Description du lieu patrimonial

The historic place is L’École Bilingue, located at 1166 West 14th Avenue. Built by the Vancouver School Board and originally known as Cecil Rhodes School, the building is listed on the Vancouver Heritage Register. The original school building, erected in stages between 1910 and 1912, is clad in red brick with white stone trim. It is designed in a Classical Revival style and features the ‘barbell’ plan, characteristic of schools of the day. A separate gymnasium/auditorium, built in 1949, stands apart at the rear.

The school site is surrounded by West 14th Avenue, West 15th Avenue, Alder Street, and Spruce Street. The east side of the school grounds has a number of portable classrooms and outdoor ‘rooms’, which contain playground equipment. Additional playgrounds are located in front of and behind the school. A rusticated stone retaining wall defines three sides of the site (all but 15th Avenue) and mature deciduous trees grow along portions of the streets. Stone piers mark some entries to the grounds.

Valeur patrimoniale

L’École Bilingue has diverse heritage values. Historical value lies in the association with Vancouver’s pre-WW1 expansion; architectural value as a very good example of schools built at this time, for the architect, and for the extensive surviving ornament; and educational value as Vancouver’s first French Immersion school and for earlier curricular developments.

The construction of the school in 1910 is associated with the rapid expansion of Vancouver in the years before World War I. It was one of 14 schools built in Vancouver between 1905 and 1915 (another 12 were built in South Vancouver). The school has always drawn its students from a mix of ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds. Neighbourhood redevelopment in the 1960s-70s resulted in a reduced and transient school population. In this way the school reflects the intersection of civic and neighbourhood history.

L’École Bilingue is one of several brick-clad schools designed by Vancouver School Board architect Norman Leech in a Classical Revival style. The west wing, with 8 classrooms, was built in 1910. The rest followed in 1912. Many features represented good, standard school design and responded to the pedagogy of the day. The design created spaces that were fireproof, well lit, and ventilated, to promote good health and reduce expenses. Former staff and students comment on the solid doors, quality of light, and wide hallways. As at most Vancouver schools, the classical elevations were simplified in the 1950s. Nevertheless, some original ornamental details survive.

A gymnasium/auditorium was added in 1949, typical of Vancouver School Board schools, which built many gyms after 1945 to accommodate changes in the physical education curriculum and increase community programs. The gymnasium retains many original features, giving it value as a particularly good example of this building campaign.

The landscape at L’École Bilingue is also noteworthy. Retaining walls and mature trees along the boundary delineate the school property and create a sense of containment and safety. Staff, students, and parents have participated in creating outdoor ‘rooms,’ valued spaces that are used intensively as meeting places, playing a role in building the school community.

The school has further value for having been associated with important educational initiatives. As Cecil Rhodes School, it was the first home of Kitsilano High School, accommodated the Fairview High School of Commerce, had some of Vancouver’s earliest special needs classes, and was the site of early experiments with junior-high and pre-vocational education. Since 1974 it has been home to Vancouver’s first French-immersion school and was renamed L’École Bilingue (‘The Bilingual School’). French-language instruction has been an important theme in Canadian education, reflecting national political and cultural history. The school’s annual Quebec exchange has been an important activity for students since the 1980s.

Like most schools, L’École Bilingue can lay claim to well-known graduates. Many are listed in the school’s written history, which notes the positive atmosphere of the school. Former students and staff of both Cecil Rhodes and L’École Bilingue have fond memories and strong attachments to the school. Efforts have been made to build on this, including restoration of the school’s trophies.

Source: City of Vancouver Heritage Conservation Program

Éléments caractéristiques

The character-defining elements of L’École Bilingue include:

- traditions of use as a school and of association with educational experiments
- strong sense of place and community
- setting on an urban site that is clearly defined with mature trees and rusticated stone retaining walls
- form and massing, with its two-storey (and basement) barbell plan
- red brick exterior walls
- ‘quoins’ at corners and over entries, created by recessing every seventh brick course
- decorative panels (shields) at tops of corner quoins, inscribed ‘AD’ ‘1910’ on the west side, ‘AD’ ‘1912’ on the east side, and blank on the north and south sides
- cross-gabled roof
- gables in the centre of each elevation and over the projections of the wings
- large, multi-paned windows, typical of early-twentieth-century schools
- pilasters between the individual sash and the sill detail below the pilasters
- tripartite windows in the centre of each elevation, with small-paned windows and pilasters
- central entrance and its details, including granite steps, white-and-green mosaic pavement inscribed ‘Cecil Rhodes School,’ iron railings, and transom window
- interior features typical of the early 20th century, including wide halls, doors with transoms, curved walls in the stairwells, and ventilators
- the memorial plaque to Lydia James, a former staff member, in the front hall, which symbolizes the importance of the school to the lives of individuals
- gymnasium/auditorium wing, with its stucco cladding and its brick-clad and concrete-block change rooms
- fine surviving interior features of the gymnasium, characteristic of late 1940s design, including the rich red linoleum and blonde plywood
- concrete and stone retaining walls, the staircases that lead down to the site through the wall, and the staircase details, including the ‘parapets’ beside the steps
- mature deciduous trees on portions of the boulevard
- outdoor play area divided into distinct ‘rooms’
- bollards and railings that divide the grounds into sections