Tourism Montreal Map of the Underground City

While the size of the RÉSO is astounding—over thirty kilometres of passages—its contents are somewhat less remarkable. Over fifty percent of the underground space is retail, the vast majority taken up by the usual mall-staple clothing store chains. Some of the brand outlets can be found in numerous locations in the RÉSO—for example, the inquisitive visitor could count five Jacobs and five Aldos within, as well as at least two more of each within a two hundred metre radius of its exits. The food courts are equally homogenous, and much of the architecture is strictly standard-issue mall sculpting. As one online critique puts it (mildly), “although the urban planning achievement is impressive, the services accessible through them (mainly shopping malls) are rather commonplace.”

The underground city is marketed aggressively by the local tourism industry as one of Montreal’s unique assets and a must-see for every visitor, but the experience itself is largely just bewildering. Because the underground city is structured more or less like the surface—that is to say, ordered into a series of variably compatible geographically linked but discrete spaces—there is no sense of being in an indoor city while you’re there, merely of being indoors. If one failed to miss the descent into the underground, it would be difficult to ascertain, once inside, that it is anything other than an ordinary above-ground complex. Strictly speaking, there’s nothing that special about the underground, other than the fact that it is, indeed, under the ground level.

Gradually, however, this is beginning to change. While the underground of the late 1960s offered no pretense of being anything other than yet another opportunity to hawk wares, la ville souterraine has gradually integrated more sociable elements, first introducing benches and food courts, then opening atriums and plazas which, while taking up a good deal of potential selling area, make the space much more inviting to linger in, rather than merely serving the interests of shopping and climate controlled commuting. Its planning has become less an exercise for interested developers and retail tenants and more a project of urban planners and cultural institutions.

The 2003 additions to the RÉSO marked a conspicuous attempt to inject some cultural capital into the system. This extension connected the rest of the passages to the Quartier International de Montreal, perhaps the most ambitious urban planning and redevelopment project the city has seen since the 1960s. This section of the RÉSO features continuous, clearly-marked and largely store-free passages, guiding visitors between the Palais de Congrès, numerous office buildings and metros and effectively planting roots for a subterranean expansion into the tourist venues provided by the old city. The Quartier International de Montreal sections of the underground city also evidence attempts to build cultural artifacts into the tunnels, including a large video display wall created by the CCA.

In spite of this, it still seems fair to say that the RÉSO doesn’t yet provide much community culture. Whatever cultural refinements are created must exist within the confines of the existing system, which is to say, they must become part of a mass of small developments haphazardly stuck together, mostly to sell people things while they are trying to escape extreme elements.

The underground city, much more than the surface, is a controlled space, just like any other enclosed public space. Thus, the subterranean still resists the appropriations that people are able to make of city spaces outdoors. Large as it may be (some estimates put RÉSO on par with the West Edmonton Mall), there is not much room for running, shouting, impromptu music-making, drinking, drawing on the walls, panhandling or any other of the myriad semi-tolerated misuses of public space available to us upstairs and outside. The disinclination toward inviting individual acts and achievements is also reflected structurally; independent retailers are scarce, and there isn’t yet even an intimation of systematic black-market commerce, a red light district—not even anything so sketchy as a frippe or a head shop or a used book seller. As the “city” continues to swell, however, it is inevitable that this, too shall pass.