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One of the most enduring artists to come out of the heady 1960s visual arts scene
in Saskatchewan is actually an architect: Regina’s Clifford Wiens. Wiens’s
best buildings orbit his hometown, with a string of flat-out masterpieces set
along the Prairie oasis of the Qu’Appelle Valley. This lush string of creeks-become-lakes
north of the Trans-Canada Highway puts the lie to clichés about pancake-flat,
bone-dry and gopher-ridden landscapes. Wiens’s work draws on context, and
here he crafted careful, often small buildings possessed of a power and elegance
far beyond their modest budgets and isolated locations.
Wiens has long been an architect’s architect, deeply admired by renowned
colleagues like Arthur Erickson and Douglas Cardinal. When once asked for photos
of his work by the Globe and Mail, he politely advised the architecture critic
to jump on a plane and see the buildings for herself. So, to truly appreciate
his work, on the next sunny day pack a picnic lunch, sunglasses, bug lotion and
a solid set of shoes for a tour exploring hidden Saskatchewan, hotbed of modernism.
Cultural tourism is not just something for European holidays, after all.
Hovering over the Prairie-town-gone-dormitory suburb of Lumsden like a flying
saucer, it is hard to miss the hillside bronze-casting and candle-making studio
for ecclesiastical artist and sculptor John Nugent (also known as St. Mark’s
Shop; 1961). The conical, thin-shell concrete roof was built with volunteer power
from friends and some members of the famous Regina 5 painters under Wiens’s
hands-on direction. Etched onto its surface, you can even see the pour lines where
one weekend’s labours ended and another’s commenced.
With the barn-raising spirit of Regina’s artists along with salvaged materials
(like the lower level pre-cast culverts-become-windows) making for a $3,000 net
cost, this is the lowest-budget project ever to win the Massey Medal, Canada’s
top award for architecture (now the Governor General’s Award) and also the
first example of Modern architecture to be designated a provincial heritage site.
Nugent’s large, powerful welded-steel sculptures are arrayed around the
studio’s yard—but please respect the property lines, as it’s
privately owned.
A 20-minute drive up the valley is another Wiens stunner, the Silton Summer
Chapel (1969), a seasonal Roman Catholic Church for cottagers on Long Lake. “Half
the art of architecture is knowing the site,” says the now Vancouver-based
Wiens, still actively designing at age 82. True to his word, Wiens found another
south-facing valley-side location, this time set among trees in a hollow, not
on the bald prairie as at Lumsden.
Part of Silton Chapel’s drama and authority is arriving through the glade
to encounter architecture at its most primal: a pyramidal roof set on four massive
glulam (glue-laminated timber) beams, which are held up on gruff concrete pillars,
a raw boulder underneath serving as an altar but no walls at all. A small cast-concrete
pillbox provides a vestiary, while the baptismal fount is filled with water running
off the cedar-shaked roof down an iron chain serving as improvised drainpipe.
Wiens’s design appeals whether one is pagan (natural vistas provide the
“stained glass” for worshippers on the bench-pews), Roman Catholic
(this is a fully consecrated church), aesthete (the design is a chef d’oeuvre
of minimalism) or engineer (with a steel vertical tie-rod at centre, the foursquare
roof acts structurally as an innovative space frame). Seldom has Mies van der
Rohe’s dictum of “less is more” resonated as forcefully as here—architecture
reduced to its essence, and in so doing, amplified cosmically.
Because thunderstorms blow in and blow away quickly on the plains, the provincial
parks and highways department asked Wiens to design a prototype shelter that would
allow barbecues to continue regardless. Four Spiral Teepee Picnic Shelters were
built, but only one remains, at the park outside Fort Qu’Appelle. The shelter
consists of a series of ordinary telephone poles anchored in a spiral pattern,
with walls of cedar shakes on Douglas fir framing.
As the shelters were to be built with low-skill labour (some of it from local
reserves), Wiens’s mere two sheets of drawings for the shelters are clear
and cogent marvels of architectural communication (and, justifiably, one of the
highlights of the Telling Details exhibition—see page 66). Rain or shine,
this is where you pull out your lunch basket and drinks cooler to toast this all-Saskatchewan
whirl of creative construction and the rediscovered architect who made it.
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The year-old RCMP Heritage Centre in Regina, designed by architect Arthur Erickson,
is a worthwhile Regina stop on your architectural pilgrimage. 5907 Dewdney Ave.,
Regina, 866-567-7267, rcmpheritagecentre.com. 
