OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT

The Chinese Freemasons Building Rehabilitation, Vancouver

Pip Peri Pembo Management Limited

The Chinese Freemasons Building was completed in 1907, in an era of a number of significant events in Vancouver’s Chinatown. The decade of 1900 – 1910 was also critical to modern Chinese history.

In 1974, the building underwent a renovation from its original use to an office building for an engineering company. The two-storey Freemasons Hall was lost and the mezzanine was compromised to retrofit five eight- to nine-foot height floors for office use from the original three stories and mezzanine. On the exterior, the wood sash was replaced by aluminum, as were the railings. Two columns on the Pender Street elevation were eliminated, as were the wooden Chinatown-defining baseboards at the ground level. In short, the building’s character was significantly compromised.

The 2004-2007 restoration was carried out faithfully in accordance with the “Statement of Significance” from the City of Vancouver, archival photographs and the advice of the heritage consultants, Commonwealth Historic Resource Management Ltd.  Extraordinary care was exercised to replace lost defining elements such as the railings, the missing columns, the missing exterior baseboards, flagpole and lantern. The exterior was thoroughly cleaned, exposing a large sign of another original tenant, the restaurant on Carrall Street. The pressed metal cornices were also cleaned and reinstalled.

The structure was reinforced to meet the city Building Code. This included a new wall on the north elevation, and a large 20’ wide vertical steel truss inside the southeast corner.  While the truss could be incorporated into the partitions of the demising wall of the upper floors, it was left exposed in the large two-story space on the ground floor.  An intricate wooden screen, based on the Chinese Garden “window-screens” or “leak windows” was designed to fill the exposed space of the truss.

In restoring the facades, extra care and study were made to ensure the reintroduction of the texture of the “thick and thin verticals and horizontals”.  The sash is a composite, steel-wrapped wooden sash for durability, “correctness” and elegance.  The colours of the elements were also carefully considered to reinstate their original character.

One further interesting component is the commemoration of the building, its early inhabitants and the era in which it was built.  The curated interpretations are installed in the ground level windows exactly as the daily newspaper was a century ago by the original tenant, “The Chinese Times”.