Montreal's skyline is the largest in Quebec and one of the largest in Canada, with 73 buildings in the city that reach a height greater than , 18 of which are taller than . Montreal has the largest skyline and the tallest buildings in Canada east of Toronto, the only city in Canada with a greater population. Since 1992, municipal regulations have limited the height of any new buildings from exceeding the altitude of Mount Royal, which rises above mean sea level, combined with a maximum roof height of from ground level. The maximum roof height has since been removed from the latest 2050 Land Use and Mobility Plan adopted in 2025 while the restriction on not surpassing the Mont Royal remains.

The history of skyscrapers in Montreal began with the completion of the eight-storey New York Life Insurance Building in 1889. Following an early modest boom from the late 1920s to the early 1930s, Montreal's skyline was left unchanged until the early 1960s, when the construction of high-rises picked up again.

This second, larger boom, which lasted until the early 1990s, was dominated by commercial office towers, such as Tour de la Bourse, which was the tallest building in Canada from 1964 to 1969. While not a habitable building, the Montreal Tower is a notable landmark in the city. Part of the city's Olympic Stadium, it was planned to be built in time for the city's 1976 Summer Olympics, but ultimately opened in 1987. It is the tallest inclined structure in the world at . The boom ended with the current two tallest buildings, 1000 de La Gauchetière and 1250 René-Lévesque, both of which inaugurated in 1992.

A third building boom would begin in the 2010s, with residential and mixed-use buildings making up an increasing share of new development. The downtown skyline expanded significantly, especially towards the southwest, around the Bell Centre. Notable additions include the three-tower Tour des Canadiens complex, built between 2013 and 2021, as well as Roccabella (2016) and L'Avenue (2020). The mid-2020s saw the completion of five new skyscrapers that approach the city's height limit of around 200 m: Victoria sur le Parc, Banque Nationale Headquarters, Maestria, 1 Square Phillips, and Skyla, reflecting a growing demand for vertical space. Between 2000 and 2025, Montreal has more than doubled the number of buildings taller than 100 m (328 ft), from 32 to 73.

Most of Montreal's tallest buildings are located in Downtown Montreal, forming the core of a continuous area of high-rises extending towards Shaughnessy Village to the southwest of downtown and Griffintown to the southeast. Both areas have seen increased high-rise development beginning in the 2010s. In addition, high-rises can be found along the coast of Nun's Island south of downtown, and recent developments on the island in the 2020s, such as Evolo X and Symphonia VIU, have exceeded a height of . The Belvédère Kondiaronk lookout on Mount Royal is a popular viewpoint for the city's skyline.

History

1900s–1950s

In the first half of the 20th century, Montreal was the largest city in Canada, as well as its economic centre. As a result, the city is home to many of Canada's earliest high-rises, featuring a variety of architectural styles. Montreal had many of Canada's tallest buildings, which only Toronto rivalled in height.The first high-rise in Montreal is considered to be New York Life Insurance Building in Old Montreal, the tallest commercial building in the city at the time of completion in 1889. Constructed in the Richardsonian Romanesque style for the New York Life Insurance Company, the building's Old Red Sandstone was imported from Dumfriesshire, Scotland. However, the city's tallest building overall was the Notre-Dame Basilica, a minor basilica built in 1865. Another early high-rise, also in Old Montreal, was the Renaissance Revival Canada Life Building, built in 1895.

A construction boom towards the mid-to-late 1920s, during the Roaring Twenties. The neoclassical Royal Bank Tower, upon completion in 1928, became the first building in the city to surpass the Notre-Dame Basilica with a height of 121 m (397 ft); it was the tallest building in Canada and all of the British Empire. The Art Deco Aldred Building, 96 m (315 ft) tall, was completed in 1930, with setbacks that allowed light onto the Place d'Armes square and evoked the cathedral-like massing of the adjacent Notre-Dame Basilica. The Bell Telephone Building, also 96 m tall, was completed in 1929, and contained the head offices of the Bell Telephone Company. The Royal Bank Tower would soon be ever so slightly eclipsed by the 122 m (400 ft) Sun Life Building in 1931. The 7-storey base of the skyscraper had been built by 1918, with the tower being added later.

After the end of the boom, brought about by the Great Depression, few high-rises would be added to the city for over two decades leaving the skyline largely unchanged until the early 1960s. One possible exception is the tower on the main campus of the Université de Montréal. Construction on the campus and the tower, to the west of Mount Royal, began in 1924 and was only completed in 1943. The 22-storey tower was designed with both Beaux Arts and Art Deco influences.

1960s–1990s

A large building boom began in the early 1960s, whereupon many commercial skyscrapers were built in the city. The centre of commercial activity shifted from the historic Old Montreal to the core of today's Downtown Montreal. The first building to surpass the height of the Sun Life Building was CIBC Tower, a 187 m (614 ft) office tower that housed the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce. It would only hold the title of Montreal's tallest building very briefly, for it was soon overtaken by the cross-shaped Place Ville Marie in the same year. About three storeys of height was added to Place Ville Marie to ensure it would be taller than CIBC Tower. During the 1960s, Montreal had some of the tallest skyscrapers outside the United States, with the Place Ville Marie being the third tallest upon completion. Only two years after Place Ville Marie was built, Tour de la Bourse became the city's tallest building in 1964; it was also the tallest reinforced concrete building in the world until the completion of Lake Point Tower in Chicago. Like similar waves of construction in other Canadian cities such as Toronto or Vancouver, Montreal adapted the International style for most of its new towers during this period.

There were a few exceptions to the trend of office buildings, such as Château Champlain, a hotel skyscraper built in 1966 to accommodate visitors to Expo 67, the city's upcoming world's fair. It is notable for its distinctive arch-shaped windows. The Le Port-Royal Apartments at Golden Square Mile, on the western edge of downtown, was one of the city's earliest residential high-rises, completed in 1964 in the modernist style. While short compared to other high-rises built during the 1960s, the Habitat 67 housing complex, built in Cité du Havre for Expo 67, is recognized as a unique architectural landmark. Designed by Israeli-Canadian-American architect Moshe Safdie as his thesis project at McGill University, Habitat 67 was designed to integrate the benefits of suburban living within the density and economics of an apartment building. Its interlocking forms and landscape terraces have made it one of Montreal's most unique high-rises.

Montreal was selected as the host for the 1976 Summer Olympics in 1970, and work began in 1973 for the city's Olympic Stadium north of downtown. The stadium was to incorporate a 165 m (541 ft) tower, named Montreal Tower, that would be the tallest inclined structure in the world. However, the project was plagued by multiple issues, such as Montreal's brutal winters, and the tower would not be finished until 1987, 11 years after the games.Costello, Rory. Olympic Stadium (Montreal) . Society for American Baseball Research, 2013. The tower features an observatory, accessed via an inclined elevator, that offers visitors views of the Montreal skyline. Also built for the Olympics was the city's Olympic Village to house the games' athletes, consisting of two pyramid-shaped 23-storey high-rises. Similar to Montreal Tower, the Olympic Village suffered cost overruns.

The city's commercial building boom continued in the 1970s; notable developments include the four-building Complexe Desjardins (1975), which has a mall at its base, and Complexe Maisonneuve (1983). Later office towers from the mid-1980s adopted postmodernist architecture, such as KPMG Tower (1987), the Bell Media Tower (1988), and 1501 McGill College (1992). The boom would come to an end in 1992, with the completion of Montreal's two tallest buildings: 1000 de La Gauchetière and 1250 René-Lévesque. When measured by roof height, 1000 de La Gauchetière is the city's tallest building at 205 m (673 ft). If measured by architectural height, 1250 René-Lévesque is the taller of the two due to its spire, which brings it to a height of 226.5 m (743 ft).

By this point, Toronto had overtaken Montreal in urban population as well as economic importance, which was reflected in the heights of its tallest buildings. In 1992, Montreal adopted its first ever urban plan, prohibiting any building in the city from exceeding the altitude of Mount Royal. This equates to a height restriction of 232.5 m above mean sea level, effectively a height limit of about 200 m (656 ft) in Downtown Montreal, ensuring that 1000 de La Gauchetière and 1250 René-Lévesque would retain their positions as Montreal's two tallest buildings indefinitely.

2000s–present

High-rise development slowed down significantly in the 1990s, until the start of another construction boom in the late 2000s. The only building taller than 100 m (328) to appear between this period was the taller of the two-tower E-Commerce Place complex (Cité du commerce électronique, or CCE in French). Completed in 2003, it was part of a program from the Quebecois government to promote jobs in information technology, with the creation of the Cité du Multimédia neighbourhood. Construction of new high-rises had returned earnestly by the 2010s, with many residential and mixed-use buildings being built downtown, such as Altitude Montreal (2013), Tour Air Canada (2014), and Tom Condos (2018), densifying the existing skyline.

In particular, a lot of new construction has occurred around the Bell Centre, expanding the core of the skyline southwest. This included the three-tower Tour des Canadiens complex, built between 2013 and 2021, and named after the Montreal Canadiens hockey team based at the Bell Centre; L'Avenue, a mixed-use skyscraper completed in 2020; and Deloitte Tower, the tallest office tower built in the city in the 2010s. Deloitte Tower was the city's first privately owned and financed commercial office tower to be built in more than 20 years. The building boom approached the maximum height allowed under the city's height restrictions by the 2020s, with four new skyscrapers reaching this limit. This includes the residential towers of Victoria sur le Parc, Maestria, 1 Square Phillips, and Skyla, as well as the tallest office building built after the 1990s, Banque Nationale Headquarters. The skyscraper became the new headquarters of the National Bank of Canada upon completion. All five skyscrapers were completed between 2024 and 2025.