sister cities

City announces upgrades to Place de Namur to honour sister city

Ruby Pratka, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

editor@qctonline.com

The Place de Namur public square in Lower Town will be expanded this year to mark the 25th anniversary of Quebec City’s sister-city relationship with Namur, Belgium, Mayor Bruno Marchand announced last week. The square is located at the intersection of Rue Saint-Nicolas, Rue des Vaisseaux-du-Roy and Côte de la Potasse, in the shadow of the ramparts, alluding to the fact that Namur is also a walled city. There’s also a public square called Place de Québec in the historic centre of Namur, and a pier named in honour of the Royal 22e Régiment.

“We are very pleased to launch the development of this public square near the ramparts, which echoes the shared history of the fortified cities of Namur and Quebec City,” said Marchand at a City Hall press conference on July 31, alongside Belgian deputy prime minister and former Namur mayor Maxime Prévôt, first alderwoman and acting mayor of Namur Anne Barzin and representatives from the Délégation Wallonie-Bruxelles. “This project is motivated by the strong ties that unite us with our sister city, but also by our desire to offer a more welcoming and safe place for citizens who travel in this area. It will also be an opportunity to underline the 40th anniversary of Quebec City’s designation as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

“We will beautify an area that a lot of us pass through often to get to City Hall or Vieux-Québec or elsewhere from Lower Town, but that was unremarkable, and it will become a great Vieux- Québec landmark,” Marchand said. “Widened sidewalks, se- cure intersections, the addition of benches and the installation of public art: connecting the Gare du Palais to the Old City, the Place de Namur will make the trip more comfortable and fun for pedestrians, offering a shaded space to stop and rest on their way up the Côte du Palais.”

The square will be enlarged, and at least three trees and two outdoor art installations will be added. “We’re obviously very proud that you’ve honoured our city with this public square that we’ve seen the sketches for,” Barzin told Marchand at the press conference. The city of Namur will donate a touchable replica of a famous bas-relief, La Hure du Grognon, of which the original is at the Musée archéologique de Namur.

Place de Namur will also feature Confluence, a sculpture by Quebec City artist Danielle April. Designed specifically for this space, the sculpture evokes the many similarities between Namur and Quebec City, two French-speaking, fortified cities that developed at the conflu- ence of a river and a stream. It will incorporate place names shared by the two capitals, some of which are etched into the wavy lines of the 14 waves of the aluminum sculpture.

The upgrades to the public square and the installation of the two works of art are expected to cost the city about $900,000. Construction is expected to be complete in November 2025; trees will be planted in spring 2026 to put the finishing touches on the new square.

Barzin said that during the Belgian delegation’s visit to Quebec, they had visited Terrebonne, near Montreal, with which they also have a sister city relationship, and the small town of Namur in the Outaouais region. They also spoke with officials from the Quebec City library system, consulted Quebec City police about best practices for pedestrian streets, discussed heritage preservation and climate resilience with different groups, visited the Musée de la Civilisation and participated in cultural exchanges. “Our populations win when we learn from each other,” commented Marchand.

Namur is the capital of Wallonia, the French-speaking region of Belgium; it is a city built around a medieval centre, with a population of about 112,000. It is one of eight cities with which Quebec City has sister-city relationships. The others are Paris, Bordeaux, Rennes and Nantes, France; San Antonio, Texas; Xi’an, China; and Calgary.