The Art History Discipline of the Fine Arts Dept. was very honored to have been able to invite Canadian architect Julia Gersovitz,OAQ,OAA,FRAIC to come to Dawson to speak about Restoration and Conservation architecture of which she is a specialist in Canada. Her 90 minute talk followed by a question period dealt with case studies of some of the award-winning designs with which she and her firm of FGMDA now EVOQ Architecture,have been engaged. This included the spectacular debating chamber which is nearing completion in the West Block of the Federal Parliament Builidngs in Ottawa, seat of our parliamentary democracy,recent projects in Nunavut(western arctic) and Nunavik (eastern arctic formerly the Ungava peninsula of Quebec),the adjustment of storefronts with some cohesion to new use for retail stores on Queen Street in Toronto,the refurbished Jean Talon Metro station ( formerly the CPR Railway station) in Montreal ,and the Harbour Commissioner`s Building in Old Montreal.

Ms.Gersovitz outlined 13 principles culled from the Canadian Buildings Standards regulations regarding the construction and refurbishment of buildings in Canada by which she and her firm is governed.Most surprising of those principles is the outdated”save at all costs”mode of conserving buildings which in the past had often met with disastrous results as the buildings could not necessarily be well adapted to changing needs..Ms.Gersovitz,made it crystal clear in her thirteen principles that intelligent choices have to be made about what is to be kept of an historically important structure and what can be done away with in the transformation of a property.

Sensitization to the effects of the built environment in our daily lives came alive as one became aware of the very surroundings of Dawson being a test case in the conservation and transformation of a structure to new use.