2011 - A Prime New Year

I have been living off the grid for the past few weeks, but will be returning to regular posts shortly. Happy New Year!

BANK of CANADA

The Bank of Canada is (IMHO) a pompous little building - but it was much admired in its day and played an important supporting role in the story of Wellington Street's transformation from modest to monumental.

Mackenzie King is often the go-to source for pre-1950 federal office buildings. His view on this view was given in an address at the Bank of Canada's cornerstone laying. 'I am glad that the district is to be beautified and improved by the Bank of Canada's head office, and that care has been taken to centre it on the axis of the space between the buildings opposite. Thus, at some future date, passers-by on the Mall which is to be extended west from Parliament Hill behind the new departmental buildings [Confederation and Justice] will be able to see this building in the proper perspective.' - King's speech at the Bank of Canada cornerstone laying ceremony, August 10, 1937.

August 1937 was eventful month in the development of Ottawa. Among the dignitaries present at the ceremony was Jacques Greber, who had spent the previous week surveying the city in preparation for his 1938 plan. Bi-axial symmetry was important to Greber as well. For Wellington Street he would ultimately envision a row of public buildings controlled by the height of the Bank's attic storey. To accommodate its future expansion the Bank could be extended by the addition of a mirror image of the Metropolitan Insurance Company to the east, and a replica of the bank building itself to the west - all three buildings to be linked by a colonnade.

Architects Marani, Lawson and Morris had designed a chilly granite vault that broke away from the recently established tradition of neo-Gothic chateau style federal buildings. They had also planned for expansion - the rear wall could be removed and put back on when the rear of the building was extended to Sparks Street. In 1976 Arthur Erickson ignored both the Greber and Marani directives by enveloping the 1937 structure in an atrium and flanking towers. He also replaced the original penthouse with a steeply pitched copper roof - thereby reintroducing the Bank to Wellington Street's family of chateau style buildings.

The Bank of Canada bears a passing resemblance to a slice of the Federal Reserve Board building in Washington DC. Franklin Roosevelt laid its cornerstone on October 10, 1937. It was designed by Paul-Phillipe Cret, a French architect who had co-incidentally been working with Jacques Greber on several public buildings in Philadelphia.

Along the balance of Wellington Street Greber had wanted to impose a strict height control, requiring removal of the offending Victoria and Norlite buildings - shown as dotted lines in this full street elevation.

The Bank's cornerstone is a one-ton block of Stanstead granite. In it was buried a time capsule - a copper box containing 1935 and 1937 bank notes, a coin set, the Bank of Canada Act, a copy of the 1933 Royal Commission Report on Banking and Currency, and the bank's statistical summary for July 1937. After the cornerstone was laid King mused in his diary that 'I feel the vision of years are at last being realized, from the Harper Monument on Wellington St. to the Bank of Canada and the [War] Memorial at the head of Elgin Street. It marks a long & great period of Canadian History, Elgin having pardoned Grandfather Mackenzie. It is fine to think that his grandson has succeeded in having the War Memorial crown the street - the great avenue that bears his name.'

The Bank of Canada's first offices were located in the too-tall Victoria Building.

It could have been replaced with an enlarged American Embassy - another copy building on the site of the Victoria Building.

The Bank of Canada maintains its own library and archives. Although not a retail bank, the marble banking hall contained tellers' windows. I am not sure of their purpose. Similar windows were built in the lobby of the 1976 bank, but they have since been removed.

In the mid-195os the Bank documented its workings - this the Public Debt Department.

The Telecommunications office had a Telex machine - a keyboard operated telegraph network.

The Bank's library maintained its voluminous statistical records.

The Secretaries' Office was bright and spacious - oh, for the days of natural light.

Paper money issued by the Bank was tracked at the Currency Department, where worn-out bills were counted before being taken out of circulation. An off-site incinerator disposed of the old ones.

Fuller Building

The stark black and white office building at 75 Albert Street must have been a jarring addition to the dirty brick and stone downtown of 1960. Perhaps it also symbolizes the curse of modernism - the ease with which it could churn out an endless supply of bland, boring and banal boxes.

It was built during 1960-61. 'Ottawa's first rentable fully air-conditioned building of its size. The Fuller Building is now under construction on the north side of Albert Street between Elgin and Metcalfe streets. The $3 million structure (sketched here) is owned by Metcalfe Realty Company Ltd. It will be completed by Oct 1 this year. Parking space will be provided for tenants. It was designed by Ottawa architects Balharrie, Helmer and Morin in association with Metcalfe Realty's construction division. Mechanical engineers for the air conditioning are Yost Keen of Toronto.' Although the general contractors are not listed in this caption, I am guessing that the building was named for the Fuller family of Thomas Fuller (Chief Dominion Architect) and Fuller Construction fame.

It's been faithfully reproduced though successive renovations. The black piers, which were polished granite (or a composite terrazzo material) were simply covered over with black metal flashing. The new windows still have three divisions, and although the openable awning window was omitted - there are still some operating windows. On the second floor from the top, fourth double bay from the right, one is cracked open.

Regular readers will know of my admiration for architect Watson Balharrie (Brook Claxton Building, Carleton U's first moderns, the first permanent Sparks Street Mall, etc.) but he was obviously capable of designing potboilers like this.

Euphemistically speaking, the Fuller maximizes its site coverage, i.e. lot line to lot line coverage.

Still, there is a Balharrie finesse in the steel-finned housing that surrounds the large mechanical penthouse (all that air conditioning).

The August 14, 195 Ottawa Citizen mistakenly placed the Fuller Building amongst this group of new developments. 'Going up - city core attracting big building investment - Planned or now building are 1-11 story office [Sir Wilfrid Laurier] 2- 11 story apartment [The Gloucester] 3-Campeau office building [Centennial Tower] 4-Campeau office-hotel [Place de Ville I] 5-Bank of Canada 6-Brouse office-hotel-stores [west side of Bank, Laurier-Slater, never built] 7-Press building [pre-cursor of La Promenade 151 Sparks?] 8-Toronto-Dominion Bank 9-Montreal Trust 10-Canada Permanent Trust 11-Fuller Building [sic -wrong location, it's actually the Blackburn Building] 12- 11 story office building [Gillin Building].'

The perspective drawing accurately reflected the Lorne Building across the street. I first remember the Fuller Building when it housed the overflow offices and library of the National Gallery of Canada. The Albert Street frontage was altered shortly after the building opened when an entrance door was cut into the ground floor for interior designer Gordon Burrows' showrooms. Incredibly chic, for Ottawa, the store had a striped marquee, urns, and a doorman.

Inside the lobby floating open stairs lead to a downstairs restaurant. The brass railings are an 1980s touch.

There is book-matched cinnamon brown marble through the double-height space.

The building's construction was ill-fated. This late-breaking bulletin hinted at disaster.

The wooden supports holding up canvas coverings to protect the concrete formwork had failed, trapping the fifty workers who had been finishing the third floor slab.

The injured men were hoisted off the site is a sling hung from a crane.

Towards the end of construction a fire broke out on the roof.

The chief glory of the Fuller is a huge compass set into the lobby floor. It has been covered over with permanent slush mats.

Engraved gothic F-B's decorate the elevator doors.

The first business to occupy the ground floor was the Ottawa branch of Montreal Trust, which opened here in January 1961.

It was '..less than 10 minutes' walk from any business office commercial establishments, Government office or hotel in the core of the city. The location was carefully selected particularly with a view to the projected development of the capital.'

In fact, Montreal Trust would soon become part of that projected development when it moved out of the Fuller Building, and built its own offices at Sparks and Metcalfe in 1965.

Then & Now: Albert at Kent

This is a then-and-now that is loaded with changes.

The mid-1950s Albert Street with streetcar tracks, multi-globe light standards and overhead wires has nineteenth century frame house remnants, modern offices in historic dress from the pre-WWI building boom, and a new generation of office towers that was beginning to emerge post-WWII. In 2010 it's a street lined by a wall of mediocre blocks.

On the south side of the '50s Albert looking east is: (1) the side of the Bell Telephone Co. of Canada exchange at O'Connor Street; (2) a cage-like structure on the roof of the Bell building that appears to be the mast for an early telecommunications tower; (3) the Copeland Building, which is still there; (4) the hoarding around the 150 Kent Street Building site; and (5) a Colonial Coach Lines bus leaving the Albert Street terminal.

On the north side of Albert: (1) Kent Street's 'Rosco' brand sign; (2) Keyes Supply Co. Limited which specialized in repairing commercial equipment; (3) the side of the Colonial Coach Terminal, which was on Albert before moving to Catherine Street in the 1970s; the conical corner tower of the Bank Street Chambers Building; and (5) the upper floors of the Hunter Building on O'Connor Street.

The Bank Street Chambers (lower left) was designed by Edgar L. Horwood. In addition to the rounded tower the building had elaborate terra cotta and stone trimmings.

The building was modernized in 1950s and re-named the Bankal Building, and reclad again in the 1980s when it was re-renamed the Bank Street Chambers. This red granite column on a red sandstone foilate base is all that's left of Horwood's design.

Ca. 1920 downtown Ottawa viewed from the spire of the Bank Street Presbyterian Church (site of the Jackson Building). The white arrow marks the Bank Street Chambers; the black arrow points to the Hunter Building, the Department of Public Work's first purpose built general office erected in 1917-20. It was named for James B. Hunter, a long-serving Deputy Minister.

Even by the early 1960s the view downtown hadn't changed that much, with just a handful of new offices. The white U-shaped 150 Kent Building (1) was one of the first. It was demolished for Constitution Square III. Bell Telephone is (2) and the Hunter Building is (3)