engineering

Place des Arts

Place des Arts is a engineering topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Place des Arts rather than just read about it. In short: Place des Arts (French pronunciation: [plas dez‿aʁ]) is a major performing arts centre. Located in Montreal's Quartier des Spectacles, Quebec, Canada, it is the largest cultural and artistic complex in Canada.

Key takeaways

Place des Arts belongs to engineering; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Place des Arts to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Place des Arts from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Place des Arts (French pronunciation: [plas dez‿aʁ]) is a major performing arts centre. Located in Montreal's Quartier des Spectacles, Quebec, Canada, it is the largest cultural and artistic complex in Canada. Home to the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestre Métropolitain, Les Grands Ballets Canadiens, and the Opéra de Montréal, the complex is situated between Saint Catherine and de Maisonneuve streets, and Saint-Urbain and Jeanne-Mance streets, in an area now known as the Quartier des spectacles in the borough of Ville-Marie. Place des Arts was an initiative of Mayor Jean Drapeau, a noted lover of opera, as part of a project to expand the downtown core eastward from the concentration of business and financial activity in the centre-west part of downtown. The Corporation George-Étienne-Cartier, named in honour of George-Étienne Cartier, a Father of Confederation and opera lover, was set up to build it, and the first part of the complex (including the Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier) was inaugurated on September 21, 1963. The other theatres were added progressively.

Additions The Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal was added to the complex on May 28, 1992, and in 2009, construction began on a new concert hall for the Montreal Symphony Orchestra. The 2,100-seat facility opened in 2011 at the cost of C$105 million. In 2015, the Quebec government announced it would spend $34.2 million to remodel the esplanade into a large outdoor stage that will host big events year round. Work is to be complete in 2018. In 2019, the Salon urbain opened, a public glass-walled space used for free performances. In 2022, Place des Arts inaugurated the Espace culturel Georges-Émile-Lapalme. This is a redesigned public area aimed at enhancing accessibility and cultural outreach within the complex. In 2023, Place des Arts launched a digital and immersive programming initiatives.

Concert venues The Place des Arts includes six concert venues of various sizes:

Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier (Capacity of 2,996) Montreal Symphony House (Capacity of 2,117) Théâtre Maisonneuve (Capacity of 1,453) Théâtre Jean-Duceppe (Capacity of 765) Cinquième salle (Capacity of 420) Salle Claude-Léveillée (Capacity of 129) This wealth of theatres permits the staging of opera, symphony, ballet and other dance, chamber music, choral music, theatre, film presentation, and various other presentations and ceremonies. In addition to the theatres, the complex hosts the Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal, a museum of contemporary art, as well as rehearsal halls, shops, services, and a large, popular esplanade decorated with original fountains and water cascades. All the facilities are connected by an underground mall, also linked to Place-des-Arts Metro station and Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM) to the north and the Complexe Desjardins to the south as part of the Underground City. The site is decorated with several works of public art including L'artiste est celui qui fait voir l'autre côté des choses by Claude Bettinger, Comme si le temps… de la rue by Pierre Granche, and La Voie lactée by Geneviève Cadieux. A bust of conductor Wilfrid Pelletier by sculptor Arto Tchakmaktchian is on permanent display in the entrance hall. In the summer, the esplanade and adjacent street comprise one of the important outdoor sites of the Festival International de Jazz de Montréal.

Works

Gallery

Illustrations

Place des Arts: View of the Place des Arts esplanade. The Musée d'art contemporain is on the left; behind it is the Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier, with the Théâtre Maisonneuve on the right. — View of the Place des Arts esplanade. The Musée d'art contemporain is on the left; behind it is the Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier, with the Théâtre Maisonneuve on the right.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Place des Arts

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Place des Arts claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In engineering, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Place des Arts before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Place des Arts ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Place des Arts

In research: Place des Arts appears in engineering research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Place des Arts in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Place des Arts is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1963 establishments in Quebec, Buildings and structures completed in 1963, Festival venues in Canada, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Place des Arts outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

Affiliate

Preply — study more efficiently by working with a personal tutor. 50% off.

How to study Place des Arts in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Place des Arts means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Place des Arts out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Place des Arts in simple terms?

Why does Place des Arts matter?

Because it connects several engineering ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Place des Arts?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Place des Arts.