The CCA Garden restored the urban fabric of an area deeply scarred by mid-20th-century highway engineering. Lying at the edge of an escarpment, it faces the CCA building from the south side of boulevard René-Lévesque. The garden was designed by Montréal artist-architect Melvin Charney as part of the Québec government’s competition program for the integration of art and architecture, combining sculpture and public space on a site granted to the CCA by the City of Montréal in 1986. At once a garden in the city and a museum in the open air, it evokes the history of landscape design and comments on Montréal’s early industrial sector below the hill, initiating a dialogue between nature, architecture, and the urban fabric. The garden is laid out as a series of narrative episodes – Orchard, Meadow, Arcade (mirror of the Shaughnessy House), Esplanade, Belvedere, and Allegorical Columns. Collectively they speak of the history of architecture and the history of the city.