Behind the facades of heritage buildings sometimes hide exceptional interiors that are unknown to the public. Certain interior spaces, such as those of the Saint-Sulpice library or the Château Dufresne, are protected under the Cultural Heritage Act. But others do not benefit from any protection, whether it comes from Quebec or from the municipalities which, since 2012, have had the power to include interior spaces in citations. Still, some of these sets are worth seeing.
For more than ten years, the Cultural Heritage Act has allowed municipalities to protect exceptional interiors, but very few have availed themselves of these new powers. Last September, The duty had mentioned the case of the City of Westmount which, in 2020, had cited the interior of the Goode house. Less than two years later, the City authorized substantial modifications to this residence.
In 2016, the Canada Research Chair in Built Heritage produced a report at the request of the City of Montreal, which wanted to develop measures to enhance the interior spaces of heritage buildings. To carry out her mission, the researcher and professor at the School of Architecture of the University of Montreal Claudine Déom and her colleagues examined the practices in effect elsewhere in Canada and around the world.
Protecting interiors is not an easy task. On the one hand, they are invisible from the outside and, in many cases, inaccessible to the general public. They are also subject to transformations due to the presence of materials considered dangerous, whether asbestos or lead paint, or the need to adapt them to contemporary standards with the addition of sprinklers or air conditioning systems.
“Unraveling all that was no small feat, because it was not clear with the Heritage Law, admits Claudine Déom. I found, for example, that unless it’s not said strictly speaking in the act of classification, the interior is included in the classification. Subsequently, we began to be more sophisticated in our ways of classifying by naming the values and the characteristic elements. »
Some cases are special, such as the 9e floor of the Eaton Centre, part of the interior of which is listed, but not the exterior of the building. A classification also targets Habitat 67, but in addition to the outer envelope, only the interiors of two dwellings benefit from this protection.
The power of cities
A handful of municipalities have protected interiors, however, found Claudine Déom’s team. Thus, since the coming into force of the Cultural Heritage Act in 2012, the municipality of Saint-Mathieu, in Montérégie, has integrated interior elements of the church of Saint-Mathieu, which includes in particular the windows, the floors, the doors and the staircase leading to the rood screen.
Saint-André-de-Kamouraska for its part cited, in 2014, the flagship house of the Îles-du-Pot-à-l’Eau-de-Vie, not only for the building, but also for certain interior parts. , including the spiral staircase and floors.
Finally, the municipality of Adstock, in the Chaudière-Appalaches region, cited the Très-Saint-Coeur-de-Marie church, the former presbytery and the cemetery. The protection includes decorative elements from the church, including gilding.
“It’s not a common practice. This is still a well-kept secret at the municipal level, considering that the Cultural Heritage Act has given more responsibilities to MRCs and municipalities. I assume that the municipalities consider that their plate is full, and they may not be eyeing the interiors as much, ”underlines Ms.me Deom.
The bell jar should not be placed outside as much as inside. Heritage conservation is fundamentally a public good.
Montreal has several regulations affecting building interiors, but these are more concerned with aspects related to fire prevention, sanitation or building maintenance.
Last fall, however, the City of Montreal made public a recognition intervention framework to bring consistency within the municipal apparatus in the different methods for recognizing heritage elements, through citations and toponymy in particular, points out Mme Deom. “The adoption of the framework in recognition will perhaps generate a return to citations, and in particular those of interiors, because municipalities have the right to do so. »
In general, Claudine Déom believes that greater attention should be paid to interiors. “All the conventual buildings and the religious heritage are part of the precious interiors, in my opinion. These are interiors that are often misunderstood because of generational filters that mean that today less is known about the purpose of all kinds of forms, such as confessionals. She evokes the Cité-des-Hospitalières, whose interiors are less spectacular than those of certain churches, but no less important.
Private properties
The researchers also looked at issues related to private property and the right of owners to dispose of it as they please. In this regard, the United States is more severe than in Canada when it comes to infringements of property rights. In Canada, the right to property is not absolute and the public authorities can restrict these rights to favor the general interest, underlines the report.
How far should we go to protect the interiors of privately owned buildings? “You shouldn’t put the bell jar on the outside as much as on the inside,” believes Claudine Déom. Heritage conservation is fundamentally a public good. Matching the two is where it gets tricky. »
In some cases of privately owned buildings, such as the former Royal Bank headquarters on rue Saint-Jacques — which now houses the Crew Collective Café — it is important to protect certain spaces, such as the halls, she says. The exterior of this building is protected, as it is within the perimeter of the heritage site of Montreal, but not the interior. “So it’s at the owner’s discretion. I think you have to give the owner some leeway, but you shouldn’t give a blank check either. »
Even the classification of a building and its interiors cannot guarantee everything. Mme Déom cites the case of the Mount Stephen Club construction site, rue Drummond, in Montreal, which could have had a catastrophic outcome when structural problems arose.
The future of other interiors worries him, including that of the old Jean-Talon station, which is not listed and part of which is currently unoccupied.
Bill 69, adopted by the National Assembly in 2021, grants more power to municipalities in matters of heritage protection. In particular, it obliges municipalities to draw up an inventory of buildings of heritage interest and to adopt maintenance regulations in order to avoid demolitions through abandonment and negligence.
“It’s a big step, also to standardize tools and information management. But maybe the interiors will slip between two chairs, ”fears Mme Deom.