Old meets new: rebuilt Vancouver College a piece of living history

John Nixon still remembers the powerful impression a looming statue of Christ the King made on him from the top of a high wall on his first day of Grade 1 at Vancouver College.

“I just remember this giant up on top of the building,” said Nixon. “A wall with a giant.”

That was in the fall of 1957, and now as orange leaves fall on the newly redeveloped Vancouver College campus, Christ the King continues his vigil. 

The statue stands atop a nearly 100-year-old brick wall that was built when VC first opened in the Shaughnessy Heights neighbourhood in 1925. Most of the century-old building has been torn down, but the one brick façade remains, a symbol of the school’s past and its future, according to president Johnny Bevacqua.

“This historic almost 100-year-old wall is holding up a new and modern building, designed and equipped to provide excellence in teaching and learning,” he said at the blessing of the building last month.

Lannon Hall was rebuilt this year after the original structure was found to be at high risk in a seismic assessment in 2013. It and several other buildings on campus required upgrades or replacement at a cost of at least $36 million. About half the campus had to be redeveloped.

Nixon, a former VC president who retired last spring, said keeping the heritage look of the campus was important to the school community as well as Vancouver city officials. 

They managed to keep the 95-year-old heritage façade, including a full set of original windows and the cornerstone laid in 1924. Also still standing is a 1927 archway.

These elements were all incorporated into the newly built Lannon Hall, which includes elementary school classrooms, six residences for Christian Brothers, and the school chapel.

Bevacqua called the feat an “engineering accomplishment” and a metaphor for the school community, including the more than 1,000 boys aged 5 to 18 who are educated each year.

“It sends the message that while committed to continuous improvement and innovation, we do so with the supporting strength of our tradition and our heritage under the caring, supportive, and watchful Christ the King.”

The weathered Christ the King statue was also restored to its former glory and returned to its perch on the old wall. Little is known about its origins, save that it has been there as long as anyone can remember and appears in photographs from 1940.

The 1927 archway, called McCormack Hall for the building that once stood there, now functions as the main entrance for a new chapel. The chapel’s crucifix was crafted by local artist Nicholas Purcell who used reclaimed wood from the old Lannon Hall.

From the school’s more recent history, a 1984 statue of Our Lady carved out of pink granite can be seen from the street and the chapel. The new window decorations in the chapel are made to look like stained glass and were inspired by a 1986 icon of Blessed Edmund Rice by Irish artist Desmond Kyne.

Archbishop J. Michael Miller, CSB, described the new chapel as “worthy and noble” when he blessed it Oct. 19.

“Though the whole world, this magnificent world, may be considered in some sense God’s temple, the place where he dwells with us . . . he has nonetheless willed that certain places be set aside, consecrated, made holy for worship of him. This chapel is a living sign that Vancouver College believes that it is Christ Jesus that is its true foundation and cornerstone.”

The chapel will be used by students and staff, as well as by the Christian brothers who live there. The Christian Brothers, a congregation founded by Blessed Edmund Rice in 1802, first arrived in Vancouver to found the school in 1922.

Nixon said the unique elements that have been preserved help tell the story of a faith community’s nearly 100-year history.

The icon “is a reflection of Edmund’s life and what he did, what the Christian Brothers did,” which was to offer education for young Irish Catholics as a solution to the poverty and persecution they faced in Blessed Rice’s lifetime.

“The political system eventually changed, but in the meantime he had developed schools in Ireland. Now there are schools all over the world,” Nixon said. The Christian Brothers “have a long legacy here.”

The entire campus upgrade – now complete – came with a $43 million price tag, which the school is still paying through fundraising.