Three gardens on the Lachine Canal

Second prize, ARQ magazine competition, 1990. Three gardens in the form of excavations provide rest areas and drinking water for the users of the bicycle path in the present day public park on the Lachine Canal in Montréal. The new gardens would be inserted into the existing infrastructure as a means of challenging the assumptions upon which the present canal park is based. The creators of the existing park present a history that sanctifies the achievements of late 19th century industry by disposing industrial ruins as follies on a tapis de verdure. Each of the three new gardens marks three phases in the development of the canal: the original claiming of the land, the building of the canal, and the development of adjoining industries. Drinking water is provided at the point entry of both the bicycle path and water diverted from the canal, reminding the visitor that the fresh water is one in the same as the canal water but purified through technological means. The act of drinking initiates the visit to a garden that ultimately denies the space of refuge by revealing the crimes concealed within the canal landscape.