Rebuilt during the pandemic, the facility combines building and exhibition design in one of the most thoughtful works of architecture Canada has seen in decades
Your visit to Montreal’s Insectarium begins with a walk down a hill, through a garden and indoors into a dark tunnel. As you move deeper into the earth – or so it seems, though you are in tunnels made of textured concrete, a series of cavern-like rooms reveal themselves.
“You begin the visiting experience in a labyrinth,” explains the architect Wilfried Kuehn. “You reset your perception and you almost become someone else – you are ready to perceive in a different way.” Mr. Kuehn is a partner at the Berlin firm Kuehn Malvezzi, which But gradually you return from the earth and an insectile consciousness into a human one. First comes a round, domed gallery, a sort of insect Parthenon, where 72 display cases set out arrays of dried insects arranged two ways: by colour, and by shared characteristics such as the use of camouflage. This array, designed by Kuehn Malvezzi, plays with the conventions of 19th century natural history museums.
In the light, plant species from across the Americas and Asia provide habitats for butterflies, while caterpillars crawl through the soil. Here the special experience involves a winding path, an old architectural trick that leaves visitors perpetually waiting for what’s around the corner. The rewards are plentiful: a pair of small butterflies, fluttering past a white orchid, or an owl butterfly, hiding in camouflage against a dead leaf.
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