Architecture: Heritage hell

>> Historic site mismanagement was one of 1999's worst trends, says the jury for Save Montreal's annual Orange and Lemon Awards

by PHILIP PREVILLE

Huge neon signs obstructing the facades of turn-of-the-century buildings. Cheap housing obstructing the view of the old Westmount train station. Condos on the property of a centuries-old armoury. The neglect and, ultimately, the demolition of an 18th-century private club.

These are the kinds of things that happened to Montreal's cityscape in 1999. And the worst thing about them was that the federal, provincial and municipal governments gave all these projects their stamp of approval.

For their ineptitude, all three governments were awarded Lemons by the jury for Save Montreal's 1999 Orange and Lemon Awards, handed out each year to the city's best and worst architectural projects of the year.

The Lemons were remarkable in that the jury awarded numerous brickbats not to buildings, but to governments instead. Jury president Dinu Bumbaru says the Lemons are intended to underline the serious urban planning problems currently facing the city. "It's not as though some dodgy developers just came in and ruined the city's landscape," explains Bumbaru. "They got government approval first."

Among the fiascos: the federal government approved a condo project on the site of a 200-year-old armoury; the Quebec government failed to protect the Hunt Club from demolition; and city hall made an exception to its bylaw regarding commercial signs, allowing the new Paramount theatre to erect a gaudy neon eye-catcher that obscures the beauty of the old Simpson's building that houses it. The jury called this latter case an example of "visual pollution."

"These Lemons represent problems that can be fixed," says Bumbaru. "Politicians don't have to approve junk projects. Governments have the expertise to deal with these kinds of issues. Hopefully, next year, their intervention will lead to some positive awards."

Ex-Centris rump
The jury also awarded numerous Orange awards for well-crafted projects. Perhaps the most interesting of the lot is the Bain Levesque, which won in the "new creation" category. First built in 1908, the public bath had fallen into disrepair. The facade was demolished, but the jury felt the new building fit in seamlessly with its surroundings--and they managed to preserve the turn-of-the-century basin inside. The end result, says Bumbaru: "It's almost as if this new, modern building houses an archeological dig."

The Bain Levesque beat out the new Ex-Centris complex on St-Laurent in its category, though the jury did award an honourable mention for the building's backside which faces Clark. "They responded to local residents and changed their design accordingly," says Bumbaru. "It's an example of great citizenry."

The jury's top prize, the Orange Award for Restoration, went to the revamped Corona Theatre on Notre-Dame W. "The Corona is a perfect example of a preservation project," says Bumbaru of the St-Henri theatre, built in 1912 and abandoned for almost three decades. "With restoration, the mantra is always 'minimum intervention.' They made minor changes to the exterior to reconnect the building with its streetscape and make it part of the neighbourhood again. They cleaned up the interior while changing as little as possible, and they kept the building's vocation as a theatre intact." :