You are here

2008

Celebrate Our Heritage

Heritage Day is an opportunity to celebrate the architectural heritage and historic places of Canada. The Heritage Canada Foundation promotes the third Monday in February each year as Heritage Day and has long advocated adopting this date as a national holiday.

As part of our 35th anniversary celebrations, the Heritage Canada Foundation presents Heritage 2008: Work that Endures: Careers in Built Heritage, which highlights the stories of more than a dozen Canadians whose varied and interesting careers are all connected to heritage conservation and promotion.

Heritage Day 2008 resource guide (pdf)

Heritage 2008: Work that Endures: Careers in Built Heritage

In a studio in Toronto, Jean-François Furieri stands over his drafting table, pencil in hand. With the confident movements that come from years of experience, he sketches wreaths and rosettes and a cherub holding a garland. When he is satisfied with the design, he moves to the computer to do a more precise CAD image for a decorative plaster balcony for a theatre restoration. In another part of the studio, apprentices are pouring liquid plaster into custom moulds for a decorative frieze that will be part of the restoration.

Jean-François is a third generation master plasterer. His studio is Iconoplast Designs, Inc., in Toronto. The firm does restorations of architectural and decorative plaster columns, friezes, ceilings, and balconies for some of the most beautiful heritage buildings in North America. Projects in Toronto include One King West, the Royal Ontario Museum, and the Canon Theatre. In New York City, Furieri’s plaster works adorn the Selwyn Theatre, Lyric/Apollo Theatre, and Manhattan Opera House.

In Québec City, Tania Martin is meeting with prospective students to tell them about a course she will lead next summer. The students are working towards their master’s degree in architecture. Professor Martin explains the research activities the course entails: measuring and photographing early twentieth-century church architecture in two neighbouring French Catholic and English Anglican parishes in the Gaspé; consulting archives, maps, and other historic records; and conducting oral histories with people in these communities. This last activity—the oral history—is crucial, she stresses, as people’s recollections and memories often convey the real value of sacred places.

Professor Tania Martin is assistant professor in the School of Architecture of Laval University in Québec. She is also the Canada Research Chair in Built Religious Heritage and a member of the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada. At the beginning of her career, she is doing research into the meaning and significance of sacred sites in Canada.

In Victoria, Steve Barber is a veteran getting ready to do battle if necessary. There is a construction boom under way and property values are going up. Barber is the senior heritage planner for the city, and he knows what this means for historic buildings. Owners will be under pressure to sell their properties to developers.

Barber is preparing a list of buildings at risk. Surprisingly, they are buildings from the modernist period, from 1945-1975.

“Heritage did not stop in 1945,” Barber explains. He wants to identify the best of the modernist architecture and work to protect the buildings as historic sites. Victoria has done this for many of its Victorian, Edwardian, Italianate, and Arts and Crafts buildings. But the city’s heritage would be incomplete without good representation from the modernist period.

Master plaster worker. Professor of Built Religious Heritage. And heritage planner for a complex modern city.

All three people work in the field of built heritage. We use their stories to introduce Work that Endures.

We present here stories of more than a dozen individuals whose careers are varied but all connected to keep historic places alive.

Tradespeople: Norbert and Helga Sattler, a husband and wife team of stained glass artisans; Gina Garcia, a restorer of paintings, wood panels and metal sculptures; and Cameron Forbes, who runs a company that specializes in the fabrication of historic copper roofing and other architectural metal. Some are carpenters who specialize in restoration millwork, windows and doors, and general restoration. And there is the story of Jean-François Furieri, master plaster worker.

Educators: You will read about David Osborne, who coordinates the innovative Heritage Carpentry and Millwork program at Algonquin College in Perth, Ontario. Also, there is a profile of a college teacher and administrator in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, who is training people preparing for new careers in building renovation to be sensitive to heritage. And you will read the story of Tania Martin, a professor who is expanding the understanding of built religious heritage.

Professionals: Donald Luxton, heritage consultant, author and educator, is an expert on historic paint colours and technology. There is also the story of Victoria’s senior heritage planner, who has helped set up a Tax Incentive Program to encourage investment in the residential conversion of historic properties. And in Calgary, a developer is undertaking a number of intelligent building restorations that prove there is a return on investing in heritage.

Volunteers: Of the dozens of volunteer groups across the country, we look at just two examples. Barry MacDonald, of the Nova Scotia Lighthouse Preservation Society, has dedicated himself to protecting the lighthouses of his home province and working for federal legislation to protect all Canadian lighthouses. In Montréal, Senator Serge Joyal is the leader of the campaign to protect and preserve the residence of an early Prime Minister of Canada, Louis-Hippolyte La Fontaine.

We invite you to read this sampling of the many possible jobs and careers in heritage: construction trades, architecture and the arts, building and materials engineering, and planning.

For people who think they might be interested in learning more about career possibilities, we add one more idea. The time has never been better for men and women to prepare for careers in built heritage. There are shortages of skilled people in every field across the country. Although some of these fields were traditionally reserved for men, now all are open to women too.

For more information about education and training facilities, jobs, the labour market, and built heritage in general, please consult the reference and source lists in this document.

Tradespeople

Educators

Professionals

Volunteers

HCF will continue to celebrate our Heritage 2008 theme when we host our annual conference, Work that Endures: Power to the People Keeping Places Alive, in Québec City this coming September. An essential event for owners, design professionals, curators, volunteers, real estate agents, tradespeople, grants officers, planners, policy makers and administrators, the conference is designed to inform and connect the people who make their living or volunteer their time to researching, restoring, maintaining and interpreting Canada’s built environment.

2008

Past Themes