Hall Rental
To rent the Alfred-Langevin Hall
Please contact the Cultural Agent, Nancy Brunelle at 450-264-5411, extension 238.
The municipal councils within the MRC are able to use the hall free of charge, if it is available, by reserving in advance. Haut-Saint-Laurent citizens as well as private and community organizations are also able to rent the room, subject to the rates below, by contacting the coordinator to check availability and make a reservation.
From Monday to Thursday
Private organization: $100 per day or $25 per hour
Community Organization: $75 per day or $18.75 per hour
From Friday to Sunday
Private organization: $125 per day or $31.24 per hour
Community Organization: $93.75 per day or $23.50 per hour
The total cost of the rental must be paid in full two weeks prior to the event. A cancellation request must be written and signed more than five business days before the event, otherwise 25% percent of the rental fee will be retained. Revenues from rentals or those generated during events are used to cover the costs of maintaining the hall (staff fees, electricity, painting, insurance, etc.) or are reinvested in the hall’s equipment.
The Hall cannot be rented for private receptions or any family event.
Call for project - Alfred-Langevin Hall Program
As set out in the MRC du Haut-Saint-Laurent Cultural Policy Action Plan, the Alfred-Langevin Cultural Hall aims to concretely promote the ongoing development of cultural and community life within the region. Artists and cultural entrepreneurs are invited to propose new projects each year.
Call for projects
The Cultural Committee has issued a call for applications for the 2024 program at the Alfred-Langevin Cultural Hall: visual arts, performing arts, conferences.
Submit your application by October 31, 2024.
Your application must include:
- Your resume, including current contact information;
- An artist’s statement or summary of your creative approach;
- A description of your relationship to the region;
- A project proposal:
- For a visual arts project: Please provide representative visuals of the proposed project and the quantity of artworks available for the exhibit; each visual must be identified with its dimensions, the medium used, and its year of production;
- For a project in the performing arts; please provide a demo, an excerpt, a script, a video, etc.
Complete applications can be submitted by mail to:
Selection Committee of the Alfred-Langevin Cultural Hall
10 King Street
Huntingdon, Quebec J0S 1H0
For any additional information, contact Nancy Brunelle at 450-264-5411, extension 238.
A selection amongst the applications received is made by the Cultural Committee of the MRC in order to offer a diversified program for the coming year. Events selected for the annual program have priority in terms of booking. Events associated with the program are not subject to rental fees.
Who was Alfred Langevin?
The Moir Hotel
A building, constructed at the intersection of Chateauguay Street and King Street, by David Fitch from 1832 to 1835, was operated as the Huntingdon hotel, playing a major role in the region’s development. By the late 1840’s, the hotel was run by Mrs. P.C. Moir, under the name Moir Hotel. She administered the well-known establisment in Huntingdon for fifty years. In 1922, Alfred Langevin became the owner and manager of the hotel, with his brother, Dr. J.O. Langevin, county veterinarian, and his sister-in-law.
A vision of grandeur
On June 16 1928, The Gleaner newspaper published an article that took people by surprise: a rumor was spreading that Alfred Langevin was to replace the old Moir Hotel by the "Huntingdon Chateau”, a 120 feet long three-storey building , with 65 luxurious rooms, most with bath. With an opening scheduled for July 1st 1928.
When the initial report was made public, Langevin and his associates had already decided the hotel’s specifications; the architect’s sketch was complete and the provincial charter had been applied for. After several delays caused by major funding difficulties, a massive fundraising campaign, led by entrepreneurs and backed by Mayor Dennis J. O'Connor and The Gleaner, encourages Huntingdon citizens to invest in this ambitious project.
The final price tag of the project is $175 000, most of which comes from the participation of citizens as shareholders. Huntingdon Chateau opens its doors on November 21, 1929 during a gala where 300 guests celebrated until the wee hours of the morning.
The Chateau, all brick, stone and concrete, with its underground parking, its powerful ventilation and heating systems, its kitchen equipped with the latest appliances, its luxurious lobby, its impressive dining room and sumptuous banquet room, its orchestra, its diverse electric lighting and its modern and welcoming bedrooms, engendered the admiration of visitors from everywhere. No expense was spared to construct the finest country hotels in Quebec and perhaps even Canada.
Coinciding with the years of Prohibition in the United States, the hotel boasts of offering the best alcohol and finest liqueurs. The enterprise is successful and the benefits are positive for the region and its inhabitants. At the banquet held in his honor in 1945, Mr. Langevin said it was the wholehearted community service he received that made it possible for the Huntingdon Chateau to earn such a good name and it being so highly praised... It was the people of this community who lent co-operation that made the Chateau a success.
The Community and Cultural Hall
The MRC cultural Hall was therefore named Alfred-Langevin Hall in honor of this visionary, who built an institution without which Huntingdon would probably have not been the same after the Great Depression caused by the 1929 stock market crash. Alfred Langevin, whose ambitious project created many jobs in the region and led to the injection of capital, offered the town of Huntingdon a chance to grow and thrive over a long period of time.
The Stained Glass Windows
The five window screens in the Alfred Langevin Cultural Hall have been conceived in 2004 and created in 2005-2006, by Detlef Gotzens, an artist living in the municipality of Saint-Chrysostome, Quebec. Supported by metal frame structures that are part of the interior skin of the Hall space, these pieces are not conceived to be traditional stained glass windows, but contemporary architectural art glass. The design concept takes variety in art into consideration as a metaphor of the multitude of art forms that is represented in different color schemes as well as shapes and forms. This creates a mood that takes the visitor in a meditative state of mind, and focus on the activities to be attended in the Hall, without the visual influence of the outside world.
The artist uses traditional painting techniques on the glass to achieve the graphic expressive line effect against the light to create more dynamic movement. All the glass used in the project is mouthblown German antique glass that comes from a glass foundry in Bavaria, made the same way since over a thousand years, with the brilliance and color quality exceptional in the world. The lead that is used to assemble the windows comes from Belgium, the best quality lead available.
Imagine
This window suggests that music is a universal art form that people are consciously and unconsciously exposed to all the time. The use of the arrow is a reference to pictography that we are surrounded within modern society and the arrow means direction which is also a reference again to music. Like John Lennon said in his famous Imagine song, music bridges language barriers. In that sense, art is a way to communicate and convey human relations.
Time Fusion
The blue forms of this piece refers to a contemporary symbol of the veil of Mary, which is always blue in christian iconography. Here, it partly hides the classic ornemental hand painted section, that reminds the classical stained glass within a modern design concept and brings it into our times. It also gives a sacred statement about stained glass history.
Formal Tension
The horizontal seemingly suspended in space light violet forms creates a feeling of solidness and calm versus the net like uprising structure on the right that appears more unstable and elusive. The spheres lined up in a vertical rise are the bonding forms between the two opposing elements of the composition and with the coloration appear playful and also mysterious.
Space Dimensions'
This window presents confrontation of forms in space, interacting with the metal frame structures, and therefore creating another visual space. From all the other pieces of the project, this one is the more abstract composition. Shapes and lines relate to the other pieces.
Zen
On the North wall of the Hall, this mostly yellow screen creates a light balance in which it supports the other windows in consideration of the overall lighting of the space. The sphere is the central focal point of the composition, and erupts like life and creation. Forms and colors are both in tension and in harmony in this metaphor of the universe.
Previous programs (archives)
Last year programs for consultation:
