Old Montreal Museums and Galleries

Opened to bring public awareness to the crucial role architecture plays in shaping the identity of a city and, by default, improving the lives of residents, the Canadian Centre for Architecture, with its incredible gardens, is a calming oasis. The imposing nineteenth-century building houses a significant archive, exhibit halls, and fascinating restoration labs, where you can see the painstaking steps involved in restoring portions of older buildings and their decorative effects. A must-visit (especially with littles) is the sculpture garden, a totally novel space filled with architectural reproductions of sections of the Architecture Centre itself, with plants and vegetation winding their way around the deconstructed fixtures.

Devoted to both the performing and visual arts, this compound revolves primarily around artists from Québec, including the largest collection of pieces by abstract painter (and Canadian) Paul-Émile Borduas, who was ultimately ostracized before his death in 1960 for advocating for the separation between church and state.