MTBA has been awarded the CAHP 2014 Award of Excellence in the Heritage Planning Adaptive Reuse category, for its Former Bank of Montreal FHBRO Submission Package. The presentation was made at the Awards Gala in Charlottetown, P.E.I., part of Heritage Canada The National Trust Annual Conference.
The CAHP Awards honour the work of CAHP members, to recognize excellence in the conservation of heritage value through preservation, restoration, planning and communication.
In presenting the award, the jury said, “The former Bank of Montreal is among the federal government’s most distinguished buildings in the broader Parliamentary Precinct. Over four years, the Architects assembled an impressive set of documents to clearly lay out options, recommendations and implications of an ambitious conservation and adaptive reuse program. The Federal Heritage Buildings Review Office (FHBRO) package included design explorations, research and development studies, and adaptive reuse opportunities consistent with national conservation standards and guidelines.”
In accepting the award, MTBA Principal Mark Thompson Brandt said, “This recognizes the collaborative team effort MTBA lead in over four years of both rigorous analysis and scrutiny that this project involved.”
The project is the adaptive reuse of the RAIC Gold Medal, 1932 Banking Hall into a state-of-the-art conference centre and Hall of State for Canada’s Parliament. It included the full rehabilitation and restoration of the building, which has the highest classification by FHBRO, and a large addition. “The series of planning, conservation and architectural design studies addressed the challenge of integrating a massive program of required contemporary interventions into a ‘temple’ edifice of highly articulated and refined character, in a minimal and compatible manner that preserves its heritage value,” said Brandt.
The work involved a staged set of summary presentations and design documents that succeeded through an intensive Federal review process. MTBA, together with partners NORR Ltd. (prime consultants), co-ordinated a team of over 30 design disciplines and specialists to realize the approved solutions, from 2009 to 2013. Now under construction, the new combined facility is expected to open in early 2015, across Wellington Street from the West Block of Parliament.
The award also recognizes the other CAHP members who participated in the FHBRO process including Brandt’s Co-Architect and design principal David Clusiau of NORR and Structural Engineer/Masonry Specialist John G. Cooke.
