The Heritage Centre

Facts and Features

The Centre du Patrimoine is an archival facility designed for the administration, conservation and dissemination of Franco-Manitoban and Metis archives and related culture. It will provide state-of-the-art storage facilities for archival material in an atmosphere encouraging public use and awareness.

• The Centre is an addition to the existing Centre Culturel Franco-Manitobain at 340 Provencher Blvd., St Boniface, Manitoba.
• Construction Cost: $2.5 million.
• Size: 3 floors, 1,672.2 meters (18,000 square feet in total)
• Total project budget (including furnishings and equipment): $3.0 million.
• Architect: Corbett Cibinel Architects.
• General construction Contractor: Gateway Construction & Engineering Ltd.

The structure of the facility consists of pre-cast concrete floor slabs, cast-in-place concrete beams and concrete masonry walls.

Access and Entrances:
Access and internal circulation is integrated with the existing Cultural Centre sharing exhibition areas and the main reception to the complex.

The entrance into the Heritage Centre is a two storey high foyer used for exhibitions and gatherings. One wall of this space is a display of actual pieces of the facade of the demolished Empire Hotel which was originally constructed as the Cauchon Block in 1882. Its pressed metal facade, designed in the Victorian Italianate style was constructed of decorative cast iron columns and stamped galvanized iron with zinc details. When demolished in 1982 the facade was put in storage protected as a designated Provincial Historic Object.

Public Areas :
Beyond the foyer is the reading and research area which has a library containing 10,000 volumes, a microfilm area and an audio/visual area for processing and viewing moving images and sound archives. Adjacent to the foyer is a 30 seat multi-purpose room.

Information at Your Finger Tips :
Computer cabling connecting to a main server will run throughout the building to allow computer applications to various functions including public access.

Lighting :
Outside of the reading and research area is a long courtyard on the south side allowing natural light deep into the building.

Second and Third Floor :
The upper two floors are accessed by staff only and house a vault, mechanical rooms, a work room, a quarantine room and a staff room. The work room is used for processing archival material stored in the second and third floor vaults. It also serves for basic archival preservation activities.

The Vaults :
The archival vault areas have mechanical systems independant of each other and the rest of the facility. These systems allow for the independent control of both temperature and humidity. It also ensures a dust-free environment.

Each vault is maintained by an independent CVCA LIEBERT DELUXE SYSTEM-3 which ensures that temperature and humidity are properly regulated. The system maintains a relative humidity of 40% (±5%), and a temperature of 15°C (±5°C). The system also has a staged filter (primary and terminal) which eliminates up to 95% of particles .5 microns or larger. The walls are insulated, sealed and surrounded by an inspection corridor. The outside walls themselves are insulated and sealed to ensure the environment is as controlled as possible. Above the third floor vault is a steel vaulted roof, allowing for another heated buffer zone.

The Storage System :
The second floor vault area (221 square meters or 2,380 square feet) is furnished with a LUNDIA FULLSPACE mobile system incorporating E-Z-RECT TRIM-LINE boltless shelving units. This system was installed by Wearing Williams Limited. The storage capacity of this system allows to store over six thousand archival boxes (32 cm x 40.5 cm). The third floor vault area (228 square meters or 2,455 square feet) is furnished with stationary shelving. It also includes a small area for refrigerators used for the cold storage of some archives.

Furniture :
The first floor will be furnished by ACCENT EQUIPMENT, who have provided us with PALMIERI DURECON LIBRARY SHELVING; PALMIERI tables and trolleys; HON desks, chairs and filing cabinets. Folding tables by MIDWEST and CTX chairs have also been supplied by ACCENT EQUIPMENT.

Other facts :
The load capacity of the floors is : 1st floor : 7.2 kilopascals (151 pounds per square feet); 2nd floor : 14.4 kilopascals (301 pounds per square feet); 3rd floor : 8.4 kilopascals (176 pounds per square feet); attic : 2.4 kilopascals (50 pounds per square feet).

Heritage Centre

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This page was last modified on April 4, 2006