Historic Gardens of the “Cité-des-Hospitalières”

An iconic Montreal landmark, the convent of the “Religieuses Hospitalières de Saint-Joseph” (RHSJ) is a valuable testament to the city’s history. Associated with the Hôtel-Dieu Hospital, it highlights the significant contribution of the RHSJ to Montreal society, from its inception to the present day.

In 2017, the City of Montreal acquired the “Cité-des-Hospitalières,” recognizing the exceptional heritage significance of the complex. The City committed to maintaining the continuity in the meaning and “spirit of place” that the Sisters personified for over 150 years. Beyond preserving the site’s architectural and landscape heritage, the goal is to ensure the transmission of the convent’s intangible heritage in the context of its adaptive reuse and transition from a place of religion and spirituality to the secular world.

The gardens are a unique and highly sensitive part of the convent, whose rarity and fragility require great care. For the nuns who remained cloistered until 1959, the gardens were a place of special contact with nature, a respite from hospital duties, and a rare opportunity for solitude in a communal life. The gardens were a place of beauty for prayer, contemplation, and, occasionally, celebrations and leisure activities. In keeping with the tradition of European monastic gardens, the orchards, vegetable gardens, and farm animals were initially dedicated to the financial autonomy and subsistence of the community and hospital. The gardens also served medicinal purposes, directly supporting the vocation of healthcare.

Values-based conservation implies a growing recognition of the intangible dimensions of heritage and of the need to protect them. Religious heritage is particularly challenged by the issue of transmitting the meaning and spirit of the place, at a time when so many sacred spaces are undergoing adaptive reuse.

Seeking to go beyond conventional conservation methodologies and tools that focus on the tangible attributes of heritage, the mandate carried out by ERA Architects in partnership with ethnologist Sandrine Contant-Joannin was based on a definition of the “spirit of place” as the relationship between the material and the immaterial. Following the development of a theoretical framework that operationalized the concept, the study documented, analyzed, and proposed recommendations for transmitting the intangible dimensions of the gardens and, ultimately, preserving their “spirit of place.”