Civiliti’s viaduct shunts a rail line around one extremity of the Université de Montréal’s future Outremont campus, scheduled to open in 2019, in singular style. Spanning the new campus’s main allé, defining its eastern gateway, the viaduct greets passersby with an unexpected and eye-catching folly.

Taking cues from conceptual artist Sol LeWitt’s minimalist “Wall Drawing” series, the local urban landscape firm transformed the 44-metre-long guardrail on the viaduct’s campus-facing side into an animated tableau. Its irregular diagonal grid motif, made up of 135 LED bars, generates playful graphics of the changing seasons, featuring vines, fireflies, raindrops and snowflakes.

Project: Pont ferroviaire

Location: Montreal, Canada

Firms: Civiliti and Group S.M. International, Canada

Team: Peter Soland with Fannie Duguay-Lefebvre, Pascal Forget, Tuong Phong Huynh, Marc Mousset, Etienne Ostiguy and Petrica Voinea