Some 177 players from the field of history, heritage and museology oppose the sale of the Maison Chevalier in Quebec City and ask the Minister of Culture, Nathalie Roy, that the heritage building be funded and accessible again. .
“The State chooses to part with it rather than giving the Musée de la civilization the means to promote it. It sets a dangerous precedent. What will be the next piece of Quebec heritage to be sold to private interests? »Launches the president of the Société historique de Québec, Alex Tremblay-Lamarche.
He is at the origin of the drafting of a letter which will be sent to the minister and which brings together dozens of signatories. They demand that the house remain the possession of “all Quebecers”. “While the Legault government prides itself on highlighting the history of Quebec with its project to create Blue Spaces at a cost of $ 259 million, it is ironic to see a pre-existing heritage thus dropped”, we can read in the letter. An annual and recurring budget is requested from the Minister of Culture.
What will be the next piece of Quebec heritage to be sold to private interests?
The former director of the Musée de la civilization de Québec and signatory, Michel Côté, also deplores this decision. “Since the ministry has already closed the Place Royale museum, we are now closing the last place we could visit and which explains a little the history of this space,” he says. It is a total inconsistency. It is a pity for citizens and for tourists. “
Too outdated
It was Gestion 1608, one of the real estate arms of the Tanguay Group, which acquired Maison Chevalier. The large house built in 1752 should serve as the head office of the group’s real estate subsidiary, which expects to be able to accommodate around 40 employees.
The Musée de la civilization said it had taken steps to divest itself of the Maison Chevalier in 2018. The museum justifies its decision by arguing that the old house was too obsolete to house exhibitions, in particular because people with reduced mobility do not could access it.
These are “false motives”, however, believes Michel Côté. “There have already been several exhibitions in this place and, in any case, the future Blue Spaces will not meet the standards any more,” he says.
Alex Tremblay-Lamarche adds that Maison Chevalier was an enriching space from a historical point of view. “We offered interiors from the XVIIe, from the XVIIIe and XIXe century. We were in what a house, a kitchen, a bedroom might look like in Place Royale at the start of the colony and, subsequently, at the time of Papineau. It really allowed you to immerse yourself in history, ”he says.
It is an architecturally unique house, adds Michel Côté. “It represents the heritage of New France, and which served as a place of dissemination. We are losing a place of cultural mediation, ”he says.
A press conference will take place Monday morning and will bring together the former Minister of Culture and Communications Agnès Maltais, the ethnologist Pierre Lahoud and the historian Joseph Gagné, all signatories of the letter.