Chevalier Morales

Chevalier Morales is pleased to announce that 900 Saint-Jacques has received a 2026 Governor General’s Medal in Architecture, one of the highest distinctions awarded to architectural projects in Canada.

This recognition carries particular significance, as it marks the first Governor General’s Medal in Architecture awarded to a high-rise tower in Canada since the Medals were first established in 1982. It highlights 900 Saint-Jacques’s ability to move beyond conventional expectations of residential high-rise design to propose an urban, contextual, and collective architecture.

Located in the Quartier des Gares, where transportation networks, urban infrastructure, and downtown Montreal converge, 900 Saint-Jacques acts as a new threshold to the city. The project is grounded in a sensitive reading of a district long shaped by railway and highway infrastructure, yet now poised to become a more open, connected, and planted urban environment. The tower unfolds as an active urban participant, weaving together the site’s memory, its contemporary transformation, and the collective uses that bring it to life.

900 Saint-Jacques is defined by a three-part composition: a base, a body, and a crown. Each component engages a different scale of the city, from the pedestrian realm to Montreal’s broader urban landscape. The tower’s slender silhouette was carefully modulated to ensure a considered presence from the Bonaventure esplanade, rail approaches, and views toward Mount Royal.

The building envelope reinterprets Montreal’s historic fascination with cruciform geometries by translating them into a contemporary framework of precast concrete panels. Composed of modules with custom profiles, aggregates, and geometries, this mineral skin creates a woven pattern animated by changing light. It situates the tower within the material continuity of Montreal’s mineral character, while offering a durable and high-performing response to the northern climate.

At a time when fully glazed towers have multiplied across urban skylines, 900 Saint-Jacques proposes a more grounded, expressive, and contextually responsive approach to residential architecture. Its shared spaces, hanging gardens, perimeter terraces, bicycle facilities, EV charging stations, and family-oriented units support new urban lifestyles that are inclusive, sustainable, and connected to the city.

Through this distinction, 900 Saint-Jacques confirms its role as an architectural landmark in Montreal’s urban landscape and demonstrates the capacity of architecture to contribute to the quality of the public realm, the vitality of neighbourhoods, and a renewed sense of belonging to the city.

We would also like to recognize the vision of our client, RIMAP, and the invaluable collaboration of our project partners, Brian Elsden Burrows Architecte – Le Groupe Architex, the City of Montréal, and all consultants who contributed to bringing 900 Saint-Jacques to life.