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If only there were more people who understood the value of our built heritage. If only there were more people trained in restoration.
If only developers — rather than opting for teardowns — practised adaptive reuse of historic structures or the marriage of new architecture with old.
If only, if only, if only. Sometimes, we in the heritage community — and I most certainly include myself — sound like a broken record. We go on and on about what's wrong, but we rarely applaud what's right.
Well, the School of Restoration Arts at Willowbank is what's right. You might even say it's what's right now, since the school's three-year program doesn't even have third-year students yet — they're currently in their second year. But in the coming decades, it might represent the future of how we'll handle our past.
School administrator Shelley Huson says there are challenges aplenty, but Willowbank successfully began its diploma program began last fall. (PHOTOS BY DAVE LEBLANC FOR THE GLOBE AND MAIL)
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Situated a stone's throw from the U.S. border in Queenston, near scenic Niagara-on-the-Lake, the school occupies a National Historic Site, the former 1834 Greek revival mansion of Alexander Hamilton. (He was the son of Robert Hamilton, one of the founders of Upper Canada.)
A few years ago, the estate — whose previous owner had intended to bulldoze it in order to build an inn and conference centre — was acquired by a preservation group led by Laura Dodson, who envisioned a place where students would learn by doing. (The group later included Bluma and Bram Appel, who secured additional funding from the American Friends of Canada.)
"Laura Dodson, who had a house in Wales, was in a church one time," begins school administrator Shelley Huson, "and there were students gilding the church —they were learning to gild while gilding — and she thought, 'What an amazing concept.' She had this idea always, [but] didn't have a property."
Starting small with some weekend workshops and short programs, the group determined that the only way to properly teach the restoration arts was to fully immerse students in a full-time program. After a few setbacks, the diploma program began last fall. The courses, taught by experts from the conservation field, cover topics such as the archaeology in the Niagara area, stained glass, managing a restoration project, various case studies, the types and properties of wood, drafting, lime plaster mixes and building a dry stone wall.
Willowbank has already weathered events that might cripple other fledgling institutions: the death of the school's "guiding spirit," Ms. Dodson, last January, and the resignation of curriculum creator and architect Victor Tarnoy.
But in May, a new visionary, Ottawa-based architect Julian Smith — who was responsible for the creation of Carlton University's heritage conservation program in the 1980s and, more recently, Canadian head of the Vimy memorial restoration in France — signed on as interim director.
"Where Willowbank is really unusual is it is not tied by the restrictions of academic institutions and therefore it's been able to develop a program which exists right at the border between theory and practice," says the 59-year-old Mr. Smith, who admits he heard about the school only about two months before he took the job there.
Since the school opened, its curriculum has been fine-tuned to place more emphasis on theory. (The 12 students now have homework, Ms. Huson says.) Mr. Smith's major contribution will come later this autumn, when he and the students present a "management plan" to the board of directors outlining the steps involved in restoring the Willowbank estate itself, which has been a dream of the group since the school's inception.
If all goes according to plan, Mr. Smith expects hands-on work to begin in January. And what could be better? Built using local whirlpool sandstone and featuring eight hand-carved, two-storey columns, Willowbank is a grand example of a rural estate. But having seen its share of abuses as a nunnery and a boys' school, it needs the heritage conservationist's caress.
Mr. Smith stresses, however, that the house is only part of the program. Conservationists, he notes, are moving away from treating buildings as separate entities, and taking a more "holistic" view of entire sites as "cultural landscapes" that include gardens, streetscape elements, engineering structures and human activity patterns.
"That's partly why Willowbank is being designed for the future of the conservation field, not for where it's come from, which has been, I would say, too much of a pure architectural focus," he explains.
The holistic approach is perfect for the Willowbank property. Its natural features include a ravine with trails once used by precontact natives and later by 17th-century European explorers. There is a carriageway winding up to the estate, with its gardens and stone walls. And archaeological digs are ongoing there. During my tour of the facility, Ms. Huson (who has a background in archaeology) showed me some of the artifacts they've unearthed: precontact native ceramics, British military boot buttons, musket balls and arrowheads.
As we walked to the 3,400-square-foot barn where masonry and carpentry are taught, her eyes lit up as she told me about the school's amazing faculty and the dedication of the students. (Every one of them found work in the heritage conservation field over the summer.)
She admitted there are challenges. One of the things on their list of things to do is remind the public that Willowbank is more than just a school; to bring in much-needed revenue, it is rented out for weddings, conferences and private functions. Another aim is to fight the negative connotations the word "trade" has taken on in our white-collar society.
"When I look at the trades, they're such a high level of skill … and if it could be marketed properly to [potential] students to say, 'This is about preservation, you're giving back to the community …'"
Ms. Huson trails off, perhaps not sure of the solution just yet. Mr. Smith suggests, however, that in a few years, when Willowbank graduates start to make their mark in the world, one might present itself: "The graduates will become ambassadors for the school."
If only we didn't have to wait that long.
For more information, go to www.theschoolofrestorationarts.com
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