Irish Museum & Black Stone Memorial
School: McGill University
Year: 2016
Course: Integrated design studio
Team: Violetta Molokopoy
Instructor: Robert Mellin
Underneath one inconspicuous parking lot in the industrial Griffintown neighborhood in Montreal, 6,000 Irish immigrants are buried in mass graves. They perished from typhus on their way to Montreal in 1848. The only symbolic artifact marking the site is The Black Stone which presently sits on a highway median strip adjacent to the site. Every year at the end of May, members of Montreal’s Irish community host a walk from St-Gabriel’s church to the stone to commemorate the lives that were lost.
The project is an Irish museum, community center, and memorial that commemorates the dead as well as addresses current issues and invigorates the neighborhood. The design is inspired by the annual pilgrimage to the stone and is centered around the idea of a procession. The surrounding landscape is conceived as a symbiosis between recognizable Canadian and Irish plant species. It is meant to provide a solemn space for contemplation amidst the industrial surroundings.
