The recent closure of Riverview Hospital is receiving a great deal of public attention and much of that is focused on concerns and apprehension about the future for the site.
One has to ask why this closure, which has been known for a long time, is now generating strong, almost visceral, public response from Coquitlam and beyond?
Certainly, there are many factors driving the debate: economic, environmental, anti-development and conservationist - and sentimental and emotional.
It also raises the question of how we define the heritage value of the site and determine what, if anything, should be saved and preserved, recognizing that a measure of a civilized society is how we protect and cherish our heritage.
The significance of the Riverview site is undeniable. It is a unique and long-standing landmark in the community. There is the special architecture, the landscaping and trees, the sheer size of the 244-acre site, and the personal stories and connections many citizens have to the former operations and the focus on care, comfort and healing.
The decisions to be made about the Riverview location could have a major impact on the physical aspects of the site and may well foreclose options for preservation. The tangible physical connections to the Riverview history could be lost. Is this important?
How is it that Riverview has captured our imaginations and kindled a sense of care and ownership for a place that most of us have never visited? By design, it was intended to be a separate, self-sufficient world, the isolation planned to create an environment conducive for treatment and healing. And yet now in the discussion of its future, it has emerged for many as a defining element of our city and our values.
A wealth of fascinating information about Riverview has become better known. And with this, the public sense and appreciation of the heritage value of the site has increased. The details capture the imagination and demonstrate the significant impact and scope of the site and the hospital operations: In 1956 (its peak year), there were 4,306 patients and 2,200 staff members; some 600 native species of plants successfully germinated on the grounds; the magnificent diversity of the 1,800 significant trees; and the marvel of its self-sufficiency that included staff housing, its own fire hall (completed in 1927); and substantial food production (700 tons of crop and 20,000 gallons of milk were produced at Colony Farm in 1911).
As interesting as these facts are in defining the important component Riverview has been in Coquitlam, it is the profound, often personal or emotional attachment that many have to the site that is most intriguing. Simply put, we have come to care about the site and it has become part of our community identity - as a major employer, a visual and geographic marker, and the tangible touchstone for the history of mental health care over the past century. It has been there for longer than all of us and there is almost a collective sense of grief at the looming loss.
Dare we say it has been recognized as an integral element of Coquitlam's heritage?
High up on the hill and just down the street, we see a swath of history telling us about ourselves and who we are. These details and stories are integral to our community but they stretch far beyond our borders. Our local landmark tells a provincial and national story about how mental health care evolved. Because the site is separate, contained and remote from much of Coquitlam's development, it functions as a kind of time capsule that looks substantially the way it did for most of the 20th century.
The heritage value of the Riverview site is clear. Its closure provides the rare opportunity for us to examine a defined, substantial piece of our social, medical, architectural, landscaping and community history. We recognize instinctively that the sum of these elements is greater than the individual parts.
The question is whether its protection and preservation are of sufficient priority to guide decisions about its future. Elsewhere in Canada and in many countries around the world, open-air site museums that extend well beyond a single stand-alone building have been championed. They tell the history in a compelling way by capitalizing on the synergy achieved by bringing together multiple site elements.
This could be the model for Riverview.
Your History is a column in which, once a month, representatives of the Tri-Cities' three heritage groups writes about local history. Jill Cook is executive director of the Coquitlam Heritage Society.
