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13 D edicated to issues with a particular emphasis on Quebec’s religious heritage, the series Patrimoine urbain is a welcome addition to a body of research now being seriously addressed. The present volume by Clarence Epstein is the first English publication in this series which also testifies to the evolution of scholarly relationships and the shared commitment to advancing knowledge.As editors of this Presses de l’Université du Québec production, Luc Noppen and Lucie K. Morisset are to be commended for their efforts to build such academic bridges and to engage public debate around these issues.They have raised substantially the level of dialogue on the status of religious heritage. ClarenceandIfirstmetatmyhomeinthelate-1980sto discusshisplanstopursuegraduateworkinthefieldof architectural history. As a means of expanding his own horizons, one path that I suggested was to consider studying abroad— either in the United States or in Europe.His choice to pursue a master’s degree in Georgian architecture at the Courtauld Institute of Art resulted in a thesis on London’s Great Synagogue , Duke Street. The work was subsequently turned into a chapter of Building Jerusalem: JewishArchitecture in Britain, edited by Sharman Kadish and published in 1996. When Clarence and I met following his Courtauld degree, it was clear that he was going to continue working on ecclesiastical architecture but more specifically on Montreal and its complex European, American and local influences. Having just completed an extensive research project on the city’s greystones and developing an exhibition at the CCA, Opening the Gates of Eighteenth Century Montreal, I was keenly acquainted with the subject. I was also familiar with his choice of institution to take on doctoral studies—the University of Edinburgh. I had been a Fellow in Residence at its Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities and it was also where other Canadian architectural historians such as Jean-Claude Marsan and Kelly Crossman had completed critical dissertations. Depending on both of our travel schedules during those years, we arranged meetings in London, Oxford and Edinburgh and booked regular lunches in Montreal practically every summer while he was conducting archival work. We reviewed numerous chapter drafts and research findings. I was pleased to learn that some of his groundbreaking material on the religious buildings of John Wells had earned him the Weil Prize of the Society for the Study of Architecture in Canada. His doctoral thesis, completed in 1999, and now this publication, close a critical gap in our understanding of those decades after the British conquest when church buildings and their parishioners overtly marked the urban scene. Ultimately the assimilation of building traditions in Montreal, resulting from the co-existence of the French, English, Scottish, Irish, American and French Canadian groups definitively shaped the architectural character of Canada’s first metropolis. This rich work is, in effect, an important case study of the extent to which religious denominations may determine the course of civic development. Phyllis Lambert, CC, GOQ, CAL, FRAIC Founding Director, Canadian Centre for Architecture P r e f a c e ...

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