Line 5: Fabre

As your train pulls into Fabre station, you know pretty quickly that you’re not going to get this one confused with any other on the network. The artistic contribution of Jean-Noël Poliquin to the station design by the architects Bédard and Averna has been fantastically well integrated into the overall scheme: it’s bright, fun, logical and modular for ease of pre-fabrication and construction. The stainless steel handrail that is both a functional feature and an artistic extravagance is distinctive, witty and clever: it’s just a shame it wasn’t able to be integrated with the advertising and assistance panels, or even made into a continuous unit with the handrails of the staircases to the mezzanines.

Along with the other stations at this end of the blue line, Fabre opened in June 1986, and the remarkable steel panels that line the platforms have aged extremely well. Look around, and you’ll notice that the modular panels have been finished in a broad but considered palette of colours, with purple and pink focussing towards the Fabre exit, and with green and blue panels at towards the Papineau exit. Notice also how the cream circular panels which feature a semi-circular abstract relief pattern also become more frequent towards the steps, where the panels switch to narrower blue units which run up alongside the steps to the mezzanine levels.

The platforms themselves feature a cream coloured type of floor tile. Although this is evidently difficult to keep clean in this busy station, it has an exceptional effect on the lighting of the station. Compare Fabre to the two adjacent stations at Jean-Talon and Fabre, and you’ll realise how greatly a lighter colour of flooring material can affect the overall feel of a station. The standard Métro lighting strip that hangs over the platform shines bright light down to the floor and out to the coloured wall panels. The floor bounces and diffuses much of this light upwards, and as a result creates a bright and subconsciously safer feeling station. The only downside is that is does rather expose the poor state of the concrete roof above the tracks.

Head towards the Fabre exit, and you’ll be confronted with another unsympathetic conversion to unmanned operation. But once you’ve passed through the gates, notice the triangular coffered ceiling. These pre-cast concrete units would have been made off site and then brought individually to the station during construction. Notice how their shape dictates a skewed step as they rise with the escalator. At the top of these steps is an attractive and dynamic glazed entrance pavilion.

Cross the street or returned via the platforms to the other the street level entrance at Papineau, which is slightly larger and more imposing on a busier intersection. A ventilation shaft is incorporated into the design, along with a small shop that opens into the foyer. The coloured panels from the platform level also appear here, and continue from inside the foyer onto the wall outside. The street level space has an intriguing little bridge over the escalator that links the two sides of the foyer, finished with smoked glass and stainless steel ballustrading. It’s not entirely necessary, since the escalator doesn’t cut off a huge amount of space, but it does provide two additional functions. It’s a good place to stand and wait for someone who’s coming out of the metro, but it also neatly frames the view that descending passengers have as they get on the escalator. After passing under the bridge, the space above the escalator suddenly opens out you get to see the imposing ventilation openings in the side of the escalator space. The same triangular coffered ceiling units as found at the Fabre end of the station appear here. Some are ‘open’ and some are ‘closed’ on an apparently random pattern.

The flooring material used on the street side of the ticket barriers is a pattern of large dark stone slabs. These intersect with the much smaller white platform tiles around the ticket barrier, where a large S figure indicates the transition from platform space to foyer space. There’s another chunky detail above the steps from the Papineau mezzanine level down to the platforms, where the poured concrete walls are seemingly cut back in sharp tectonic forms. This attractive opening out of the station void isn’t without it’s problems. The convex mirror for the driver of Saint-Michel bound trains is suspended from an amusing set of steel poles that reach down from the ceiling of the mezzanine level down to the platform. A platform based support might have been easier, but it was obviously not as elegant.

Fabre is a great station, which derives much of it’s joy and spatial success to the evidently close and successful working relationship between the artist and architect who collaborated on the project. It’s a pleasure to use, and has a distinctive character all of its own.