Related activities
Guided Tours of the Mother House of the Grey Nuns, Montréal
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
In 1861, the Sisters of Charity of Montréal (the “Grey Nuns”) bought Mont Sainte-Croix, also called the “Croix Rouge,” from the Sulpicians. This land was bound by Guy, Sainte-Catherine and Saint-Mathieu streets and Dorchester Boulevard (today René-Lévesque).
Built according to plans by Victor Bourgeau, the celebrated architect who designed several religious buildings in Montréal, the Grey Nuns’ Mother House is a neo-Classical conventual complex completed in several stages beginning in 1869. The current layout of this grouping of rustic-stone buildings is in the shape of an H. The complex includes the Mother House proper, including the chapel and its annexes, and the men’s residence with its annex. In the centre of the main façade, facing René-Lévesque Boulevard, is the chapel of l’Invention-de-la-Sainte-Croix (1874–1878), which was designated a historical monument in 1974.
The grounds of the Grey Nuns’ Mother House feature paths lined by tall trees, rock gardens, flowerbeds and a pool. A wrought-iron fence encloses the complex on three sides (south, east and west), while a commercial building running the length of Sainte-Catherine Street marks the northern boundary. The entire complex was designated a historical site in 1976 by the Québec Ministry of Culture, Communications and the Status of Women.Major Public Lecture Organized by the Belles Soirées of the Université de Montréal
Thursday, October 8, 2009 (7:30–9:30 p.m.)
A partner of our international conference Religious Houses: A Legacy, the Université de Montréal’s Belles Soirées lecture series will host a Major Lecture given by Dr. Thomas Coomans, who will profile a number of international treasures for his audience.
Thomas Coomans
Vrije Universiteit Brussel (Belgique)
Thomas Coomans is a historian of architecture and archeology of the building, and has a Ph.D. in Art History from the Catholic University of Louvain. Successively attached to the Universities of Leiden and Leuven, he is the author of research on various aspects of religious architecture—medieval and neo-medieval—and the issue of its conversion. Coomans is also the author of numerous books and articles, in addition to having co-edited the proceedings of the conference Quel avenir pour quelles églises ? / What Future for Which Churches? (Presses de l’Université du Québec, 2006). He is a professor of Architectural History and Heritage Conservation at Vrije Universiteit Brussel and conducts seminars at the Raymond Lemaire International Center for Conservation at the University of Louvain. He is also a member of the Royal Commission on Monuments and Sites in Brussels.
Partner
Order in the Cloister: Abbey and Convent Architecture, from Tradition to Reforms to Repurposing
Within the age-old and apparently immutable Christian monastic tradition, architecture has helped in the adaptation of regular life to the changing needs of society (spiritual, colonizing, military, teaching, care-giving and missionary), all while promoting the assertion of strong identities specific to the various religious institutes, in an apostolic, evangelist spirit. The built environment of religious communities has evolved along with the great steps of a monastic history that is almost 2,000 years old, as well as contemplative and active, male and female, rural and urban. The architecture of abbeys and convents in Europe will be studied as a process of material and symbolic organization of space and time, submitted to monastic cloistering and the rules of life. Sometimes brutal changes in world views (the Protestant Reformation, the French Revolution, contemporary de-Christianization) have resulted in deletions and destructions, but also re-uses that are proof of the architectural potential of groups of buildings organized around cloisters.
In French only
Guided Tours of Monasteries in the Capital: Discovering Québec City’s Augustines and Ursulines
Sunday, October 11, 2009
The Augustinian Monastery at Hôtel-Dieu de Québec
Quebec City—October 11, 2009
This site, which has been occupied continuously by the same congregation since 1644, is home to one of the oldest conventual complexes in Québec. It bears witness to the importance of the Augustines de la Miséricorde de Jésus, one of the founding religious orders of New France. Its historical worth resides in the longevity of the Augustinian’s mission, but also its continuity and social role. In addition, the complex, as a fine example of a convent enclosure typical of an 18th-century religious community, projects an exceptional formal unity.
The oldest parts of the monastery, the garden wing (1695–1698) and the novitiate wing (1739–1740), are triumphs of French Regime architecture, in terms of the building’s volumes—it was the only stone convent of the time that rose to three storeys—as well as in the execution of the framing, masonry, woodwork and fittings.
Though it is of much more recent construction, the current nun’s choir (1931) is no less fascinating, as it provides insights into the Augustinians’ cloistered life: until 1965, they attended liturgical services shielded from public view.
(Excerpted from the reasons for granting of historical site and historical monument status by the Government of Québec, November 2003 [freely translated]).
The Ursuline Convent of Quebec City
Quebec City—October 11, 2009
The Ursuline community, once known as the Company of Saint Ursula, was founded in Italy in 1535 by Saint Angela Merici. In 1639, at the request of the Jesuits, three Ursulines, including Blessed Marie de l’Incarnation, the community’s spiritual foundress, and Madame de la Peltrie, its lay foundress, arrived in Québec City. The Ursulines, who were cloistered at the time, founded the first school in North America dedicated to the education of young Native and French girls. Over the years, pastoral animation gradually complemented their educational mission. The Ursuline community is the first teaching order of women established in the Catholic Church.
After living initially in Québec City’s Lower Town, the Ursulines had their first convent built between 1641 and 1648, only to see it consumed by fire during the night of December 30, 1650. Construction of a new convent on the ruins of the old one began the next year. Over time, the chapel was added, along with the many wings that make up this imposing building.
Legal recognition of the historical and heritage value of this conventual complex came in stages, beginning with the Mother House (now the Musée Ursulines de Québec), which was listed as a historical monument in 1964 and then designated a National Historic Site in 1972 by the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada. In addition, the sculpted ornamentation of the exterior chapel, along with certain paintings, were recognized under the Québec Cultural Property Act in 1992.