Feb 3, 2021
Former Gas Station Fuels Community
Review of Les Architectes FABG’s transformation of a Mies van der Rohe gas station in Verdun, Montreal (2013)
Originally written for Canadian Architect, 2013 (never published).
Once upon a time, a city’s affluence could be measured by its transportation infrastructure: a constant flow of traffic pulsing along asphalt veins, reaching outwards from the heart of the city was an indubitable symbol of progress and prosperity. Today, this attitude is increasingly challenged. A clear expression of contemporary skepticism towards earlier automobile-enthusiasm is found at the outskirts of Montréal, in the form of a Mies van der Rohe gas-station-turned-community-centre. Montréal architects “Les Architectes FABG” have transformed the gas station to its new vocation by hollowing out its two main bodies, and keeping the signature heritage-protected steel and glass skeleton intact. But can the naked frames of a gas station contain the warmth of a community? With a little help from FABG architect Èric Gauthier, it can! While the former gas station fuelled the lives of people in four-wheeled metal confinements, the community centre bursts the bubble of individualization with a message of togetherness and shared responsibility. Though the architectural alterations are subtle, they herald a significant societal change.
In post-war Montréal, the race towards achieving a motorized modern society broadened and extended the arms of the city, enabling commuting from previously distant suburbs. Downtown Montréal and Nun’s Island were joined in 1962 with the construction of the Champlain Bridge, which promptly catalyzed further development on the smaller island. In 1966, between the urbanized suburb’s shining new high-rise apartment complexes and fresh, steaming asphalt roads, world-famous architect Mies van der Rohe was commissioned to build a vital accessory of modern life: a gas station. For forty years, the station faithfully served the automotive commuters on the island. The era came to an end when commercial operation ceased, and the station was closed in 2008 by the borough of Verdun, to which Nun’s Island belongs. In 2009, the building was recognized as an icon of the island’s urbanization and given heritage status by the city of Montréal. The conversion was then carried out by FABG, and in 2012 the gas station reopened as a community centre running on collectivity and green energy.
In his design, Mies framed the central pumping island between the two main bodies: a car service and a sales store. These three elements were connected by a single flat roof, supported by visible steel beams. The ceiling, accentuated by fluorescent lights running alongside the beams, traverses the glass curtain walls, thereby dissolving the barriers between inside and outside. Coherence was augmented by the addition of customized furniture and gas pumps. The steel, glass and brick construction was structured in an angular geometrical order, held together by visible, industrial-like joints. The building was both architecturally and substantively a luxurious expression of modernism — a temple dedicated to the two gods of modernity: technology and consumerism.
Today’s journey across the Champlain Bridge is the same as it was fifty years ago. The high-rise buildings on Nun’s Island are less shiny and the asphalt roads have weathered, but the stream of cars still pulses along the road to the beat of everyday life. And yet there is a change. As the cars pass the former gas station, their rhythm is interrupted; the station fuels a different style of life. The higher surroundings nestle the square components of the gas station between deciduous trees and piles of snow. Situated on the corner of a busy intersection, the transparency of the glass facades mocks the passing drivers with clear views of the people gathering in the station. Inside the glass volumes, the banter of seniors engaged in an animated round of pool, mix with the voices of teenagers standing around a foosball table. Mies’ original steel structure, framing this view, has been repainted and repaired, but otherwise left unaltered by FABG.
On the inside, the two pavilions now have either a black or a white theme, in harmony with the original color scheme. The difference distinguishes the spaces. The former sales station is the black pavilion, also referred to as the “youth lounge”. On the opposite side of the pumping island, the car-service-turned-seniors-lounge is white. The age-based assignments of the pavilions suggest an unnecessary separation of the people who have parted with their cars to engage with each other. Fortunately, in reality neither generation pays attention to the segregation. To make the spaces adaptable, FABG have thoroughly cleansed the two pavilions of their original built-in furniture. The subtle new interiors have been installed detached from the main structure, which highlights the distinctiveness of the square bodies. The empty floor areas inside both pavilions are optimized to create flexibility for the centre’s various activities. With the exception of the inconspicuous partition walls that also serve as storage space, none of the furniture is stationary. The project’s success in honoring both the original building and the demands of its new purpose lies in the sensitivity of the discrete transformation. It is the silence of the change that leaves room for the community’s voice.
Besides the apparent challenges of turning a gas station into a community centre, the ambitious FABG architects have also attempted to make it sustainable. Between the two pavilions, where the pumping island once sat, the Mies-designed gas pumps have been replaced by air ducts connected to a geothermal heating system. While the symbolic value of the replacement is rather shrewd, their actual functionality is questionable. In the harsh Montréal winter, this sustainable system has proved unable to keep up with the high thermal conductivity of the glass boxes. With snow swirling against the windows, the rooms are too cold to comfortably inhabit. In summertime, the limited window openings create the reverse problem by overheating the spaces. Thus is the challenge of the material choices. On days with extreme temperatures, Mies’ icon of modernity defeats FABG’s commitment to green design. Happily, on most days the project functions well. The hordes of people who flock to the station affirm the transformation’s triumph. The architects removed the gas pumps that were the heart of the original station, and — just like the successful transplant of a vital organ — the new air pumps invoke new life.
For almost twenty years, Les Architectes FABG have worked on interventions in Montréal, testifying to an admirable understanding of the city’s context and scale. Compared to their previous works, like the adaptation of the United States’ pavilion from the world exposition in ’67 (1994) and the Montréal Science Centre (2000), the transformation of the Mies station is not a grand project. Its noteworthiness is largely due to its message. If the gas station is a temple faithful to the era of the automobile, then the future heralded by this renovation will commit itself to the spirit of collectivity and sustainability. As dusk creeps across Nun’s island, the fluorescent light from the reinserted neon tubes in the station’s roof is mirrored in the windows, creating an illusion of an ever-extending ceiling, covering the entire neighborhood. The warmth radiating from the people inside the glass and steel station inspires visions of a world, where all the worn car-pledged marvels from our parents’ generation have become green community centres; a fresh response to our hectic and individualized society. FAB(G)ulous!
