RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Re­tired chief ar­chi­tect Rawle Mitchell says the $34 mil­lion facelift giv­en to Queen’s Roy­al Col­lege a decade ago was done up to stan­dard but he was un­cer­tain whether main­te­nance works were fol­lowed through.

He was speak­ing days af­ter Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley re­vealed that Cab­i­net had ap­proved more funds to ren­o­vate and re­pair the school.

This de­ci­sion to ren­o­vate QRC sparked crit­i­cisms from the pub­lic with some say­ing the monies should in­stead be used to com­plete oth­er schools left un­at­tend­ed since the PNM took of­fice.

Some of these in­clude Ra­mai Trace Hin­du, Aranguez Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry, Shi­va Boys Col­lege, Par­vati Girls Col­lege, and Rousil­lac Hin­du schools.

How­ev­er, Mitchell in an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia, said QRC need­ed spe­cial at­ten­tion as it was built in 1904 and was one of the his­toric Mag­nif­i­cent Sev­en build­ings around the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah.

Mitchell has been in­volved in the $34 mil­lion restora­tion project which start­ed in 2007 and was com­plet­ed in 2010.

Hav­ing served as the head of the his­tor­i­cal restora­tion unit of the Min­istry of Works be­fore his re­tire­ment, Mitchell said he was aware that a main­te­nance pro­gramme was put in place for the school.

“At the point in time when works were com­plet­ed the restora­tion was well done but once a build­ing is re­stored you need a prop­er main­te­nance plan to make sure that it doesn’t de­te­ri­o­rate. The con­sul­tants give a main­te­nance pro­gramme for the build­ing but whether sys­tems were put in place to do this, I am not cer­tain,” he said.

He not­ed that his­toric build­ings cost more to main­tain.

“It is a more ex­pen­sive in­ter­ven­tion than con­ven­tion­al restora­tion be­cause his­toric build­ings de­te­ri­o­rate quick­ly once a prop­er main­te­nance plan is not in place,” Mitchell said.

He said he was not aware of the na­ture of works which were be­ing sched­uled at the school but he said QRC was heav­i­ly traf­ficked so wear and tear will take a toll on the struc­ture.

Mitchell al­so said that QRC was a Grade A her­itage build­ing list­ed by the Na­tion­al Trust and such build­ings should have pri­or­i­ty over all oth­er build­ings in T&T.

the Con­ser­va­tion of Cul­tur­al Her­itage

“They are part of our ar­chi­tec­tur­al her­itage. I have been in­volved in a pro­gramme with Con­ser­va­tion of the Con­ser­va­tion of Cul­tur­al Her­itage host­ed by IC­CROM, ( In­ter­na­tion­al Cen­tre for the Study of the Preser­va­tion and Restora­tion of Cul­tur­al Prop­er­ty) and UN­ESCO ( Unit­ed Na­tions Ed­u­ca­tion­al, Sci­en­tif­ic and Cul­tur­al Or­ga­ni­za­tion) and I have high­light­ed these build­ings. The prop­er­ties have the propen­si­ty to be pre­sent­ed to UN­ESCO as world her­itage build­ings so we must treat them as a pri­or­i­ty,” he added.

More on QRC

Built in 1904 at a cost of £15,000, the de­sign of Queen’s Roy­al Col­lege was based on the Ger­man Re­nais­sance style. It had a clock tow­er 93 feet tall, which housed the King Ed­ward VII Memo­r­i­al Clock. How­ev­er, the clock was not in­stalled un­til 1912.

On Jan­u­ary 15th 2007, ren­o­va­tion of the school be­gan at a cost of $34,489,635.04 and the con­tract was award­ed to Kee Chanona Ltd. Ma­jor works in­clud­ed:

• Restora­tion of all sig­nif­i­cant ar­chi­tec­tur­al el­e­ments of the build­ing

• Im­prov­ing the in­fra­struc­ture of the Ad­min­is­tra­tive Fa­cil­i­ties and pro­vid­ing more up­dat­ed ser­vices

• Re­mov­ing pre­vi­ous in­sen­si­tive al­ter­ations with more suit­able and ad­e­quate restora­tions

• Pro­vid­ing ac­cess to all users in keep­ing with ex­ist­ing build­ing codes and stan­dards

The project came to com­ple­tion on Wednes­day 28th April 2010 and was of­fi­cial­ly re­opened on Fri­day 7th May 2010.