Queen’s Royal College Restoration 

The Queen’s Royal College (QRC) commissioned in 1904 was designed by Daniel M. Hahn who was Chief Draughtsman of the Public Works Department at the time. This German Renaissance architectural design was originally designed to accommodate six (6) classrooms housing 30 boys each.

Proudly sitting to the west of the Queen’s Park Savannah it has stood proudly ove the last century as one of the Magnificent Buildings which represents part of our diverse heritage In Trinidad and Tobago. While being maintained over the past decades like any other building of similar age, it eventually required repair works.

Listed as one of the country’s most prestigious heritage buildings, it has also stood as a symbol of the high standard of the educational system, which has been sustained through the history of the system in Trinidad and Tobago. This is evident by the many significant contributions to society made by past pupils of the school.

As a heritage building, repairs had to take the form of a restoration in keeping with international standards for works of a similar nature.

• Restoration of all significant archtitectural elements of the building

• Improving the infrastructure of the Administrative Facilities and providing more updated services

• Removing previous insensitive alterations with more suitable and adequate restorations

• Providing access to all users in keeping with existing building codes and standards

The main architectural consultants, Bernard MacKay Architects, prepared tender documents in line with the brief requirements. The project was tendered and a contract was awarded to Kee Chanona Ltd for $34,489,635.04 on November 8^th 2006.

Rehabilitation works began on January 15^th 2007 with the entire project being managed by the Construction Division Ministry of Works and Transport and the Historical Restoration Unit within the Division.

Like any large scale restoration job of this nature, there were unforeseen elements which had to be addressed during the restoration process. This was evident particularly in one outstanding instance where ornamental stencils were found under layers of paint, when the walls were being stripped for repainting.  The decision was made to restore most of these, since they formed part of the history of the Queen’s Royal College.

Eventually the project came to a ‘practical completion’ stage on Wednesday 28^th April 2010, and officially reopened on Friday 7^th May 2010.