UPDATE, JULY 6, 2015 - Heritage Ottawa has followed up with City of Ottawa heritage staff concerning roof repairs underway on the Aberdeen Pavilion National Historic Site of Canada.  Heritage staff have provided the following clarification.

"The Aberdeen Pavilion has had three roofs since its construction in 1898.  The original roof was replaced in 1929. Restoration architect Julian Smith noted in 1992 that this roof  “… marked the change from corrugated metal roofing to the present imitation Spanish tile pressed metal shingle.” In 1992 the 1929 roof was replaced under the supervision of Julian Smith, and new shingles were manufactured to replicate the 1929 shingles. It is this roof that is currently leaking. None of the shingles were removed during the course of the current work, rather a waterproof membrane was applied to the shingles to stop the leaks. It will be painted. All parties are now working together for a permanent solution to the issues associated with the roof."

OTTAWA CITIZEN, By David Reevely / As published on June 29, 2015

The roof of the Aberdeen Pavilion at Lansdowne Park is in bad shape and the city patched it up without permission using substandard materials, the province’s heritage authority says.

The Ontario Heritage Trust has told the city government that the patch, a big stubby “L” of plasticky stuff on the pavilion’s south side, “is inappropriate and that measures will have to be taken to repair the damage to the Aberdeen Pavilion,” spokeswoman Catrina Colme told the Citizen.

It’s a bad look for a city that pitched the renovations at Lansdowne as needed partly to give the pavilion surroundings worthy of its grandeur.

In the early 1990s, the century-old “Cattle Castle” was practically a ruin. To restore it, the city at the time accepted $2 million from the heritage trust, a non-profit agency that contributes to major restorations of historic buildings in exchange for long-term deals to protect and preserve them.

For its money, the trust got such an agreement (called an easement) from the city to preserve the Aberdeen Pavilion, its exterior, and views of it from Queen Elizabeth Drive and Bank Street. The trust and the city renegotiated the agreement in 2012 to allow the Lansdowne redevelopment; it specifically lists the pavilion’s “slightly rounded metal-clad roof” as an important feature.

Like all the other heritage features, the roof needs to be kept up and if it ever needs replacing, the new roof has to “match the forms, materials and detailing” of the old one. You can’t patch it up with whatever you have lying around.

“The repairs have altered the appearance of the building and are not in keeping with accepted conservation standards and practices. The work was also undertaken without the prior knowledge or approval of the Trust, which is a requirement under the easement agreement,” Colme said by email.

That’s as close as professional heritage types get to berserk. The trust’s worries about the views of the Aberdeen Pavilion were a very touchy element in the Lansdowne planning, before the 2012 agreement. In general, relations between the agency and the city government are, let’s say, firmly polite.

Colme said people at the heritage trust “are in discussion with the City regarding the development of a plan to remedy the damage” to the pavilion and they’re confident the city’s as committed as they are to its “ongoing conservation.”

“Additional repairs are scheduled to occur in the near future that better integrate with the architectural heritage of the structure,” said a statement from the city’s awkwardly titled manager of asset management Kelly Martin, relayed through a spokeswoman.

The thing is, even now that the huge Lansdowne project is almost finished the Aberdeen Pavilion is still a black hole in the middle of the site.

None of the ideas for spiffing it up proposed by the architects and designers in the city’s competition for the public half of Lansdowne became reality. Remember the rollout glass extension one team offered? The interior sections for market stalls or restaurants? The Ottawa Sports and Entertainment Group’s Roger Greenberg never got his aquarium. These blue-sky concepts had some pretty serious obstacles — financial, practical, heritage — but in the end the Aberdeen Pavilion didn’t even get a lick of paint.

It hosted indoor farmers’ markets last winter, filling about half the space. Some of the ceiling-mounted heaters seemed to be broken, as are a couple of the small exterior windows. They put a mock-up of a new light-rail car in it for a while, next to an old bus. The mayor’s Canada Day breakfast is there this year, as it has been for ages. Otherwise, there’s not much going on.

For a great building to be preserved, people have to care about it, which usually means it has to be used for something. Someone, some particular person, needs to see the need to maintain it — ideally because it’s earning its keep at least partly — or else it just becomes a money-sucking monument.

The nearby Horticulture Building deteriorated into a boarded-up storage shed because nobody cared about it, either. It’s now been moved, gloriously restored and updated (for $10 million), but the for lease sign is still up. The city’s looking for just the right tenant or tenants to take over the front sections, maybe for “a charming bistro, high-end restaurant, or other special service facility.” A couple of weeks ago it held a small cat show.

Where the Aberdeen Pavilion was once the liveliest part of a pretty dead district, it’s now the deadest part of a pretty lively one, and that’s bad for its future. Lansdowne won’t really be complete until its major historic buildings have major uses, too.