Station Yards

Relocating Ottawa's railway terminal from the grandly Beaux-Arts Union Station on Confederation Square to John B. Parkin and Associates' 1966 monument to steel and concrete had one sentimental carryover - two of the four bronze torchieres that stood in the middle of the old waiting hall were reinstalled at the entrance to the new Ottawa Station's administrative offices. This post documents two relics.

The setting - against Miesian black glass, emphasizes their opulence,
from their hairy claw foot base, rising though acanthus leaf clusters, along a fish scale shaft,
that terminates in a welter of luminaires. Each bracket, with a lion's head holds three globes.

Before proceeding to the station's abandoned yards on Terminal Avenue, it was worth revisiting the ramp that brings arriving passengers up into the station. So many of the original finishes, the sense of arrival under the huge black trusses hanging over the front door, and the muscularity of Parkin's Massey Medal winning design have been altered, compromised, or defaced. But the ramp's still got it.


And then it was out to the overgrown yards behind the station. Here its unbounded, spreading horizontality, and the full length of its platform sheds can be taken in a single look.
Two other Parkin buildings are beyond the yards. The old power plant and boiler house at the left, and a communications centre - the black horizontal stripe in the distance.
The striations from the concrete formwork are still crisp and grainy.
There's a reminder that it was a joint Canadian National Railway/Canadian Pacific Railway project.
At the eastern end of the power plant, which is a series of projecting and receding concrete planes, a tall steel wall fences off an open yard behind. You have to lie down on the ground to see inside.
The plant's relentless symmetry is best seen looking back from the station's platform.
There are easy grades on the loading ramp.
The steel siding on the hydro vault is peeling away, but still blinding in the bright sunlight.
I couldn't decide whether this was for guard dogs or hazardous material storage.
The second building - the CN-CP Telecommunications Centre has less to say for itself.
More ribbed concrete, and very narrow slits for windows, but this was intended as a high security building.
And it's still used for communications as an Allstream receiver and transmitter. After taking this shot I was escorted off site by the security staff. En route I explained the finer points of midcentury modernism, and a little bit about the history of Canadian telecommunications. They were mildly interested.
The frothy bronze lights have been burning for 100 years. The power plant barely lasted 20.