Fairmont The Queen Elizabeth hotel

Fairmont The Queen Elisabeth, one of Montreal’s historic hotels, was built by the National Canadian Railway Company and opened in 1958. At the time, the sleek, linear design of the 21-storey hotel was hailed as a masterpiece of innovation as its position above Central Station called for the most audacious techniques to eliminate the vibrations due to trains passing underneath. In 1961, the hotel was connected to Place Ville Marie by a corridor below street level that became the first section of the Montreal subway. In 1969, John Lennon and Yoko Ono held their famous Bed-In for Peace event here, during which the former Beatle composed and recorded Give Peace a Chance, a song that quickly became a worldwide peace anthem. In 2017 the hotel was completely transformed in order to make it more welcoming and restore its central position in Montreal’s social life. Naturally, the lighting design played an important role in this. The hotel was refurbished specifically to make it more open to the city, so the lobby can now be accessed from a number of different entrances and there are sales points, cafés and restaurants that are open to the general public and not just hotel guests. The hall has also become a large welcoming space that is full of light thanks to a series of distinctive pendant luminaires suspended above the concierge’s counter. Recessed Laser Blade luminaires have been concealed in the cornices in the coffered ceiling to meet the design requirements of Francois Roupinian, owner of the Lightemotion studio, whose aim was to create a light effect without drawing attention to the luminaires. The same recessed Laser Blade luminaires have also been used in the bar area.