A Gold Standard

Ukrainian artists work on restoration of Parliament’s Library

By Olena Wawryshyn

The summit of one of Canada’s most historic buildings, The Library of Parliament in Ottawa glistens brightly thanks to the expertise of three Ukrainian artists.

Last fall, artist Oleh Lesiuk got a call from Myroslav Trutiak, who operates the Toronto-based company MST Bronze Limited with his wifeLuba, asking whether he was free to work on an exciting project.  MST Bronze had been granted the gilding component in the restoration of the Library of Parliament and they needed someone to work on this highly specialized task.

“It was an offer, I couldn’t refuse,” says Lesiuk. It’s not often that one has such an opportunity to work on such a prestigious project,” addsthe sculptor who has extensive experience work with gold and gilding icons and iconstases.

The Canadian Library of Parliament was opened in 1876.  Since then, it has been threatened by fire on several occasions.  In 1849, when aLoyalist mob protesting the Rebellion Losses Bill, burned down the Legislature, fire destroyed all but 200 of the Library’s books.  In 1916, thanks to its iron doors, the Library was the only portion of the Original Centre Block of the Parliament buildings that survived a blaze. In 1952, another fire partially damaged it.

Perched on the edge of a cliff overlooking the Ottawa River, the Library building is a masterpiece of Gothic Revival architecture that hasbeen admired by millions of visitors It is a distinctive circular structure that features a ring of 16 flying buttresses, pinnacles, decorative windows and beautiful ornamental ironwork.

 The building is capped by a copper lantern roof and crowned with a majestic weathervane. Time, harsh Ottawa winters and corrosive air pollution had negative impacts on the building.

In February 2002, the Library was closed down for a large-scale conservation and renovation project. Scientific research and tests made by restoration experts confirmed that, originally, the building’s exterior ironwork, including the weathervane, was gilded.

Lesiuk, and two other Ukrainian artists, Yuliya Butta-Polischuk and Diana Melnychenko, on behalf of MST Bronze took up the challenge of regilding the weathervane, and all the decorative ironwork on the cupola.

Lesiuk is a trained artist with an MA from the Lviv State Academy of Applied Arts. His work has been exhibited widely in Canada, Italy, Russia, United States and Ukraine. In Canada, he has been commissioned to create numerous sculptures which are displayed in towns and cities around the world. He restored the 19th-century Sacred Heart sculpture for the St. Joseph Health Centre in Toronto and fashioned the bronze memorial plaque in honour of the Victoria Cross recipient Filip Konowal, which was erected in Lens, France.

His monument in Rochester commemorating the 100th anniversary of the Ukrainian settlement in that city received a civic public award as the best monument in North America in 2005 from the Monument Builders of North America. His bronze memorial plaque in honour of Gareth Jones will be unveiled in Wales, Great Britain, on May 2.

The project team also included Toronto-based artists Yuliya Butta-Polischuk, who studied at the Lviv Trush College of Decorative and Applied Art and the Lviv Art School of O. Novakivsky, and Diana Melnychenko, who works in many media and studied music, interior design and fashion design. 

Melnychenko’s art is found in private collections in Europe and North America. She also designed costumes and accessories for various Canadian dance groups, including Shumka and Cheremosh of Edmonton and the youth choir Prolisok in Toronto.

On the Parliament Library project, the three Ukrainian artists worked closely with architect Spencer Higgins and Paul Morrison of Thomas Fuller Construction Ltd., and conservation experts Laszlo Cser and Susan Stock from the Royal Ontario Museum, to ensure that heritage guidelines were followed.

The Library’s weathervane was removed from the top of the Library and shipped to Toronto.  It was stripped of the paint that had been applied to it some time ago and gold was applied to the weathervane and ironwork using a traditional painstaking centuries-old gold-leafing process. The 24-carat gold used should retain its beauty for at least 25-30 years.

Once the weathervane was restored to its original glory, it was returned to Ottawa and reinstalled on the Library building. Now that it once gain sits in its rightful place, visitors to Parliament Hill can admire the weathervane and the ironwork on the cupola as it shimmers in the sun’s rays.