With a design that unites both context and program, 1250 Boulevard René-Lévesque serves as IBM’s Canada headquarters and a gateway to the commercial center of Montréal.
The building holds a prominent position on the Boulevard, adjacent to the landmark Windsor Station and one block from Dorchester Square, the business district’s dominant public space. The site is formed by a street grid system defined by Mount Royal to the north and the St. Lawrence River to the south. The design developed around these two topographic features and responds to the more immediate urban context of the site. The massing of slender, interlocking slabs addresses Mount Royal. A curved glass and aluminum wall element looks east and south over the park, the city, and the St. Lawrence River. This curved element also contains the expansive lobby at the base and extends to the building’s top where it is capped by a horizontal wing.
The lower-level massing has an L-shaped configuration, which lends continuity to the existing urban street walls and reduces the scale of the tower at the pedestrian level. A landscaped public plaza and six-story winter garden serve as a building entry from Boulevard René-Lévesque. The winter garden also connects to a street-level retail arcade, the main lobby, the Montreal metro system and, via tunnels, two neighboring buildings.
In response to Montreal’s extreme climate, the vision glass glazing units are thermally broken, and triple-glazed glass was used on the fifth floor to maintain interior temperatures and protect delicate computer equipment.
