The merchants' association in the Gay Village has come up with a replacement for the iconic colored balls display that hung over a stretch of Ste. Catherine St. every summer for more than a decade.
The results of an international design contest were unveiled at Tuesday night's Ville-Marie borough council meeting, and it appears there's one winning design — called 'La tête dans les nuages' ('Head in the clouds'). The design, created by Montreal's Collectif Escargo and Brooklyn's WXY Studio, would see a series of cones, or pendants, suspended above Ste. Catherine St. on cables, which would create a multicolored cloud effect.
For the moment, nothing has been made official — neither the merchants' association nor the city is willing to comment until the design is formally unveiled sometime in April. A city spokesperson says before the project becomes a reality, Montreal's fire department will need to conduct safety tests to ensure the new installation won't get in the way of passing fire trucks in case of a fire.
Last year, the merchants' association announced it was retiring its wildly popular colored balls display, created by Montreal artist Claude Cormier, that had gone up every summer between 2011 and 2019.
The association sold the balls off in strands last fall, at $100 per strand, just before they were taken down for the final time.