Victor Bourgeau (1809-1888)

esigning in both neo-gothic and neo-baroque styles, Victor Bourgeau was the most active architect in Quebec during the nineteenth century. From the 1840s to the 1880s, Bourgeau built twenty-two churches in Quebec and in the United States as well as dozens of rural parish churches and was called upon to give advice on the decoration of twenty-three others. With an architectural career that lasted almost sixty years, Bourgeau can be regarded as one of the most successful architects in Canadian history.

Bourgeau was born on October 26, 1809, in Lavaltrie, Quebec, near Montreal. Although his father tried to pass on his trade as a wheelwright to his son, Bourgeau showed no interest. Around 1830, Bourgeau started training himself, through both an astute study of books and imitation of what was going on around him, first as a sculptor, then as a builder, and finally as an architect. His only formal education was a traditional Québécois apprenticeship in the atelier of the sculptor Louis Quévillon (1749-1823), an important figure in the evolution of sculpture in Quebec. During this period, he produced his first known work: the wooden stairway leading to the pulpit in the Church of Notre-Dame, Montreal (1844). From here on, renovations for Notre-Dame were to occupy Bourgeau regularly until the end of his career.

After his apprenticeship at Notre-Dame, Bourgeau pursued a neo-gothic apprenticeship at Saint Patrick's Church, Montreal, with Pierre-Louis Morin and Félix Martin where he was assigned to do the interior decoration (1848-1851). His efforts can be seen in the pulpit and cabinet work. In 1849, Bourgeau's name appears for the first time in association with architectural design in the plans for the expansion of the Church of Sainte-Anne at Varennes built in 1780. His first important architectural commission came in 1851 for the Church of Saint-Pierre-Apôtre, Montreal (1851-1853). Like many of his early works, this building reflected Bourgeau's French Gothic influence in its use of buttresses and flying buttresses and very ornate flamboyant details. It was also remarkable in its use of stone for its vault rather than wood as was typically used for church interiors in New France. Bourgeau's Saint-Pierre-Apôtre Church became Montreal's most well-known neo-gothic church and served as a model for future buildings in the same style. Bourgeau continued to work in the neo-gothic style four years later in his renovations for the choir of Notre-Dame in Montreal. Other churches built by Bourgeau in the neo-gothic style are: Saint Joseph, Montreal (1861-1862), most remarkable for its panelling, and Saint-Joseph, Rivière-des-Prairies (1875-1879). One of the summits in Bourgeau's career in the Gothic Revival style was the Church of Saint-Joachim, Pointe-Claire (1882-1884).

Most of Bourgeau's later works and with which he is more closely associated were churches designed in the Baroque style. The Baroque or Late Italian Renaissance Revival in Quebec architecture, which emerged around 1820, was largely due to the work of Bishop Ignace Bourget of Montreal (1840-1885) and his advisor Father Félix Martin, both with whom Bourgeau had contact. This shift in architectural styles had its origins in the desire of the Roman Catholic Church for an impressive religious symbolism to replace the earlier Gothic Revival, which had become a hallmark of Anglican churches and thus too associated with Protestantism. Bourgeau's first work in the Baroque style was the Church of Sainte-Rose, Ile-Jésu (1852-1855) the interior of which resembles that of the Anglican Church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields in London, England. In 1860 he was joined by Étienne-Alcibiade Leprohon as an associate. Bourgeau's neo-baroque works during this time include: the exterior of the third Church of Saint-Jacques (1858-1860), the chapel at the Hôtel-Dieu (1859-1861); the Church of L'Assomption (designed 1859; constructed 1863-1865); the Church of Saint-Barthélémy, Berthier (1866-1867); the interior of the Church of Notre-Dames des Anges (1866-1872), today the Chinese catholic mission of Saint-Esprit; the Church of Saint-Raphaël-Archange-de-l'Ile Bizard (1873-1881) in collaboration with Leprohon; and the Church of Saint-Cuthbert (1875). Despite his monumental achievements in architecture, Bourgeau was particularly well-known for decorating the interiors of churches to which he devoted much of the second half of his career doing. His commissions for church decorations between 1859 and 1875 include: Saint-Hyacinthe, Sainte-Élisabeth, Saint-Trinité at Contrecoeur, l'Épiphanie, Saint-Benoît, Saint-Roch-de-Richelieu, Saint-Paul-l'Ermite, and the Convent of the Grey Nuns.

In 1856, Bourgeau was one of the founding members of the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Montreal where Italian Renaissance art and architecture were the principal subjects of study. The following year, Bourgeau made a brief visit to Italy to study the Basilica of Saint Peter's (1506-1680), the Renaissance model upon which Mgr Bourget had conceived his new Cathedral of Montreal to be based. Many years later, the Cathedral of Montreal, later named the Cathedral of Saint-James the Greater and, presently Mary Queen of the World, started construction under Bourgeau and Alcibiade Leprohon between 1870 and 1878, and, after a lengthy interruption due to lack of funds, was finally completed by Père Joseph Michaud, Clercic of Saint-Viateur, between 1885 and 1894. This neo-renaissance work is perhaps the crowning glory of Bourgeau's career. It stands as Quebec's most significant architectural and iconographic statement of ultramontane ideology. As a symbol of Quebec's loyalty to the Pontifical See, it occupies the most privileged position in the hierarchy of churches in Quebec. However, save for the colossal order of the façade, the curvature of the dome, the main lines in the interior, and certain details, the Cathedral of Montreal deviates from Saint Peter's with its blend of neo-Italian forms with that of the Quebec tradition, a hallmark of Bourgeau's architectural style.

In 1869, Bourgeau, with Leprohon, worked on a commission to renovate the interior of the Church of Notre-Dame. Of this last major project of Bourgeau's career, most remarkable are the sanctuary (1880) and the pulpit of which the basic design was completed by Bourgeau in 1872 and then modified to include the present staircase some time before 1888. Bourgeau died on March 1, 1888, before the renovations at Notre-Dame were completed. However, his style was to remain influential in the architecture and religious decoration of Quebec up until the First World War.

Sources: Alan Gowans, "The Baroque Revival in Quebec," Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 14:3 (October 1955) 8-14.
Raymonde Landry-Gautheir Victor Bourgeau et l'architecture religieuse et conventuelle dans le diocèse de Montréal (1821-1892), Thèse de doctorat, Université Laval, 1983.
Franklin Toker, The Church of Notre-Dame in Montreal: an architectural history, 2nd edition (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1991).

Text: Alice Ming Wai Jim