Meet: 8:00 AM Departure: 8:30 AM Visit the Beauharnois Generating Station, one of the world’s largest hydropower stations and the fifth largest in Québec. It has 36 generating units spread out over almost a kilometer. Built in the 1930s, its Art Deco-inspired architecture has style. In fact, it won awards for its appearance and was designated as a National Historic Site of Canada. Only 40 kilometers from downtown Montréal, participants will visit the inside and outside of the building and meet expert architects and engineers who continuously study and maintain this site. Participants will learn about the original construction of the power station, the technologies used for monitoring of the dam (having concrete with ASR). Previous work dissociating the dam from the masonry power plant building, the seismic reinforcement of the structure, studies, work in progress, and the ongoing masonry restoration. Participants will also stop at the Les Cèdres Generating Station and Le Petit Pouvoir, a 1899 hydropower generating station, where the conservation team at EVOQ will talk about the current restoration work carried out on the historic structure.
Learning Objectives:
Identify the technologies used for monitoring the structures and judge the pros and cons of each to be able to employ them on different conservation projects.
Assess the heritage value of infrastructure components to be able to defend their preservation in the face of contemporary operational constraints.
Enumerate unique and unusual heritage elements found in a public utility infrastructure such as an early 20th century hydropower generating station.
Describe the primary challenges that the continuous operation of a public utility infrastructure poses on conservation work and list possible mitigation solutions based on the example of the work carried at Beauharnois.
Explain possible solutions for seismic reinforcement of different types of heritage masonry structures.
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