Something Old, Something New

Making an addition to a historic building is a fraught affair. As I discussed in my last blog, in Ontario we have a patchwork of rather loose guidelines that are mostly in agreement about the key points. But they are very lax by international standards. In England, we would not even be having this discussion – an addition like the one proposed for the Château Laurier, on a building as significant to London as that is to Ottawa, would be illegal, full stop.

But here, it’s allowed, and even if the current proposal for the Château is rejected, another will surely follow. So it makes sense to think about how to make a harmonious addition to a historic building.

Early this century, the Lord Elgin Hotel – a château-like structure that owes more than a passing nod to the Laurier – received new north and south wings. If you study it for a moment it’s not hard to distinguish the new work. Although its decorative motifs, proportions and articulation are very true to the historic building, it employs a stripped-down ornamental style and larger windows that one would expect of a modern building, as well as standing slightly physically apart.

It perfectly embodies the federal guidelines’ principle of ‘compatible with, subordinate to and distinguishable from the historic place.’ But its imitative quality would disturb some, because it’s so… unfashionable. The truth is, many architects would rather chew on a pack of razor blades than design something so anonymous.

So must a building be imitative in order to satisfy the criteria of compatible and subordinate? Not at all. I want to take a closer look at an example I mentioned earlier, Arthur Erickson’s addition to the Bank of Canada.

In some ways, this addition shouldn’t work – it towers over the original building in a way that’s anything but subordinate. It’s unapologetically Modern in style, unlike its Classical predecessor. But it works, and has never provoked the visceral negativity that the Château Laurier proposal immediately received. What makes it work?

First, it doesn’t detract from the one and only important view of the older building, which is from Wellington Street. If anything it enhances it, by providing a very clean backdrop to it, kind of like placing a print in a window mat. The narrow vertical rhythm of its fenestration harmonizes with the lines of the older building. It respectfully echoes the mansard roof and the copper finish of the original. But most of all, it works because Erickson clearly gets Classicism, even if he chooses not to design in the style.

It makes sense for Erickson not to try to design in a Classical idiom. Any architect not trained in that tradition is as likely to create an accidental parody of it as a thoughtful interpretation. But Erickson understands that Classicism is defined not just as a bunch of forms (columns, entablatures, pediments etc), but also as a set of values and principles. These values and principles – symmetry, order, balance, harmony, discretion, etc. – are as firmly in control of Erickson’s design as they are of the more obviously Classical original building.

If the Château Laurier must have an addition (a question that is far from settled, in my view), that is the sort of sensitivity that must be brought to it. It’s not just a matter of dressing up current tends in condo design in Indiana limestone and hoping for the best. It needs someone to understand both the forms and the principles of the original building, and be faithful to them.

Making a successful addition to a heritage building is not just a matter of having a list of guidelines and being able to check them all off. It requires historical literacy, judgement, ingenuity and enormous creative resourcefulness.

Peter Coffman
peter.coffman@carleton.ca