Professors Annmarie Adams and Martin Bressani of the Peter Guo-hua Fu School of Architecture (McGill University) are the local co-chairs of the Society of Architectural Historians (SAH) 2021 annual conference, which will be held virtually from April 13-17. They worked on organizing tours (which were unfortunately cancelled), a seminar on the city of Montreal, and an introductory lecture by Montreal director François Girard. They have also been part of the planning process with the SAH Committee from the beginning.
The seminar Community, Conservation, Activism: Montreal, City of Neighbourhoods will take place on April 17th and we’re taking on this opportunity to ask a few questions to the two local co-chairs.
Annmarie Adams holds a Bachelor of Arts from McGill, and a Master’s in architecture and PhD from UC Berkeley. She is jointly appointed in the Peter Guo-hua Fu School of Architecture and the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences. She holds the Stevenson Chair in the History and Philosophy of Science, including Medicine. She is currently Chair of the Department of Social Studies of Medicine in McGill’s Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences. In 2015, she was elected a Fellow of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada.
Martin Bressani holds a professional degree in architecture from McGill University, a master's degree in architectural history and theory from M.I.T. and a doctorate in art history from the Université de Paris-Sorbonne (Paris IV). He is the William Macdonald Chair in Architecture and Director of the Peter Guo-hua Fu School of Architecture.
In a recent interview, we spoke with Annmarie and Martin and discussed their research interests, their views on Montreal, and the 2021 SAH seminar theme Community, Conservation, Activism.
Annmarie, you have studied the former Royal Victoria Hospital site. How do you envision the future of this complex?
Annmarie Adams: I've had the opportunity to study the Royal Victoria Hospital site from many angles over the past 30 years. It is my favourite example of hospital architectural history, as its dozen or so pavilions and additions, always designed in the latest style, offer a complete panorama of hospital architectural history! Needless to say, I hope that this reimagining will remain deeply rooted in its past. In my opinion, it is essential that the site remain public and accessible; ideally, it should continue to contribute to the health and well-being of all Montrealers. What we don't want is a massive demolition and the insertion of new interiors without any connection to the historic value of the site. Architecture is a wonderful tool for collective memory of a city and the RVH site is rich in meaning, representing medicine, healthcare, landscape, education, and technology, so to rebuild it inappropriately could completely obliterate that memory. The stakes are high.
You have also written about gender roles in regards to architecture (domestic masculinity, gender and the architectural profession, etc.). Can you tell our readers what your key thoughts are and where we stand today, as a city, in that regard?
Annmarie Adams: My best work on feminism and architecture has focused on how particular expectations are incorporated into design. What I mean is that I see architecture as prescriptive. The post-war suburban house, for example, was designed for a stay-at-home mother with many children. That's pretty obvious. What I'm really interested in, though, is how we can trace a resistance to these normative scenarios. Did the houses really work as intended? Almost all of my work on houses are in-depth studies of individual houses and the families that inhabit them. In Montreal, I have worked on the Redpath, Dawson and Cormier-Trudeau houses from this perspective. Outside the city, I have co-studied significant houses in St. Hyacinthe and Stanstead. Two houses in California have also been subject to this approach, including one that uses queer theory.
With respect to the architectural profession, I had the privilege of co-authoring a book on Canadian women architects with sociologist Peta Tancred. Because Canada's population is relatively small and women entered the profession later, we were able to conduct a national survey. We found that since about 1970, Montreal has been a particularly important place for the education and practice of women architects, thanks to a handful of firms linked to Expo 67, the Quiet Revolution and the types of projects available in Montreal.
As a specialist in vernacular architecture, what should we know about this specific architectural style in Montreal? Can you give us a few examples in the greater Montreal area?
Annmarie Adams: Vernacular architecture simply means everyday buildings and ordinary places, so Montreal has many rich examples. For me, Montreal vernacular architecture is, for example, the large grey stone institutions with sloping copper or tin roofs and hundreds of identical windows. I could cite the Montreal triplex, with its promotion of dense urban living and the sense of identity it offered to individual families by providing a front door and an exterior staircase. All of these ubiquitous urban types — convenience stores, alleyways, convents— are vernacular and deserve to be studied.
Martin, you studied the organic metaphor in architecture "seeking to understand the way architectural thoughts and practices relates to historical change". Could you explain to our readers what is the "organic metaphor" and how do you think we could apply this idea to today’s architecture?
Martin Bressani: The organic metaphor in architecture conveys the general idea that human works should be the product of a creative process analogous to that which governs nature. It's a very broad ideology that has led to functionalism (= form should emerge "naturally" or "organically" from the needs it meets) but also to a very specific strain of historicism, namely that history itself follows a process analogous to nature - that historical evolution is an organic, progressive process. The organic metaphor has also led some architectural thinkers to posit "race" as an important predicate: that there is a consubstantial identity between a people and its architecture, so that architecture reflects ethnicity: that each race builds in a specific way, or that each nation has an inherent architecture. Thus, in the past, the organic metaphor has tended to encourage radical ideologies such as nationalism and racism. In this respect, it doesn't (or shouldn't) find much application today.
One of your main research interests is the work of Viollet-le-Duc. What is his legacy in today’s architecture and how are his ideas still pertinent for Montreal today?
Martin Bressani: Viollet-le-Duc was a major cultural player in 19th century architecture in France and in Europe in general. In his work, and especially in his writings, we find many of the key concepts of modern architecture, namely structural rationalism, nationalism and even racism. Although eccentric in many ways, he is said to embody the Romantic attitude in architecture, particularly in his attachment to the past. Viollet-le-Duc is an exceptional and central figure in understanding the origins of modernism. Some of his work is exceptional, such as the restoration of Notre-Dame de Paris. But very few of his ideas are still relevant today. I have never been interested in him as a model to follow.
Martin Bressani and Christina Contandriopoulos, eds, Companion series on 19th Century Architecture, Oxford : Blackwell-Wiley, 2017 
Barry Bergdoll, Corinne Belier, Martin Bressani, Marc le Coeur, NeilLevine, David van Zanten, Henri Labrouste: Structure brought to light, The Museum of Modern Art, 2013
You are also interested in interior architecture "as a mean to understand the way architecture establishes relations to the past and inheritance.". Why is the protection of interiors so important today?
Martin Bressani: "Interiors" are a privileged realm of experience, where particular moods and atmospheres can be controlled. As dominant as building exteriors are (because of their public nature), they do not provide the same immersive absorption as interiors. Provided of course that the interiors are preserved. This is unfortunately one of the most fragile aspects of architecture. Interiors are ephemeral because when future generations re-inhabit old buildings, the first thing they do is change the decor. They can of course make improvements, but they can also let it deteriorate according to the vagaries of renovations, as it is very often the case (especially in schools, hospitals, universities). Many of our most beautiful interiors have disappeared forever as a result.
Interiors bear the traces of the past in a living way, as they intimately record the way spaces were lived. By observing and analysing the rooms of a building, a delicate forensic analysis of lifestyles can be made. This is often the case when people renovate old homes and bring to light the different wallpapers and colours that once covered the interior rooms. There are many ways of looking at and conceiving of this. I should add that urban spaces can also be conceived in terms of interiors, especially in neighbourhoods with coherent fabrics.
What are your current concerns when it goes to the preservation of heritage in Montreal?
Martin Bressani: Cities have souls: they are composed of a set of “fabrics,” each of which bear witness to a different past. This is what we should try to preserve above all. In this sense, I am more concerned with the way new buildings, through carelessness, can disfigure our city, destroying the coherence of its different fabrics, than about the preservation of specific monuments. Of course, we must also respect our older buildings, whether we transform them through thoughtful adaptive reuse, or whether we preserve them, or even restore them in some cases. But a city is made up of people, of diverse communities, and we should always be careful to keep the living traces of these diverse occupations, even if sometimes these traces remain tenuous.
Annmarie Adams: My main concerns about historic preservation in Montreal are the unnecessary demolition and insensitive reuse of historic buildings. Too many developers see preservation as a promise to keep only the façade or shell of a building. The significance of a children's hospital, a historic department store, or an old sports club, for example, may lie in their plan or cross-section, rather than in their street elevation. Older interiors are an important theme today, amplified by the COVID experience that forces us to remain confined to our homes for extended periods.
The role of race in heritage practice is another major theme I've been working on, mainly inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement in the United States. Architecture and its conservation can be powerful tools for anti-racism. Neighbourhoods and anchors of black communities deserve to be studied, highlighted, and preserved. We need a high-profile public discourse on the appropriateness of certain monuments. Public art and public spaces must be welcoming to all. We have a long way to go in this regard in Montreal. I hope that the next generation of architects will know how to design and conserve in an anti-racist way.
In your opinion, what would be the best way to address these concerns?
Martin Bressani: I think we should think about preservation at the urban level, not strictly at the level of individual buildings. And when we think about preserving individual buildings, we must make sure that we are able to preserve or dialogue with their interiors. The fabric of urban neighbourhoods is in some ways linked to the fabric of interiors: both have the potential to provide immersive experiences of the past, and they should be carefully preserved, even as we modernize our streets and interiors to meet current needs. We need to live in spaces that can communicate to us the sense that they were inhabited before us, that we are not the first to occupy this land, nor the last. When we lose this historical perspective, we lose all our bearings.
Annmarie Adams: Architecture needs to open itself to other fields. For a long time, architectural education has been insular, defending its own little turf in the universities in a limited way and not allowing students from other disciplines to take our courses. This exclusivity must end. The time has come to connect to other fields. Since 2016, and until I retire, I want to teach the built environment to students outside the School of Architecture. This will hopefully lead to wiser architectural decisions and I think it will also value the work of architects, which is a win-win situation.
How can we work with communities and neighbourhoods as agents in conservation work?
Martin Bressani: It's essential to work with communities, because it's these players who are best placed to preserve the soul of our neighborhoods. Top-down conservation works for very few buildings. The conservation of a neighborhood must be concerned with its inhabitants, their practices, their particular use of public space. Any architectural or urban intervention in our cities must be conceived as a form of "conservation", including contemporary interventions. The latter should reinforce the coherence and atmosphere of a neighborhood, not dilute or destroy it. They should even help us to discover and reveal latent or forgotten atmospheres, rather than falling from the sky without anchoring us to the past.
Annmarie Adams: Working with communities and neighbourhoods is the key to good conservation work. Since the 1980s, there has been a serious shift in architectural history to studying buildings through their users, rather than through their architects, and this is a very good start. Public history is very important, which includes exhibitions, tours, films, lectures, and courses. Heritage Montreal and the Canadian Centre for Architecture play a particularly important role in educating Montrealers about the value of heritage and the built environment. I think the level of architectural awareness is very high here and that's one of the reasons why Montreal continues to be a hub for design education.
Can we preserve without the help of the community, or is activism the only way?
Martin Bressani: Activism is a very broad term. If we understand "activism" as the "active" life of a neighborhood, its solicitude helping to guide future developments, I'd say yes, it's essential. If we understand "activism" as a kind of organized guerrilla warfare, it can sometimes be just as necessary. But I wish we could trust neighborhood life to offer protection and conservation.
Annmarie Adams: Community engagement and activism are complementary, rather than alternative choices. I see architectural history as the basis for good preservation practice. The more we understand why buildings look the way they do, the better we will be able to make informed decisions. I am a proponent of action-oriented research.
What did you hope to highlight about Montreal with the SAH conference?
Martin Bressani: Annmarie and I wanted to organize neighbourhood tours that would highlight the history of Montreal, while providing a platform for the many voices working in architectural history in Montreal. We have no less than six of our PhD students presenting papers at the conference or chairing sessions. We hoped to provide exciting venues for some key events so that Montreal would be a palpable presence throughout the conference itself. And of course, we mobilized many established figures, Montreal academics, but also community advocates and activists.
Annmarie Adams: Before the pandemic, when we thought the SAH conference would be in person, we had planned a myriad tours highlighting the architecture and landscape of Montreal. These included Mount Royal, Old Montreal, the Lachine Canal, universities, urban squares, Griffintown, the Underground City, our Brutalist wonders, Habitat 67 and the Expo site, Olympic Park, historic hospitals, churches (and converted churches), the Square Mile mansions, and the Quartier des spectacles. We have also planned special, themed tours, such as the work of famous American architects in Montreal. The good news is that the SAH is coming back in 2023 and we will be ready!
But the online conference retains its Montreal flavour. Saturday's seminar on the city, organized by Cynthia Hammond of Concordia University, will focus on our neighbourhoods. It will begin with a special look at Phyllis Lambert's new book project on Montreal. On Wednesday, the lecture that usually introduces participants to the city of the conference will be given by Montreal filmmaker François Girard, who will talk about his 2017 film, Hochelaga, Land of Souls, which is a kind of love letter to Montreal. Historians will find his use of architecture very sophisticated. And there are also many sessions and papers devoted to Montreal and Canadian architecture! Many thanks to Heritage Montreal for supporting the conference.
We would like to thank Prof. Adams and Prof. Bressani for their time.
Don't miss the seminar Community, Conservation, Activism: Montréal as a City of Neighbourhoods Saturday, April 17, from 8:00 am to 11:00 am CDT. It’s free and open to the public but registration is required. Follow this link to reserve a ticket.
