Chapel
Restoration
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ver the years,
the chapel provided benefits to the St. Ann's community, involving
those from outside, such as altar boys from St. Louis College and
priests from St. Andrew's Cathedral and St. Joseph's Hospital, with
their services. The role of the building remained consistent, but
the appearance was altered many times. After the structure made
the transition from cathedral to chapel, the choir loft was constructed.
The interior decoration remained consistent until 1910, at which
time the colour scheme was changed to ivory and gold, a transition
from the Victorian to the Edwardian period aesthetic. The chapel
was well cared for, and received a fresh coat of paint about every
ten years.
Click here for more on
the restoration of St. Ann's Academy.
The restoration
team needed to establish a single period in time to base their work
on. A description of the 1921 chapel colour scheme was found, and
that discovery, combined with the fact that the 1920s were the most
heavily lit years of the chapel's history, led to the decision to
return to that era. Stark, Patterson and Associates Heritage Consulting
decided on the final finishes. Historic photographs, literary references
and microscopic analyses of paints and materials contributed to
the restoration effort, a project that would bring the chapel back
to the community.
The altar,
which had been removed after Vatican
II, was reconstructed. An original marble plaque was found in
the diocesan archives, and was used to help to build the new altar
to scale. Red granite "faux-paint" was chosen to finish
the altar railing; this railing was returned to its position at
the front of the chapel after being absent for over 30 years, due
to its removal after Vatican
II. The bases of the pillars were marbleized with paint in 1921,
and this technique can be seen in the chapel today.
The painted work in the chapel was time consuming, and challenging
for the patience required for its painstaking detail. The decision
to use gold leaf in the detailing required the covering of over
200 flowers and the ceiling roundels. Hundreds of square metres
of 23 karat gilding was labouriously applied. In the words of apprentice
painter Cory Williams, it was "nice to be working on something
that means so much to the community."
The painting
of the ceiling was a very different aspect of the work. The roof
could only be sprayed or brushed, for heritage reasons, and it was
difficult for the painters to resist the urge to fill in the cracks
that had developed in Brother Michaud's once-smooth woodworking.
Scaffolding was erected at the level of the choir loft to reach
these heights, and the painters, reminded of Michelangelo and the
Sistine Chapel ceiling, wittily renamed the trades people "Bartangelo
and Donangelo of Saint Ann's".
The pews in
the chapel changed several times. A compromise was made in the use
of the 1948 pews, as the restoration team has not been able to trace
the seating installed in 1886, which would have been the arrangement
used during the 1920s. The quest for elements from the chapel and
the drive to refinish objects such as the 14 "Stations of the
Cross" reliefs continues. Even though it is unfinished, the
chapel remains "The Heart of St. Ann's."
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