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Mies van der Rohe gas station conversion into a youth and senior activity center.
Mies van der Rohe gas station on Nuns Island ceased to be commercially operated in 2008 and the city of Montreal listed it as a heritage building in 2009 before initiating the project of a youth and senior activity centre. This simple program requires an open space for each group to congregate and participate in communal activities.
The senior group occupies the larger volume to the benefit of its sixty members who play bridge, prepare communal meals, dance or invite lecturers. Stacking chairs and tables allow multiple configurations of the room. The younger group occupies the smaller volume. Teenagers meet there daily to play games, listen to music, organize parties and events under the supervision of educators.
The project is not about the faithful restoration of a monument. It is an interpretation trying to touch and communicate the essence of an artistic vision formulated by someone else in response to a world that is no longer the same.
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