The MUHC (McGill University Health Centre) is one of the world’s foremost academic health centres. The new hospital, opening in April 2015 at the Glen site, is the redevelopment project that will create leading-edge facilities in three sites.

Havre was completed in November 2014, the largest of eleven public art commissions spread throughout the new MUHC hospital complex and the largest commission of the Quebec government’s Integration of art to architecture 1% policy realized to date. Sited on the entranceway grounds the objectives included being highly visible to road traffic and to commuters in the nearby trains, drawing people into the landscaped site with its many public gardens, and becoming an iconic symbol for the hospital. While scaled to the immensity of the site Havre also retains a more intimate experience. Conveyed as a “sculptural embrace” it welcomes patients, visitors, staff and passers-by into the artwork through three “doors”, offering a personal experience.

During the day natural light projects patterns of shadows through the artwork, transforming with the hours, days and seasons. During evening hours three sequences each thirty minutes long bathe the artwork in subtle shades of blue / blue-green, colours that evoke both air (sky) and water, elements essential to life.

About Linda Covit

Linda Covit lives and works in Montreal. Since 1975, her solo exhibitions include Plein sud, Centre d’exposition en art actuel à Longueuil; Expression, Centre d’exposition de Saint-Hyacinthe; le Musée de la Ville de Lachine; Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec; Toronto’s Koffler Gallery and Genereux Grunwald Gallery; the Canadian Embassy in Tokyo, Japan. She has participated in international events including Japan’s Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennial 2003 and the 53rd Museo Internazionale delle Ceramiche in Faenza, Italy. Her works figure in the collections of the Musée d‘art contemporain Montréal, the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec, the Collection Maurice A. Forget, the Cirque du Soleil, the Musée de Lachine, the Koffler Gallery, and the University of Concordia.

Among her many public artworks are a gift from the Quebec government to Shandong Province, China; an installation on Montreal’s Mount Royal Park commemorating the 1969 Lennon-Ono bed-in (Prix Les Arts et la ville – Prix aménagement 2012); an art wall with mist at Toronto’s Four Seasons Hotel and Residences (Regional Citation award, CSLA/AAPC 2014); a monumental water column in the Calgary Water Centre and four garden rooms in the Shangri La Botanical Gardens and Nature Center, Orange, Texas (ASLA Honor Award, 2012).

She has received numerous grants from the Canada Council, the Japan-Canada Fund, the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, the Cirque du Soleil and New York’s Pollock-Krasner Foundation.

A monograph of the artist’s work, edited and published in 2014 by Les éditions Plein sud is available through http://www.plein-sud.org 

Name of the project: Havre

Project end date: 2014

Artiste : Linda Covit

Materials: Painted aluminum, LED projectors, programming equipment

Dimensions: 13 m x 15,75 m diameter / 42’8” x 51’8” diameter

Lamp posts – 51 cm x 122 x 122 cm / 6’5” x 4’ x 4’

Location: McGill University Health Centre – Glen Site (MUHC), Montreal

Client: Commissioned by the MUHC

Fabrication: Michel Bernier

Structural engineering: Nicolet, Chartrand, Knoll Ltée

Technical drawings and renderings : Plan HB

Installation: Formaviva

Lighting: Blue Hour Design

Photograph : Marc Cramer