Helping to preserve the Sacred

Senior writer Lara Pickford-Gordon concludes her interview with architect Rudylynn de Four Roberts. Part 1 appeared in the June 22 issue.

de Four Roberts spent time abroad and returned in 1979. She was shocked to see that many old buildings she cherished were gone. This inspired her to act.

“I formed a group called Architects for Conservation, and I got a few of my architect colleagues together to discuss what could we do to stop the trend of demolishing the old buildings. That interest, really, eventually led to me being called on the day that the George Brown house was going to be demolished,” she recalled. The George Brown house was designed in 1888 by architect George Brown.

Subsequently, a group of concerned citizens protested and stood in front of the bulldozer. “We got the planning authorities involved and the President of the Institute of Architects led negotiations. We saved the building, which was a good plus,” de Four Roberts said. This marked a watershed in the conservation movement.

de Four Roberts noted, “Before this, there were small Government committees, at different times that discussed conservation. But Citizens for Conservation was established by the citizens of Trinidad. It was an NGO (non-governmental organisation). Anybody could be a member, from a construction industry professional, teachers, doctors, lawyers, just people in the street walking, students, everybody, anybody, could join. That’s how Citizens for Conservation started.”

One of their first major projects was restoring parts of Stollmeyer’s Castle and participating in a cabinet appointed committee managing the Queen’s Park Savannah.

Citizens for Conservation was pivotal in the research and preparation of a document which went on to become law for the establishment of the National Trust under the National Trust Act 1991.

The Trust has listed many landmarks for legal protection, among them are the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, St Joseph RC Church in St Joseph, Our Lady of Montserrat in Tortuga, St Francis RC in Belmont and Archbishop’s House.

“It’s been a long journey but because I’ve been involved with it from the beginning, I can see all the successes. We’ve had a lot of failure too…you can’t save every building,” she said reflectively.

de Four Roberts later applied for and became the Head of the Restoration Unit at the Ministry of Works, where she restored Government landmarks and lobbied for the preservation of old buildings for 12 years.

Church restoration

de Four Roberts’ first church restoration took place in the late 1980s at Holy Rosary church, where her relative, Fr Reginald de Four was the parish priest. Money was raised and the stained-glass windows in the nave were restored. “That’s when I actually started doing church work,” she said.

When then Fr Jason Gordon became parish priest, he sought her assistance. This was her “first big church restoration”. She continued work on the church when then Fr Clyde Harvey became parish priest.

One day she got a call from the Archbishop’s office inviting her to a meeting. Fr Gordon was the Vicar for Administration and present at the meeting with Archbishop Edward Gilbert CSsR. She was asked to prepare a proposal for the restoration of the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception.

de Four Roberts was told she could pick her team. Fundraising was done by Jennifer Lee and Joanne Miller of the Archbishop’s Appeal, the fundraising arm of the Archdiocese. The project continued under Archbishop Joseph Harris CSSp.

The scope and scale of the restoration of the Cathedral was immense and costly. de Four Roberts pointed upwards at a section of ceiling stating “it was totally rotten”. She thinks Our Lady had to be exerting her influence because termites had undermined the supporting beams and it defied logic how the roof did not cave in. She said, “you see these beams that are running there, going straight across, the brackets are supporting the beams; they weren’t even in the wall!”

de Four Roberts added, “It turned out to be way more work than we anticipated because termites were everywhere. The walls were another big intervention. The high-water table of the area, and use of Portland Cement in past renovation works, had trapped water in the walls and weakened the stability. The cement had to be removed, the walls given time to drain and dry and the original lime mortar used for repair. A new crypt was built to replace the existing flooded burial chamber.”

de Four Roberts learned a lot from working on the Cathedral. “So many issues that taught me the importance of using the correct materials”. She underscored that it was a team effort managed by Nigel Aqui, and members “put their heart and soul into it. We cried a lot, worked hard, tried to get solutions we thought could help”.

de Four Roberts has worked on other church buildings in the Archdiocese and is a well-known resource called on for advice.

“Every church is different, and every church is special for me. We do the work because it’s for God really,” she said. Most of her fees from the Cathedral work which spanned 2012-2015, were put back into the restoration fund, otherwise, her expertise is pro bono publico (for the public good).

“If I think I can do it, I try to do; I try to make sure that every church is like a sacred space…I think that comes from my Catholic background…I’ve travelled a lot and I’ve seen many churches in other countries. When you walk into certain places the overall impression is important, ‘oh yeah, nice, this is calming, so that is what I strive for when I do a church,” de Four Roberts said. For her, a church should be a peaceful space for prayer, meditation, communing with God minus the distractions of overdone decorating.

She ascribes what she has been able to accomplish to her Catholic faith. “I would have been looking at it with a different mindset,” she said.