École des métiers du tourisme de Montréal (2012)

[Monsieur_MA]

Très belle remise à neuf. Je sais pas pourquoi mais j'ai les goosebumps en voyant l'édifice on dirait un manoir dans un film d'horreur.

La scène de la douche dans Psycho? En plus, le manoir était en rase campagne loin de tout le monde.

[cjb]

C'est vrai que c'est un bâtiment à l'allure lugubre. Mais quelle belle rénovation ! Wow!

[Memphis 22]

Ce chantier est presque terminé

 

 

 

[Rocco]

Superbe! Avec un beau terrassement, ça ajoute du cachet à ce coin délabré de la ville qu'est le Quartier Concordia.

[IluvMTL]

http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/brand+school+students/6966994/story.html

 

 

MONTREAL - When school starts in late August, the 220 students at a downtown cooking and tourism school will start their programs in a brand new, old school.

 

You won’t find many older school buildings in Montreal than the former Victoria School.

 

The Queen Anne-style heritage building on de Maisonneuve Blvd. near St. Mathieu went up in 1887. It was designed by Alexander Francis Dunlop – the same architect behind what is now St. James United Church.

 

But like some aging buildings, it fell into neglect, lying empty for several years with a leaky roof.

 

The work to restore and transform the building for its new vocation included an emergency roof repair, mould removal and work on the building’s exterior.

 

It cost $10.4 million, according to the Commission scolaire de Montréal, including a $2.1 million cost overrun in the second phase, which it said was mainly related to the unforeseen decontamination.

 

The work to disinfect the building was only part of the project, but it has become a familiar problem for the CSDM.

 

In the case of École Saint-Gérard in the Villeray district, which was evacuated in January because of mould spores, the board favours a drastic proposal – demolishing it and building a new, bigger school on the same site.

 

Students at three other CSDM schools afflicted with a mould problem – Hochelaga, Baril and Saint-Nom-de-Jésus – also face relocation this fall.

 

The board largely chalks up its $46 million deficit in 2011-12 to mould in some of its schools. And it wants financial help from the Education Department for schools facing that problem. It doesn’t receive funding for it now, said Nathalie Roberge, a board spokesperson.

 

The Education Department covered $6 million of the total cost of the work on Victoria School, now the École des métiers de la restauration et du tourisme de Montréal, Roberge said.

 

The Victoria School sign engraved in stone over the arched entrance has faded. Inside the classrooms, bubble wrap lay on the pristine desks that had just arrived on Thursday. The old wainscotting is still in place on the ground floor along with the original wooden front doors. What was once a gymnasium built in 1911 is now a large kitchen for the cooking school. A glass bridge connects it to the old part of the building.

 

“It’s a combination of contemporary architecture and historic,” said Gavin Affleck, a partner at Affleck & de la Riva architectes, part of the consortium that has worked on the project with Vincent Leclerc & associés.

 

The building has a lot of qualities “and it needed a lot of help,” Affleck said.

 

“We had a major contamination problem because the building had been abandoned for almost 10 years and the roof was leaking,” Affleck said. The decontamination has been done successfully, he added.

 

The exterior is pretty much the original, he said. Work on the outside of the school included installing a copper and slate roof, the original covering. It’s the costliest option but also the most affordable in the long run, Affleck said. An asphalt roof would have cost about half the price and the difference was made up by a city of Montreal grant, he said.

 

“We’re pretty happy with the exterior look.”

 

It will probably take them two years to obtain LEED – Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design – certification for the building, Affleck said of the green building program.

 

The amount spent to decontaminate, renovate and restore the building was more than what a new school might cost. But Affleck said it’s more expensive to restore a historic building.

 

He argued that you can’t compare a brand new school to a restored historic building. The cultural value of maintaining the historic building is huge, said Affleck, and something he believes goes beyond any financial concern.

 

Affleck also spoke of the intrinsic value of the building, noting the reason it survived is because it was better built.

 

There’s always a way to do things cheaply, “but cheap comes with a cost,” said Dinu Bumbaru, policy director at Heritage Montreal.

 

Bumbaru said he believes the CSDM is the only school board in Canada with a heritage committee. Some years ago its Catholic predecessor — the Commission des écoles catholiques de Montréal – was “very insensitive” to the architectural and historical heritage they had in their hands, Bumbaru said. They made some dramatic remodelling, tearing down buildings and architectural features such as plaques, lettering and cornices, he said.

 

“We’re quite happy to see it come alive again,” Bumbaru said of the old Victoria School.

 

Allison Reid, who is managing an environmental project on the same block as the school spearheaded by the Éco-quartier Peter McGill, said residents are happy to hear the building has been cleaned up.

 

“I think in the city when there’s a large space like that that isn’t used, it causes a lot of harm to the neighbourhood,” she said.

 

“So to have it cleaned up and used and have people going in and out of it every day is a huge improvement.”

 

bbranswell@montrealgazette.com

 

 

 

Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/brand+school+cooking+tourism+students+Montreal/6966994/story.html#ixzz21GLJPBLt

[Memphis 22]

La pose du gazon...

 

 

Détails des garnitures sur le toit

 

[denpanosekai]

They're gonna need to put up a little fence around the grass. All those dog walkers will destroy that green in no time.

[Rocco]

Incroyable!

[Vauxhall]

Ça fait tellement de bien d'avoir un peu de verdure dans le secteur.

[Habfanman]

Beautiful job! That's the way to do heritage preservation.