Bank of Canada Building
Encyclopedia
Bank of Canada
The Bank of Canada is Canada's central bank and "lender of last resort". The Bank was created by an Act of Parliament on July 3, 1934 as a privately owned corporation. In 1938, the Bank became a Crown corporation belonging to the Government of Canada...
, located in Ottawa
Ottawa
Ottawa is the capital of Canada, the second largest city in the Province of Ontario, and the fourth largest city in the country. The city is located on the south bank of the Ottawa River in the eastern portion of Southern Ontario...
, Ontario, Canada.
Built from 1937-1938 by architect S.G. Davenport of Montreal
Montreal
Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...
and completed by the Toronto
Toronto
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...
firm of Marani, Lawson and Morris, it replaced the Victoria Building
Victoria Building (Ottawa)
The Victoria Building is an office building at 140 Wellington Street, just across from the Parliament of Canada. It houses the offices of a number of parliamentarians, mostly members of the Canadian Senate. The building, designed by John Albert Ewart, was completed in 1928 by private developers,...
to the east of this building on Wellington Street. Constructed of grey granite
Granite
Granite is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock. Granite usually has a medium- to coarse-grained texture. Occasionally some individual crystals are larger than the groundmass, in which case the texture is known as porphyritic. A granitic rock with a porphyritic...
from Quebec, it is late neoclassical
Neoclassical architecture
Neoclassical architecture was an architectural style produced by the neoclassical movement that began in the mid-18th century, manifested both in its details as a reaction against the Rococo style of naturalistic ornament, and in its architectural formulas as an outgrowth of some classicizing...
in style, which was very popular at the time among banks, and won a number of architectural awards, including the Gold Medal from the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada
Royal Architectural Institute of Canada
The Royal Architectural Institute of Canada , founded in 1907, is a Canadian association representing over 3,600 architects, and faculty and graduates of Canadian Schools of Architecture.RAIC is the voice for architecture and its practice in Canada...
.
The large bronze front doors were designed by Ulysses Ricci
Ulysses Ricci
Ulysses Ricci was an American sculptor known primarily for his architectural sculpture. Born in New York City, Ricci was an apprentice at the Perth Amboy Terra Cotta Works in New Jersey from 1902 to 1906. He studied at Cooper Union Institute and at the Art Students League with James Earle...
of New York, and decorated with facsimiles of Greek coins from the British Museum
British Museum
The British Museum is a museum of human history and culture in London. Its collections, which number more than seven million objects, are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its...
. The sculptures decorating the front facade were designed by Jacobine Jones
Jacobine Jones
Phyllis Jacobine Jones was a sculptor. She was born in England, but migrated to Canada in 1933.- Life :Jones traveled around Denmark and Italy with her mother for years until, at 28, she studied casting, carving, and modeling at the Regent Street Polytechnic in London...
, and represent the Canada's seven principal industries at the time: fishing, electricity, mining, agriculture, forestry, manufacturing, and construction. The cornerstone was placed by Prime Minister Mackenzie King and the Bank's first governor, Graham Towers
Graham Towers
Graham Ford Towers, CC was the first Governor of the Bank of Canada from 1934 to 1954.Born in Montreal, Quebec, educated at St. Andrew's College in Toronto, he graduated from McGill University in 1919. During World War II, he was Chairman of the Foreign Exchange Control Board and Chairman of the...
.
Plans for additions in the 1940s and 1950s were scrapped, and while more substantial plans were drafted during the 1960s, construction was delayed due to Ottawa's already-strained construction industry, and only commenced in 1972. The glass structure behind the original 1937 structure was completed in 1979 by the firm Marani Rounthwaite & Dick (successor to Marani, Lawson and Morris) and Arthur Erickson
Arthur Erickson
Arthur Charles Erickson, was a Canadian architect and urban planner. He studied Asian languages at the University of British Columbia, and later earned a degree in architecture from McGill University.-Biography:...
. The building contains an enclosed courtyard with a large tropical garden bordering a shallow pool which is very popular with wedding photographers, and a three-ton Yap Stone
Rai stones
Rai, or stone money, are large, circular stone disks carved out of limestone formed from aragonite and calcite crystals, Rai stones were mined in Palau and transported for use to the island of Yap, Micronesia...
.
In 2000, it was named by the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada
Royal Architectural Institute of Canada
The Royal Architectural Institute of Canada , founded in 1907, is a Canadian association representing over 3,600 architects, and faculty and graduates of Canadian Schools of Architecture.RAIC is the voice for architecture and its practice in Canada...
as one of the top 500 buildings produced in Canada during the last millennium.