October 9, 1997 

"Lay heavy on him earth, for he laid many a heavy load on thee"

The above was the suggested epitaph for Sir John Vanbrugh, who designed Blenheim Palace. And a favourite quote of Richard E. Bolton, architect. Dick died less than two weeks ago at the age of 91. I will far from being alone among Westmounters who will miss him.

Dick, in many ways, was an exemplar of a typical Westmounter of years gone by, a man given to understatement, Briticisms, and unostentatiousness. These were the very qualities that make Westmount what it is today: not just in bricks and mortar, but in its social patterns and sense of community. The style has changed; the substance hasn't.

Dick had a slightly raspy, clipped, precise way of speaking. He spoke in what broadcasters used to call the mid-Atlantic accent. He looked at you though transparent eyes. Eyes were of cardinal importance to him. He always said you see though your eyes not with your eyes. Unlike most architects, his sense of aesthetics applied everywhere, right down to his Windsor-knotted tie, spread collar, and discreet windowpane-pattern suits.

Architecture was Dick's profession and passion - for under the imperturbable exterior, Dick had passion. He bemoaned the lack of education in aesthetics. He valued craftsmanship and honesty in construction. An architect should be an artisan first. He once wrote: "an architect soon learns (if he has any sense of his own unimportance) that his profession has existed for a little over a century and a half and that much fine building has been done during the last five thousand years".

Dick in the early 80s inveighed against the parking policy favouring house owners to convert their lawns and gardens into parking aprons. He plumped for reduced road widths. For fewer signs and traffic lights - calling their steel supports "examples of the plumber's art". He worried about a neglected cenotaph, highway-style lamp standards, over-pruning ("hedges with crew cuts"). Most of these pet peeves have been dealt with.

In 1975 he started an inventory of buildings that were to be protected by heritage legislation. He called his list "a very personal selection". When he was chairman of the Architectural and Planning Commission, he sought "visual harmony". He knew his city. Give him an address in Westmount and he might draw you a sketch of the house from memory.

As alderman in charge of the A&P Commission in 1983 (by that time Dick had become "member emeritus"), and, later, as mayor, I was the recipient of many letters from Dick, poking gentle fun at all sorts of things. Dick wrote in a flawless, spare script - with a fountain pen, of course. I opened a file called "Bolton". It will now never get any thicker.

I note the passing of a man, but also the passing of a way of life, a way of seeing things, and a way of marrying gentleness with firmness.