British Columbia’s parliament buildings have not been cleaned in more than 120 years, and it shows.
In the fall of 1893, Francis M. Rattenbury, the young architect of British Columbia’s new parliament buildings, notified the suppliers of building stone that he had selected the stone for the exterior of the building that was, at that time, the largest construction project in the history of the province.
The selected stone was to come from two British Columbia quarries; for the front of the buildings Rattenbury selected a light pearl-grey, fine-grained andesite from Haddington Island, near Port McNeill, and, for the sides and rear of the building, a darker-coloured sandstone from the Koksilah Quarry, near Cobble Hill.
When the first deliveries of the sandstone from the Koksilah Quarry were received in February of 1894, Rattenbury and the building contractor, Frederick Adams, rejected that stone as being “unsound” and advised that the sandstone would be replaced with the lighter-coloured stone from Haddington Island. The sandstone that had been delivered was removed from the site and used on the Royal Jubilee Hospital, where it served well for another 80 years.
The new parliament buildings were subsequently finished with the stone from Haddington Island.
The owners of the Koksilah Quarry were understandably upset by the decision to reject the stone. It had been used successfully in 1889 for the construction of Robert Dunsmuir’s grand castle, Craigdarroch, in Victoria’s Rockland neighbourhood and, in 1890, for the Metropolitan Methodist Church on the corner of Pandora Avenue and Quadra Street. They sued.
Early in 1897, the courts decided that the Koksilah stone had been rejected only because Rattenbury preferred the lighter-coloured Haddington stone. There were no faults in the Koksilah sandstone. The Koksilah Quarry Company was awarded the full amount of its supply contract.
Today, looking at the front of the parliament buildings, we see the accumulation of 120 years of soot and dirt from the burning of wood and coal in homes and industries, and the burning of heavy oils at the nearby marine facilities.
By looking closely at the ceremonial front entrance, we can see the difference between the areas that were protected and those that were subjected to many years of soot-laden fogs.
Across the harbour, we see the newly cleaned Empress Hotel, where the same-sourced stone, installed in 1908, has regained the light grey colour that motivated Rattenbury to use the Haddington Island stone on the Parliament Buildings, the Empress Hotel, the 1912 library additions to the Parliament Buildings, the Vancouver Courthouse (now the art gallery), the Bank of Montreal (now the Irish Times pub) and numerous other buildings.
New technology and new methods can allow the cleaning of the exterior of the parliament buildings, restoring them to their original glory without damaging the historic fabric, and presenting to the citizens of British Columbia and to the millions of visitors to the capital city a fresh, bright “parliamentary” face.
It is time for the government of British Columbia to take up this task in anticipation of the 150th anniversary of British Columbia joining the Canadian Confederation.
Ken Johnson is president of the Hallmark Heritage Society.
