8 Stunning Public Artworks That Make Montreal (Canada) Feel Alive
Content warning: Which one is your favorite?
Montreal’s streets are filled with stories — painted high on buildings, nestled on brick walls, or stretching across pedestrian zones. In this collection, a girl climbs toward the word “HOPE” on a side door mural, a tribute to persistence by The Art Therapy. Leonard Cohen gazes out over the city he loved from two towering portraits downtown, while children run along a warped, surreal street installation under a summer sky. A young girl with birdhouses balanced on her shoulder meets your gaze, and Paula Carreira’s mural reimagines music as a wall-bound homage. From comic-style character studies to vibrant dreamscapes, here are 8 pieces that capture the rhythm and feeling of Montreal’s art scene.
More: When Street Art Meets Nature (40 Photos)
1. HOPE — Street Art by The Martherapy in Montreal, Canada
A black-and-white mural shows a young girl climbing a ladder made from the letter “H” in the word “HOPE.” The message is direct: ascent, optimism, and the strength of youth.
🔗 Follow The Martherapy on Instagram
2. Leonard Cohen Smiles On Us — Mural by EL MAC & Gene Pendon in Montreal, Canada
Painted on the side of a high-rise in downtown Montreal, this towering mural honors Canadian singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen. He’s portrayed with his hand to his chest, in a fedora, softly smiling.
🔗 Follow EL MAC on Instagram
3. Half Hedgehogg — Bordalo II’s mural in Montreal, Canada for MURAL Festival
A striking three-dimensional mural made entirely from trash and found objects, this piece by Bordalo II portrays a hedgehog split in two styles. One half is in raw metallic tones, the other bursting with colorful plastics. Installed on a building corner, the work highlights environmental waste with bold visual contrast.
More by Bordalo II: 22 photos – A Collection of Street Art by Bordalo II
4. Moving Dunes — Urban Art Installation in Montreal, Canada
On Avenue du Musée, undulating yellow and orange stripes simulate desert dunes, while polished chrome spheres reflect the street and sky. It invites interaction and reimagines the pedestrian zone as a living sculpture.
More photos and about it: Moving Dunes – Open-air art museum in Montreal, Quebec
5. Mural by Bezt in Montreal, Canada
This large-scale mural shows a young woman with her eyes closed, balancing birdhouses on a stick slung over her shoulder as a bird perches on it. The palette is rich in greens, reds, and browns.
6. Mural by Paulo Carreira in Montreal, Canada
A stylized portrait of a woman holding a Portuguese guitar fills a red brick building façade, blending portraiture with cultural symbolism. The woman’s gaze is thoughtful, rendered in bold graphic lines.
7. Mural by Polographe in Montreal, Canada
A close-up portrait in a bold, comic-book style shows a woman with platinum hair under a teal beanie. Her expression is sharp, with a dark background adding contrast to her skin tones and features.
🔗 Follow Polographe on Instagram
8. Street Art by Ashop Crew at MURAL Festival in Montreal, Canada
This colorful piece features an elderly woman wielding a spray can, surrounded by doves, dreamlike bubbles, and a purple-toned street scene. It blurs realism with fantasy in one of the city’s most recognizable street art walls.
🔗 Follow Ashop Crewon Instagram
From poetic tributes to immersive installations, Montreal continues to thrive as an open-air museum where artists elevate everyday walls and walkways into unforgettable experiences. These pieces reflect the city’s diverse spirit — one of memory, imagination, and hope.
More: Street Art Utopia: Why People Fall In Love With Outdoor Art (25 Photos)
Which one is your favorite?
Buildings That Look Like They’re From a Dream (8 Photos)
From a church in Iceland that looks like a spaceship preparing for launch, to a house zipped open on a street in Milan — this collection showcases architecture at its most imaginative. Included are cliffside wartime refuges, storybook cottages, optical illusions, and centuries-old constructions that defy gravity or blend perfectly into mountains. These aren’t digital renderings — they’re real places from around the world.
More: 8 Beautiful Artworks That Seem to Grow From Nature
1. Unzipped Building — Alex Chinneck in Milan, Italy
A building facade appears to peel open like a jacket, with an oversized zipper curling away the wall to reveal its inner structure. This public installation by Alex Chinneck uses stone, concrete, and illusion to challenge how we perceive architecture.
2. King Alfred’s Tower — England
This red-brick triangular tower rises dramatically from the fog in Somerset, England. Built in 1772, it commemorates Alfred the Great and reaches over 49 meters high with a narrow footprint that adds to its illusion of impossibility.
3. Alpine Refuge — Monte Cristallo, Italy
Located at 2,760 meters in the Dolomites, this hidden wooden shelter from World War I is embedded directly into the rockface. Built for survival, it now appears like a dreamlike relic barely distinguishable from the mountain.
4. Hallgrímskirkja Church — Reykjavík, Iceland
This iconic Lutheran church, inspired by basalt columns and volcanic formations, dominates the Reykjavík skyline. Designed in 1937 and completed in 1986, its symmetry and scale evoke science fiction architecture.
5. The House That Sank — The Crooked House, UK
Built in 1765 on top of a mine shaft, this British pub developed a pronounced tilt as the ground beneath it slowly gave way. Despite its slanting angles, it remained a local favorite for centuries.
6. Organic Slate Roof House — Germany
This home with flowing lines and a wave-shaped slate roof blurs the line between fairy tale and high-end eco-architecture. Natural stone and soft curves give it a whimsical yet grounded appearance.
7. Cliff House — France (Built 1347)
Balanced between eras and gravity, this timber-framed upper house sits atop massive medieval stonework. Located in France and completed in 1347, it seems to hover above the road with support beams stretching underneath.
8. Rock-Built Homes — Sanaa, Yemen
Traditional Yemeni tower houses in Sanaa rise directly from the rock, combining ancient stone masonry with ornate white geometric window frames. The buildings appear both sculpted by nature and intricately human-made.These buildings bend our expectations of what architecture can be — not just structures, but expressions of ingenuity, adaptation, and creativity. Whether carved into mountains or dressed like zippers, they show that the line between surreal and real is thinner than it seems.
More: 30 Sculptures You (probably) Didn’t Know Existed
Which one is your favorite?
