quebec landscapes, ancient objects and modern design. The museum also places a strong focus on art and well-being, and it runs programs that connect art with health and education. So the people around you are not only tourists. You may see school groups, families, students sketching and older visitors who come back again and again.

If time is short, choose one or two pavilions rather than trying to see everything. The campus is large, and the underground links make it easy to lose track of time. Large temporary exhibitions are often held in the Desmarais Pavilion and may need a separate ticket or a timed reservation. The outdoor sculptures along Sherbrooke Street are free to enjoy from the pavement, and they change the street into a kind of open gallery.

Before you leave, step back to the edge of the pavement and take in the whole scene. Marble columns on one side. Glass and old brick on the other. A stone church just down the road, and the mountain behind it all. Three centuries of building stand within a few hundred metres. As you walk away along Sherbrooke, keep looking up at the facades. The story of this museum, and of the city that built it, continues in every block.