BEAUTIFUL, BUT NO LONGER IMPOSING
January 25, 2013, By KNews, Filed Under Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom, Source
A building to behold need not be imposing. Way up on the Corentyne, there is a small, delightful Baptist Church that shows that small can be beautiful.
The grand churches of Georgetown are of course falling apart and being pulled down. Last year, the old St Barnabas Church was demolished. It had been sold by the Anglican Church to a private concern who will no doubt be erecting a huge structure on the site.
The St. Barnabas Church had to come down because it was too costly to maintain. For years, it was an eyesore, had begun to tilt, and was in a state of such disrepair that vagrants used it as public toilet. With a dwindling congregation and the state of ruin to which it had descended, the Anglican Church had little choice but to place it on the auction block.
Not far away from that structure is the St. George’s Cathedral, which some insane person or persons actually attempted to torch during the disturbances that followed the 1997 elections. The St. George’s Cathedral is at no risk of being torn down, but it is not in the best of shape also, and could do with some financial help from all those who are concerned about the fate of Guyana’s historic buildings.
The St. George’s Cathedral is an example of a beautiful building that was imposing. For decades it stood out in the heart of the capital, since it towered above all other buildings.
Size is always relative, and while St George’s Cathedral would be like a matchbox against some of the buildings in Manhattan, for example, in Georgetown, it was the giant in a small city of a small country.
So imposing was the Cathedral that for years Guyanese deluded themselves into believing that it was actually the tallest wooden building in the world. For years, we were busy filling our children’s brains with the false idea that somehow Guyana was in the record books when it came to the St. George’s Cathedral. It may have been the tallest wooden church in the world, but it is not the tallest wooden building on the planet.
We mislead ourselves about a great many things in Guyana. At one time, we even boasted about having the longest floating bridge in the world. When it was pointed out that there were much longer floating structures in other parts of the world, we took comfort in saying that it was the longest floating “socialist” bridge in the world.
Norway is constructing a huge wooden building that is going to make the St. George’s Cathedral look like a picket fence. But it is not so much the competition from outside of Guyana that is the main source of worry for those heritage lovers of the Cathedral.
The main source of worry is that the Cathedral is now dwarfed in size by a neighbouring building. Just across the road from the Cathedral, a huge bank has been built. That is a sign of the continuing progress in Guyana. But it has reduced the imposing presence of the Cathedral, because if you go to the top floor of that building, you are basically at the same level as the roof of the cathedral.
A building is only imposing relative to those around it. The Cathedral had long been imposing because most of the nearby structures were smaller in size. It therefore stood out from the crowd. It is no longer as imposing. This beautiful wooden building is now boxed into a number of huge concrete structures which are taking shape around the city.
A few years ago, a mural of what Georgetown would look like in the future was unveiled at GuyExpo. It showed a modern city with high-rise buildings. That plan is taking shape not only in Georgetown, but throughout Guyana.
And with that, all the old buildings of Georgetown, including structures like the Stabroek Market, on which billions were spent over the years in maintaining, are simply going to be hardly noticeable. That unfortunately is the price that is often paid for modernity.