Canadian architecture
Encyclopedia
The architecture of Canada is, with the exception of that of Canadian First Nations
, closely linked to the techniques and styles developed in Canada, Europe and the United States. However, design has long needed to be adapted to Canada's climate and geography, and at times has also reflected the uniqueness of Canadian culture.
Canada's geography is highly diverse, and there are thus important differences in architecture. In most of Canada building materials are abundant, and the price of lumber and stone are low. The major exception are the prairie and the far north, where wood is in short supply. In the far north transportation costs of all goods are extremely high, and any construction project is expensive.
For the most part Canada is secure from major natural disasters that affect the architecture of other nations. However, the Canadian climate needs to be taken into account for every structure. All buildings need to be well insulated to protect their inhabitants against the extreme cold of the long winters. Buildings must be designed to survive the repeated cycle of freezing and thawing that can shatter stone and move buildings off their foundations. In most of Canada, buildings must also be able to survive the heavy weight of snow, which can collapse certain structures. In coastal British Columbia, the region's heavy rainfall is a factor in weatherproofing buildings, and ignoring it can have expensive consequences.
Prior to the arrival of Europeans the First Nations
lived in a wide array of structures. The semi-nomadic peoples of the Maritimes, Quebec, and Northern Ontario, such as the Mi'kmaq, Cree
, and Algonquin generally lived in wigwam
s. These were wood framed structures, covered with an outer layer of bark, reeds, or woven mats; usually in a cone shape although sometimes a dome. These groups changed locations every few weeks or months. They would take the outer layer of the wigwam with them, and leave the heavy wood frame in place. The frame could be reused if the tribe returned to the location at a later date.
Further south, in what is today Southern Ontario and Quebec the Iroquois
society lived in permanent agricultural settlements holding several hundred to several thousand people. The standard form of housing was the long house
. These were large structures, several times longer than they were wide holding a large number of people. They were built with a frame of saplings or branches, covered with a layer of bark or woven mats.
On the Prairies
the standard form of life was a nomadic one, with the people often moving to a new location each day to follow the bison
herds. Housing thus had to be portable, and the tipi
was developed. The tipi consisted of a thin wooden frame and an outer covering of animal hides. The structures could be quickly erected, and were light enough to transport long distances.
In the Interior of British Columbia
the standard for of home was the semi-permanent pit house, thousands of relics of which, known as quiggly holes are scattered across the Interior landscape. These were structures shaped like an upturned bowl, placed on top of a 3 or pit. The bowl, made of wood, would be covered with an insulating layer of earth. The house would be entered by climbing down a ladder at the centre of the roof. See Quiggly hole
.
Some of the most impressive First Nations architecture was that of the settled people of the west coast such as the Haida. These people used advanced carpentry
and joinery
skills to construct large houses of redcedar
planks. These were large square, solidly built houses. The most advanced design was the six beam house, named for the number of beams that supported the roof. The front of each house would be decorated with a heraldric pole
, the pole and sometimes the house would be brightly painted with artistic designs.
In the far north, where wood was scarce and solid shelter essential for survival, several unique and innovative architectural styles were developed. One of the most famous is the igloo
, a domed structure made of snow, which was quite warm. In the summer months, when the igloos melted, tents made of seal skin, or other hides, were used. The Thule
adopted a design similar to the pit houses of the BC interior, but because of the lack of wood they instead used whale
bones for the frame.
The first Europeans to inhabit what would become Canada were the French settlers of New France
and Acadia
. The initial settlements at Port Royal
and Quebec City
were most concerned with defence, against both First Nations and the English. For most of the early history of Quebec city it was dominated by the large fortress and outer walls. The city was divided into two sections. The Upper Town was home to the fortress, Intendant's house, and churches, these structures were built of stone in imitation of the Baroque architecture
then popular in France. The Lower Town consisted of densely packed structures on narrow streets, and was the commercial centre and home to the workers.
The settlers of the rural areas along the St. Lawrence largely came from Normandy
, and the houses they built echoed their roots. The surroundings forced enough differences that a unique style developed, and the house of the New France farmer remains a symbol of French-Canadian nationalism. These were rectangular structures of one storey, but with an extremely tall and steep roof, sometimes almost twice as tall as the house below. This roof design perhaps developed to prevent the accumulation of snow. The houses were usually built of wood, though the surviving ones are almost all built of stone. Landmarks in the rural areas were the churches and the mansion of the seigneurs
. The seigneurs built much larger homes for themselves, but rarely were the manors ornate. Each parish had its church, often smaller copies of major churches in Quebec City or Montreal. A unique style of French-Canadian church thus developed.
The first English settlements in what would become Canada were in Newfoundland, growing out of the temporary fishing settlements that had been established in the sixteenth century. The first English settlement in the Maritimes was in Halifax, and then along the South Shore
. The style that developed in the Maritimes was very close to the architecture of New England
. Trade links between the two areas were close, and many of the settlers in the Maritimes were from there. Some of the first houses erected in Halifax were actually prefabricated structures assembled in Boston or New York and shipped to the new settlement. Cape Cod style
cottages were built throughout the region. However, the influence of the Foreign Protestants
was also felt as the architecture of the region also borrowed some techniques and styles from Germany and Switzerland, notably at Lunenburg
.
after the American Revolution
. This doubled the population of the Maritimes and brought the first significant European population to what was soon Upper Canada
. One of the most popular styles in the pre-revolutionary United States was Georgian
, after the revolution this style fell out of favour due to its association with the colonial regime, but the Loyalists embraced the style as an overt symbol of their loyalty. The style had also, however, fallen out of style in Britain, and Canada was alone in embracing Georgian architecture for much of the early nineteenth century.
In Lower Canada the Georgian style was employed by the English minority, but this minority dominated the commercial and political class. French-Canadian architecture kept many of its traditional forms, but also adopted some English styles. Throughout British North America the Georgian style was mostly used by the middle and upper classes, and also for institutional buildings such as churches and government structures. In rural areas, and among the urban poor, simpler styles dominated. In the Maritimes the New England style cottages continued to be popular. For the first settlers in Ontario the log cabin
was the standard first house. Logs were a byproduct of the need the clear the land, and log cabins were cheap and easy to build. After a few years of farming it was typical to build a more elegant farmhouse. The most common design was the Ontario Style House, which consisted of a rectangular wood building with the main gable
over the short sides, and a smaller gable over the main entrance.
The pattern of building in the west was very different. The first settlements in much of the West were the forts of the Hudson's Bay Company
and North West Company
and the cabins of the Metis
. The next important presence was that of the Canadian Pacific Railway
. The railway needed to build stations every 13 km of its 4200 km route in order to rewater the steam engines. Many of these stations became a nucleus of towns. These stations were built to standardized designs, with a number of different sizes for stations of differing importance. Other important monuments throughout the prairies were the grain elevators, and the banks which competed with each other by building ever more ornate structures.
While there is little wood native to the prairies, the railway enabled it to be imported at relatively low cost. It was still common to build a first temporary home out of sod
. For those who were unsure of how to build a home, an industry of predesigned and prefabricated homes sold by catalogue developed. A settler could simply order plans for a few dollars, or also order the precut lumber, and premade doors and windows. The Eaton's catalogue
of 1910 offered homes from a shack for $165 to a nine room house for $1,025. These structures were erected across the prairies.
For some immigrants to the prairies, most notably the Ukrainians, there was not enough capital to buy a predesigned home, but since the immigrants were highly experienced with farming on the very similar Ukrainian steppe, houses identical to the peasant cottages of Eastern Europe were built across the prairies. These cottages had characteristic flared thatched roofs and white plaster walls. Even more notable were the onion dome
d Ukrainian churches built across the prairies. Other groups such as the Hutterites and Doukhobors also built unique structures. In the long run, however, the second and third generation immigrants tended to embrace the more British styles: the churches remained distinctly Eastern, but the houses largely conformed to the rest.
Victorian styles of architecture dominated in Canada from the mid-nineteenth century up to the First World War. Unlike during the previous centuries there was now easy communication between Canada and the architectural centres of the United States and Britain. It was common for Canadian architects to travel, study, and work in these other areas, and it was also increasingly common to hire foreign architects. This meant that ideas and styles developed elsewhere were quickly adopted in Canada. These were diverse styles, but one common element were attempts to revive ideas of the past. The first such style to come to prominence was the Gothic Revival style, which first came to Canada in the 1830s. This became the dominant architectural style for churches, especially Anglican and Roman Catholic ones, which both embraced Gothic Revival as evidence of their conservatism. It also was used for scholastic structures, such as universities and some houses. Some of the most prominent Gothic Revival structures are the original Parliament Building
s in Ottawa, by noted architect Thomas Fuller (architect)
who in 1881 was appointed Chief Dominion Architect.
Other revived styles also became prominent. Romanesque Revival buildings such as the British Columbia Legislature, Old Toronto City Hall
, and Langevin Block
were erected in this period. Several landmark Second Empire Style structures erected include the National Assembly of Quebec
, Montreal City Hall
, and the Legislative Assembly of New Brunswick
. In the 1890s Queen Anne Style architecture became the dominant one for upper and middle class houses across Canada. Early in the twentieth style the Tudor Style became quite popular, especially on the West Coast. Neoclassicism
and Beaux-Arts architecture became the dominant style for banks and government buildings, with the latter style being frequently used from the turn of the twentieth century to the 1930s for monumental public buildings such as Toronto's Union Station
by John M. Lyle
and structures like the massive Princes' Gates at Exhibition Place
in Toronto.
led to attempts to proclaim a unique Canadian architecture, distinct from that of Britain and the United States. One style promoted as distinctly Canadian was the Château Style
, also known as Railway Gothic. This style first appeared in the late nineteenth century with grandiose railway hotels such as the Château Frontenac
and Banff Springs Hotel
. It was a mix of Victorian Gothic Revival with castles of the Loire Valley
in France. The railways were seen as symbols of Canada, and the mix of French and English ideas was also considered distinctly Canadian. During the Interwar years the Château style was used in several prominent public structures, such as the Supreme Court
building. Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King
was a prominent supporter of the style. The third and current Hotel Vancouver, the last of the great Gothic railway hotels, was also completed after the start of the Second World War, though it had been under construction until 1929 (its predecessor was Italian Renaissance, a common style in late Victorian and Edwardian British Columbia).
The desire for a unique Canadian style also led to a revival of the Neo-Gothic style during the interwar period. In part because of the prominence of the Parliament Buildings
in Ottawa and the CPR's "railway Gothic", Gothic architecture had become closely associated with Canada and while the United States embraced Art Deco
Canadian architects returned to the Middle Ages for inspiration, by way of John Ruskin
's writings on Neo-Gothic, the most Victorian of all styles. When the Centre Block
of the Parliament Buildings burnt down in 1916 it was rebuilt in a similar Gothic style to that that had been used fifty years earlier. At the same time, Modernism inspired the Gothic style employed, and the Neo-Gothic buildings of the era often saw more sparse ornamentation and incorporated steel frames in their construction.
s. In the latter half of the twentieth century, Toronto's influence on other Canadian cities, largely because of the control of capital (especially banks) meant that Western Canadian cities, particularly Vancouver, became filled with lesser versions of their counterparts in Toronto (e.g. TD Tower (Vancouver)
, Bentall Centre (Vancouver)
) which displaced the city's older and distinctly Edwardian flavour.
Modernism appeared in a number of guises. In the 1920s and 1930s the banks and insurance companies embraced Modern Classicism. The Prairie Style, well suited to the Canadian terrain, became a popular one for homes and other structures, especially the designs of Francis Sullivan. In British Columbia, the bungalow
style popular in British India became a fixture in local house design, and styles such as Arts and crafts
, Queen Anne
and emulations of Californian Spanish and other distinctly western North America styles were common.
In Vancouver during the 1950s and 1960s, Modernist architectures inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright
and fostered by the unique building materials and physical setting resulted in various daring new styles of housing, particularly on Vancouver's ritzy North Shore
, featuring open beams, glass walls, and innovative floor plans. Vancouver architect Arthur Erickson
, more known for grandiose exercises in institutional concrete such as Robson Square
and Simon Fraser University
, pioneered the British Columbia version of the "West Coast style", variations of which are also common in Washington, Oregon and California. Erickson-designed houses are prized for their intimacy and taste, as well as their advantageous use of natural settings. A lesser, though much more common, form of Modernist architecture developed during the 1960s was the Vancouver Special
, a two-storey stuccoed box which took up most of a city lot, and typically featured two suites, one upstairs and one downstairs.
The movements and styles popular in the United States and Britain were not totally ignored in Canada. Several landmark Art Deco
structures were erected, such as the Vancouver City Hall
and the Marine Building
also in that city and Commerce Court North
in Toronto. The Georgian revival that was underway in the United States also made some incursions to Canada, as did diverse styles such as Egyptian Revival and Spanish Colonial styles.
After the Second World War, the desire for unique Canadian styles faded as the International Style
came to dominate the Canadian scene in the 1950s through 1970s. Many of the most prominent Canadian projects of this period were designed by foreigners, who won open contests.
Prominent Modernists such as Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
and I.M. Pei designed major works in Canada. At the same time top Canadian architects did much of their work abroad. One of the first and most prominent Modernist structures was Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
's Toronto-Dominion Centre
. The T-D Centre was one of the most prominent of the early glass and steel panelled office towers, which would be imitated around the world. The International Style period coincided with a major building boom in Canada, and few restrictions on massive building projects. International Style skyscrapers came to dominate many of Canada's major cities, especially Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Ottawa, and Toronto. In Montreal fewer such buildings were erected, but those that were such as Place Ville-Marie
and Place Victoria, were large enough to dominate the skyline.
The first phase of the Toronto subway
was completed 1954 as the first subway line in Canada, with sleek but austere and repetitive station architecture, influenced by the International Style. Yet the opening of the Montreal Metro
opened in 1966 proved to be more architecturally significant in Canada because its individual stations each contained unique Modernist architecture with expressive uses of colour, form, and materials by different architects and incorporated works of art to enhance the experience of using the system. This influenced Toronto to take a similar course with its Spadina line by 1978, commissioning Arthur Erickson
and several Canadian firms and artists. Montreal continued upon its legacy of unique station architecture in expanding its system. Vancouver's Skytrain
rapid transit system relied on modern minimalist designs from its beginning in 1985, with some design variation and artwork in terms of the stations in the system which have been added since its opening.
The Modernist styles had mixed results when applied to residential structures, such as the large housing projects constructed in this era. Massive Canadian housing projects, such as St. James Town, were more successful than their counterparts in the United States. The postwar period saw the rise of massive and low density suburbs surrounding most Canadian cities, with Don Mills
being Canada's first community constructed on rigidly Modernist lines. One important development was the rise of shopping malls that became the commercial, and often social, centres of these suburban areas. The West Edmonton Mall
was the world's largest mall for a 23 year period from 1981 until 2004.
While the glass towers of the International Style skyscraper were at first unique and interesting, the idea was soon repeated to the point of ubiquity. Architects attempted to put new twists into such towers, such as the Toronto City Hall
. By the 1970s an international backlash was underway against Modernism, and Canada was one of its centres. Prominent critics of Modern planning such as Jane Jacobs
and George Baird were based in Canada.
The 1970s represented a turning point away from the International Style and Modernist planning. Brutalist architecture
had been seen in Canada prior to the decade, but became more dominant in the 1970s with the backlash against the International Style. The style emphasized the reflection of the functional components of the interior in the exterior, along with geometric and sculptural uses of concrete on the interior and exterior of the building. It was a style used focally for institutional buildings for government, academic, and cultural uses, but also for high-rise residential and commercial buildings. At the same time, urban activists, architects and governments increasingly moved to influence development in favour of heritage preservation, historic view corridor preservation, and contextual sensitivity in scale and materials.
The new Canadian architecture once again turned to the past. A prominent heritage preservation movement developed, and most cities today have heritage districts of restored structures. Old factories and warehouses, rather than be demolished, have been refurbished, such as the Queen's Quay Terminal
, a former warehouse at a prominent central location on the Toronto waterfront that was rebuilt into a mix of stores, residential condominiums, and a theatre. New buildings have also began to echo the past. Ronald Thom
's Massey College
is a notable early example completed in 1963. It adds strong Gothic influences to a Modern concrete, brick, and glass aesthetic.
Postmodern architecture
was the mainstream style in Canada by the 1980s. Postmodernity in architecture is generally thought to be heralded by the return of "wit, ornament and reference" to architecture in response to the formalism of the International Style of Modernism and perceived problems with the style. The functional and formalized shapes and spaces of the Modernist movement were replaced by unapologetically diverse aesthetics: styles collide, form is adopted for its own sake, and new ways of viewing familiar styles and space abound. Architects produced what they perceived to be more meaningful buildings with pluralism, double coding, flying buttresses and high ceilings, irony and paradox, and contextualism. Skyscrapers like 1000 de La Gauchetière
in Montreal, Brookfield Place in Toronto, and Bankers Hall
in Calgary define the style in terms of high-rise corporate architecture. These towers feature combinations of International Style design features with ornamental and potentially symbolic references to past architectural styles such as Art Deco, with pronounced base, middle, and top sections, and prominent atrium common spaces.
The Mississauga Civic Centre
completed in 1987 is an important example of public architecture in the style. It makes reference to local farm architecture around the suburban area of Mississauga as well as a clocktower - a feature associated with traditional city centres. It exhibits references to past architectural ideas, yet is decidedly untraditional. The Vancouver Public Library
similarly evokes Postmodern aesthetic ideals, though references a different architectural past, demonstrating the eclectic nature of the style in Canada.
Postmodernism visibly declined by the 2000s, when architecture in Canada became more varied. Lowrise residential subdivision architecture became more strongly focused on imitating traditional styles from the likes of the Georgian and Victorian eras, though low-rise infill projects in cities demonstrated an increased popularity of the Modern aesthetic. High-rise architecture generally turned to new variations on the International Style. Starchitect
s received commissions to design a small number of prominent urban landmarks. For instance, Norman Foster
designed The Bow
in Calgary, while Toronto saw the completion of the Deconstructivist
Michael Lee-Chin Crystal at the Royal Ontario Museum
by Daniel Libeskind
, and the thorough renovation and expansion project by Frank Gehry
of the Art Gallery of Ontario
. Renewed interest and appreciation for Modernism has led to increased calls for its preservation and even overt architectural homages to it, such as X Condominium
in Toronto.
First Nations
First Nations is a term that collectively refers to various Aboriginal peoples in Canada who are neither Inuit nor Métis. There are currently over 630 recognised First Nations governments or bands spread across Canada, roughly half of which are in the provinces of Ontario and British Columbia. The...
, closely linked to the techniques and styles developed in Canada, Europe and the United States. However, design has long needed to be adapted to Canada's climate and geography, and at times has also reflected the uniqueness of Canadian culture.
Climate and geography
For the most part Canada is secure from major natural disasters that affect the architecture of other nations. However, the Canadian climate needs to be taken into account for every structure. All buildings need to be well insulated to protect their inhabitants against the extreme cold of the long winters. Buildings must be designed to survive the repeated cycle of freezing and thawing that can shatter stone and move buildings off their foundations. In most of Canada, buildings must also be able to survive the heavy weight of snow, which can collapse certain structures. In coastal British Columbia, the region's heavy rainfall is a factor in weatherproofing buildings, and ignoring it can have expensive consequences.
First Nations
First Nations
First Nations is a term that collectively refers to various Aboriginal peoples in Canada who are neither Inuit nor Métis. There are currently over 630 recognised First Nations governments or bands spread across Canada, roughly half of which are in the provinces of Ontario and British Columbia. The...
lived in a wide array of structures. The semi-nomadic peoples of the Maritimes, Quebec, and Northern Ontario, such as the Mi'kmaq, Cree
Cree
The Cree are one of the largest groups of First Nations / Native Americans in North America, with 200,000 members living in Canada. In Canada, the major proportion of Cree live north and west of Lake Superior, in Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and the Northwest Territories, although...
, and Algonquin generally lived in wigwam
Wigwam
A wigwam or wickiup is a domed room dwelling used by certain Native American tribes. The term wickiup is generally used to label these kinds of dwellings in American Southwest and West. Wigwam is usually applied to these structures in the American Northeast...
s. These were wood framed structures, covered with an outer layer of bark, reeds, or woven mats; usually in a cone shape although sometimes a dome. These groups changed locations every few weeks or months. They would take the outer layer of the wigwam with them, and leave the heavy wood frame in place. The frame could be reused if the tribe returned to the location at a later date.
Further south, in what is today Southern Ontario and Quebec the Iroquois
Iroquois
The Iroquois , also known as the Haudenosaunee or the "People of the Longhouse", are an association of several tribes of indigenous people of North America...
society lived in permanent agricultural settlements holding several hundred to several thousand people. The standard form of housing was the long house
Native American long house
Longhouses were built by native peoples in various parts of North America, sometimes reaching over but generally around wide. The dominant theory is that walls were made of sharpened and fire-hardened poles driven into the ground and the roof consisted of leaves and grass...
. These were large structures, several times longer than they were wide holding a large number of people. They were built with a frame of saplings or branches, covered with a layer of bark or woven mats.
On the Prairies
Canadian Prairies
The Canadian Prairies is a region of Canada, specifically in western Canada, which may correspond to several different definitions, natural or political. Notably, the Prairie provinces or simply the Prairies comprise the provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba, as they are largely covered...
the standard form of life was a nomadic one, with the people often moving to a new location each day to follow the bison
Bison
Members of the genus Bison are large, even-toed ungulates within the subfamily Bovinae. Two extant and four extinct species are recognized...
herds. Housing thus had to be portable, and the tipi
Tipi
A tipi is a Lakota name for a conical tent traditionally made of animal skins and wooden poles used by the nomadic tribes and sedentary tribal dwellers of the Great Plains...
was developed. The tipi consisted of a thin wooden frame and an outer covering of animal hides. The structures could be quickly erected, and were light enough to transport long distances.
In the Interior of British Columbia
British Columbia Interior
The British Columbia Interior or BC Interior or Interior of British Columbia, usually referred to only as the Interior, is one of the three main regions of the Canadian province of British Columbia, the other two being the Lower Mainland, which comprises the overlapping areas of Greater Vancouver...
the standard for of home was the semi-permanent pit house, thousands of relics of which, known as quiggly holes are scattered across the Interior landscape. These were structures shaped like an upturned bowl, placed on top of a 3 or pit. The bowl, made of wood, would be covered with an insulating layer of earth. The house would be entered by climbing down a ladder at the centre of the roof. See Quiggly hole
Quiggly hole
A quiggly hole, also known simply as a quiggly or kekuli, is the remains of an underground house built by the First Nations people of the Interior of British Columbia and the Columbia Plateau in the U.S....
.
Some of the most impressive First Nations architecture was that of the settled people of the west coast such as the Haida. These people used advanced carpentry
Carpentry
A carpenter is a skilled craftsperson who works with timber to construct, install and maintain buildings, furniture, and other objects. The work, known as carpentry, may involve manual labor and work outdoors....
and joinery
Woodworking joints
Joinery is a part of woodworking that involves joining together pieces of wood, to create furniture, structures, toys, and other items. Some wood joints employ fasteners, bindings, or adhesives, while others use only wood elements. The characteristics of wooden joints - strength, flexibility,...
skills to construct large houses of redcedar
Thuja plicata
Thuja plicata, commonly called Western or pacific red cedar, giant or western arborvitae, giant cedar, or shinglewood, is a species of Thuja, an evergreen coniferous tree in the cypress family Cupressaceae native to western North America...
planks. These were large square, solidly built houses. The most advanced design was the six beam house, named for the number of beams that supported the roof. The front of each house would be decorated with a heraldric pole
Totem pole
Totem poles are monumental sculptures carved from large trees, mostly Western Red Cedar, by cultures of the indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast of North America...
, the pole and sometimes the house would be brightly painted with artistic designs.
In the far north, where wood was scarce and solid shelter essential for survival, several unique and innovative architectural styles were developed. One of the most famous is the igloo
Igloo
An igloo or snowhouse is a type of shelter built of snow, originally built by the Inuit....
, a domed structure made of snow, which was quite warm. In the summer months, when the igloos melted, tents made of seal skin, or other hides, were used. The Thule
Thule people
The Thule or proto-Inuit were the ancestors of all modern Inuit. They developed in coastal Alaska by AD 1000 and expanded eastwards across Canada, reaching Greenland by the 13th century. In the process, they replaced people of the earlier Dorset culture that had previously inhabited the region...
adopted a design similar to the pit houses of the BC interior, but because of the lack of wood they instead used whale
Whale
Whale is the common name for various marine mammals of the order Cetacea. The term whale sometimes refers to all cetaceans, but more often it excludes dolphins and porpoises, which belong to suborder Odontoceti . This suborder also includes the sperm whale, killer whale, pilot whale, and beluga...
bones for the frame.
Arrival of the Europeans
New France
New France was the area colonized by France in North America during a period beginning with the exploration of the Saint Lawrence River by Jacques Cartier in 1534 and ending with the cession of New France to Spain and Great Britain in 1763...
and Acadia
Acadia
Acadia was the name given to lands in a portion of the French colonial empire of New France, in northeastern North America that included parts of eastern Quebec, the Maritime provinces, and modern-day Maine. At the end of the 16th century, France claimed territory stretching as far south as...
. The initial settlements at Port Royal
Port Royal
Port Royal was a city located at the end of the Palisadoes at the mouth of the Kingston Harbour, in southeastern Jamaica. Founded in 1518, it was the centre of shipping commerce in the Caribbean Sea during the latter half of the 17th century...
and Quebec City
Quebec City
Quebec , also Québec, Quebec City or Québec City is the capital of the Canadian province of Quebec and is located within the Capitale-Nationale region. It is the second most populous city in Quebec after Montreal, which is about to the southwest...
were most concerned with defence, against both First Nations and the English. For most of the early history of Quebec city it was dominated by the large fortress and outer walls. The city was divided into two sections. The Upper Town was home to the fortress, Intendant's house, and churches, these structures were built of stone in imitation of the Baroque architecture
Baroque architecture
Baroque architecture is a term used to describe the building style of the Baroque era, begun in late sixteenth century Italy, that took the Roman vocabulary of Renaissance architecture and used it in a new rhetorical and theatrical fashion, often to express the triumph of the Catholic Church and...
then popular in France. The Lower Town consisted of densely packed structures on narrow streets, and was the commercial centre and home to the workers.
The settlers of the rural areas along the St. Lawrence largely came from Normandy
Normandy
Normandy is a geographical region corresponding to the former Duchy of Normandy. It is in France.The continental territory covers 30,627 km² and forms the preponderant part of Normandy and roughly 5% of the territory of France. It is divided for administrative purposes into two régions:...
, and the houses they built echoed their roots. The surroundings forced enough differences that a unique style developed, and the house of the New France farmer remains a symbol of French-Canadian nationalism. These were rectangular structures of one storey, but with an extremely tall and steep roof, sometimes almost twice as tall as the house below. This roof design perhaps developed to prevent the accumulation of snow. The houses were usually built of wood, though the surviving ones are almost all built of stone. Landmarks in the rural areas were the churches and the mansion of the seigneurs
Seigneurial system of New France
The seigneurial system of New France was the semi-feudal system of land distribution used in the North American colonies of New France.-Introduction to New France:...
. The seigneurs built much larger homes for themselves, but rarely were the manors ornate. Each parish had its church, often smaller copies of major churches in Quebec City or Montreal. A unique style of French-Canadian church thus developed.
South Shore (Nova Scotia)
The South Shore is a region of Nova Scotia, Canada. Although it has no formal identity and is variously defined by geographic, county and other political boundaries, it is generally understood as the Atlantic coast running southwest from Halifax Harbour to the end of Shelburne County...
. The style that developed in the Maritimes was very close to the architecture of New England
New England
New England is a region in the northeastern corner of the United States consisting of the six states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut...
. Trade links between the two areas were close, and many of the settlers in the Maritimes were from there. Some of the first houses erected in Halifax were actually prefabricated structures assembled in Boston or New York and shipped to the new settlement. Cape Cod style
Cape Cod (house)
A Cape Cod cottage is a style of house originating in New England in the 17th century. It is traditionally characterized by a low, broad frame building, generally a story and a half high, with a steep, pitched roof with end gables, a large central chimney and very little ornamentation...
cottages were built throughout the region. However, the influence of the Foreign Protestants
Foreign Protestants
The "Foreign Protestants" were a group of immigrants to Nova Scotia in the mid-18th century and the ethnonymical basis behind the name "New Brunswick", as well as support behind naming "Prince Edward Island" for a representative of the Braunschweiger dynasty....
was also felt as the architecture of the region also borrowed some techniques and styles from Germany and Switzerland, notably at Lunenburg
Lunenburg, Nova Scotia
Lunenburg , is a Canadian port town in Lunenburg County, Nova Scotia.Situated on the province's South Shore, Lunenburg is located on a peninsula at the western side of Mahone Bay. The town is approximately 90 kilometres southwest of the county boundary with the Halifax Regional Municipality.The...
.
Growth and expansion
The English speaking population of Canada grew dramatically with the influx of United Empire LoyalistsUnited Empire Loyalists
The name United Empire Loyalists is an honorific given after the fact to those American Loyalists who resettled in British North America and other British Colonies as an act of fealty to King George III after the British defeat in the American Revolutionary War and prior to the Treaty of Paris...
after the American Revolution
American Revolution
The American Revolution was the political upheaval during the last half of the 18th century in which thirteen colonies in North America joined together to break free from the British Empire, combining to become the United States of America...
. This doubled the population of the Maritimes and brought the first significant European population to what was soon Upper Canada
Upper Canada
The Province of Upper Canada was a political division in British Canada established in 1791 by the British Empire to govern the central third of the lands in British North America and to accommodate Loyalist refugees from the United States of America after the American Revolution...
. One of the most popular styles in the pre-revolutionary United States was Georgian
Georgian architecture
Georgian architecture is the name given in most English-speaking countries to the set of architectural styles current between 1720 and 1840. It is eponymous for the first four British monarchs of the House of Hanover—George I of Great Britain, George II of Great Britain, George III of the United...
, after the revolution this style fell out of favour due to its association with the colonial regime, but the Loyalists embraced the style as an overt symbol of their loyalty. The style had also, however, fallen out of style in Britain, and Canada was alone in embracing Georgian architecture for much of the early nineteenth century.
Log cabin
A log cabin is a house built from logs. It is a fairly simple type of log house. A distinction should be drawn between the traditional meanings of "log cabin" and "log house." Historically most "Log cabins" were a simple one- or 1½-story structures, somewhat impermanent, and less finished or less...
was the standard first house. Logs were a byproduct of the need the clear the land, and log cabins were cheap and easy to build. After a few years of farming it was typical to build a more elegant farmhouse. The most common design was the Ontario Style House, which consisted of a rectangular wood building with the main gable
Gable
A gable is the generally triangular portion of a wall between the edges of a sloping roof. The shape of the gable and how it is detailed depends on the structural system being used and aesthetic concerns. Thus the type of roof enclosing the volume dictates the shape of the gable...
over the short sides, and a smaller gable over the main entrance.
The pattern of building in the west was very different. The first settlements in much of the West were the forts of the Hudson's Bay Company
Hudson's Bay Company
The Hudson's Bay Company , abbreviated HBC, or "The Bay" is the oldest commercial corporation in North America and one of the oldest in the world. A fur trading business for much of its existence, today Hudson's Bay Company owns and operates retail stores throughout Canada...
and North West Company
North West Company
The North West Company was a fur trading business headquartered in Montreal from 1779 to 1821. It competed with increasing success against the Hudson's Bay Company in what was to become Western Canada...
and the cabins of the Metis
Métis people (Canada)
The Métis are one of the Aboriginal peoples in Canada who trace their descent to mixed First Nations parentage. The term was historically a catch-all describing the offspring of any such union, but within generations the culture syncretised into what is today a distinct aboriginal group, with...
. The next important presence was that of the Canadian Pacific Railway
Canadian Pacific Railway
The Canadian Pacific Railway , formerly also known as CP Rail between 1968 and 1996, is a historic Canadian Class I railway founded in 1881 and now operated by Canadian Pacific Railway Limited, which began operations as legal owner in a corporate restructuring in 2001...
. The railway needed to build stations every 13 km of its 4200 km route in order to rewater the steam engines. Many of these stations became a nucleus of towns. These stations were built to standardized designs, with a number of different sizes for stations of differing importance. Other important monuments throughout the prairies were the grain elevators, and the banks which competed with each other by building ever more ornate structures.
While there is little wood native to the prairies, the railway enabled it to be imported at relatively low cost. It was still common to build a first temporary home out of sod
Sod
Sod or turf is grass and the part of the soil beneath it held together by the roots, or a piece of thin material.The term sod may be used to mean turf grown and cut specifically for the establishment of lawns...
. For those who were unsure of how to build a home, an industry of predesigned and prefabricated homes sold by catalogue developed. A settler could simply order plans for a few dollars, or also order the precut lumber, and premade doors and windows. The Eaton's catalogue
Eaton's
The T. Eaton Co. Limited was once Canada's largest department store retailer. It was founded in 1869 in Toronto by Timothy Eaton, an Irish immigrant. Eaton's grew to become a retail and social institution in Canada, with stores across the country, buying offices across the globe, and a catalogue...
of 1910 offered homes from a shack for $165 to a nine room house for $1,025. These structures were erected across the prairies.
For some immigrants to the prairies, most notably the Ukrainians, there was not enough capital to buy a predesigned home, but since the immigrants were highly experienced with farming on the very similar Ukrainian steppe, houses identical to the peasant cottages of Eastern Europe were built across the prairies. These cottages had characteristic flared thatched roofs and white plaster walls. Even more notable were the onion dome
Onion dome
An onion dome is a dome whose shape resembles the onion, after which they are named. Such domes are often larger in diameter than the drum upon which they are set, and their height usually exceeds their width...
d Ukrainian churches built across the prairies. Other groups such as the Hutterites and Doukhobors also built unique structures. In the long run, however, the second and third generation immigrants tended to embrace the more British styles: the churches remained distinctly Eastern, but the houses largely conformed to the rest.
Victorian architecture
Parliament of Canada
The Parliament of Canada is the federal legislative branch of Canada, seated at Parliament Hill in the national capital, Ottawa. Formally, the body consists of the Canadian monarch—represented by her governor general—the Senate, and the House of Commons, each element having its own officers and...
s in Ottawa, by noted architect Thomas Fuller (architect)
Thomas Fuller (architect)
Thomas Fuller was a Canadian architect.He was born in Bath, Somerset , where he trained as an architect. Living in Bath and London he did a number of projects. In 1845 he left for Antigua, where he spent two years working on a new cathedral before emigrating to Canada in 1857...
who in 1881 was appointed Chief Dominion Architect.
Other revived styles also became prominent. Romanesque Revival buildings such as the British Columbia Legislature, Old Toronto City Hall
Old City Hall (Toronto)
Toronto's Old City Hall was home to its city council from 1899 to 1966 and remains one of the city's most prominent structures. The building is located at the corner of Queen and Bay Streets, across Bay Street from Nathan Phillips Square and the new City Hall in the centre of downtown Toronto...
, and Langevin Block
Langevin Block
The Langevin Block is an office building facing Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Canada. As the home of the Privy Council Office and Office of the Prime Minister, it is the working headquarters of the executive branch of the Canadian government...
were erected in this period. Several landmark Second Empire Style structures erected include the National Assembly of Quebec
National Assembly of Quebec
The National Assembly of Quebec is the legislative body of the Province of Quebec. The Lieutenant Governor and the National Assembly compose the Parliament of Quebec, which operates in a fashion similar to those of other British-style parliamentary systems.The National Assembly was formerly the...
, Montreal City Hall
Montreal City Hall
The five-storey Montreal City Hall is the work of architects Henri-Maurice Perrault and Alexander Cowper Hutchison, and was built between 1872 and 1878 in the Second Empire style. It is located in Old Montreal, between Place Jacques-Cartier and the Champ de Mars, at 275 Notre-Dame Street East...
, and the Legislative Assembly of New Brunswick
Legislative Assembly of New Brunswick
The Legislative Assembly of New Brunswick is located in Fredericton. It was established de jure when the colony was created in 1784, but only came in to session in 1786 following the first elections in late 1785. Until 1891, it was the lower house in a bicameral legislature when its upper house...
. In the 1890s Queen Anne Style architecture became the dominant one for upper and middle class houses across Canada. Early in the twentieth style the Tudor Style became quite popular, especially on the West Coast. Neoclassicism
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...
and Beaux-Arts architecture became the dominant style for banks and government buildings, with the latter style being frequently used from the turn of the twentieth century to the 1930s for monumental public buildings such as Toronto's Union Station
Union Station (Toronto)
Union Station is the major inter-city rail station and a major commuter rail hub in Toronto, located on Front Street West and occupying the south side of the block bounded by Bay Street and York Street in the central business district. The station building is owned by the City of Toronto, while the...
by John M. Lyle
John M. Lyle
John MacIntosh Lyle was a Canadian architect, designer, urban planner, and teacher active in the late 19th century and into the first half of the 20th century. He was a leading Canadian architect in the Beaux Arts style and was involved in the City Beautiful movement in several Canadian cities...
and structures like the massive Princes' Gates at Exhibition Place
Exhibition Place
Exhibition Place is a mixed-use district in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, by the shoreline of Lake Ontario, just west of downtown. The 197–acre area includes expo, trade, and banquet centres, theatre and music buildings, monuments, parkland, sports facilities, and a number of civic, provincial,...
in Toronto.
Canadian styles
In the period after the First World War, Canadian nationalismCanadian nationalism
Canadian nationalism is a term which has been applied to ideologies of several different types which highlight and promote specifically Canadian interests over those of other countries, notably the United States...
led to attempts to proclaim a unique Canadian architecture, distinct from that of Britain and the United States. One style promoted as distinctly Canadian was the Château Style
Canada's grand railway hotels
Canada’s railway hotels are a series of grand hotels across the country, each a local and national landmark, and most of which are icons of Canadian history and architecture. Each hotel was originally built by the Canadian railway companies, or the railways acted as a catalyst for the hotel’s...
, also known as Railway Gothic. This style first appeared in the late nineteenth century with grandiose railway hotels such as the Château Frontenac
Château Frontenac
The Château Frontenac, currently known as Fairmont Le Château Frontenac, is a grand hotel in Quebec City, Quebec, Canada. It was designated a National Historic Site of Canada in 1980...
and Banff Springs Hotel
Banff Springs Hotel
The Fairmont Banff Springs or simply the Banff Springs Hotel is a former railway hotel constructed in Scottish Baronial style located in Banff National Park, Alberta, Canada. The original hotel, designed by American architect Bruce Price, was built between spring of 1887 and 1888 by the Canadian...
. It was a mix of Victorian Gothic Revival with castles of the Loire Valley
Loire Valley
The Loire Valley , spanning , is located in the middle stretch of the Loire River in central France. Its area comprises approximately . It is referred to as the Cradle of the French Language, and the Garden of France due to the abundance of vineyards, fruit orchards, and artichoke, asparagus, and...
in France. The railways were seen as symbols of Canada, and the mix of French and English ideas was also considered distinctly Canadian. During the Interwar years the Château style was used in several prominent public structures, such as the Supreme Court
Supreme Court of Canada
The Supreme Court of Canada is the highest court of Canada and is the final court of appeals in the Canadian justice system. The court grants permission to between 40 and 75 litigants each year to appeal decisions rendered by provincial, territorial and federal appellate courts, and its decisions...
building. Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King
William Lyon Mackenzie King
William Lyon Mackenzie King, PC, OM, CMG was the dominant Canadian political leader from the 1920s through the 1940s. He served as the tenth Prime Minister of Canada from December 29, 1921 to June 28, 1926; from September 25, 1926 to August 7, 1930; and from October 23, 1935 to November 15, 1948...
was a prominent supporter of the style. The third and current Hotel Vancouver, the last of the great Gothic railway hotels, was also completed after the start of the Second World War, though it had been under construction until 1929 (its predecessor was Italian Renaissance, a common style in late Victorian and Edwardian British Columbia).
Parliament Hill
Parliament Hill , colloquially known as The Hill, is an area of Crown land on the southern banks of the Ottawa River in downtown Ottawa, Ontario. Its Gothic revival suite of buildingsthe parliament buildings serves as the home of the Parliament of Canada and contains a number of architectural...
in Ottawa and the CPR's "railway Gothic", Gothic architecture had become closely associated with Canada and while the United States embraced Art Deco
Art Deco
Art deco , or deco, is an eclectic artistic and design style that began in Paris in the 1920s and flourished internationally throughout the 1930s, into the World War II era. The style influenced all areas of design, including architecture and interior design, industrial design, fashion and...
Canadian architects returned to the Middle Ages for inspiration, by way of John Ruskin
John Ruskin
John Ruskin was the leading English art critic of the Victorian era, also an art patron, draughtsman, watercolourist, a prominent social thinker and philanthropist. He wrote on subjects ranging from geology to architecture, myth to ornithology, literature to education, and botany to political...
's writings on Neo-Gothic, the most Victorian of all styles. When the Centre Block
Centre Block
The Centre Block is the main building of the Canadian parliamentary complex on Parliament Hill, in Ottawa, Ontario, containing the Commons and Senate chambers, as well as the offices of a number of Members of Parliament and Senators, as well as senior administration for both legislative houses...
of the Parliament Buildings burnt down in 1916 it was rebuilt in a similar Gothic style to that that had been used fifty years earlier. At the same time, Modernism inspired the Gothic style employed, and the Neo-Gothic buildings of the era often saw more sparse ornamentation and incorporated steel frames in their construction.
Modern period
At the same time developments, especially those in United States, were not ignored. Toronto closely followed Chicago and New York as the home of skyscrapers employing new steel framed construction and elevatorElevator
An elevator is a type of vertical transport equipment that efficiently moves people or goods between floors of a building, vessel or other structures...
s. In the latter half of the twentieth century, Toronto's influence on other Canadian cities, largely because of the control of capital (especially banks) meant that Western Canadian cities, particularly Vancouver, became filled with lesser versions of their counterparts in Toronto (e.g. TD Tower (Vancouver)
TD Tower (Vancouver)
TD Tower is located at 700 West Georgia Street in Downtown Vancouver and is connected to part of the Pacific Centre shopping mall.The skyscraper stands at 127 m or 30 stories tall and was completed in 1972...
, Bentall Centre (Vancouver)
Bentall Centre (Vancouver)
The Bentall Centre is the collective name for five office towers, plus the basement mall, located in Downtown Vancouver's financial district. The shopping mall under the complex includes a food court, post office and an office supply store, Grand & Toy. The mall has a direct connection with the...
) which displaced the city's older and distinctly Edwardian flavour.
Modernism appeared in a number of guises. In the 1920s and 1930s the banks and insurance companies embraced Modern Classicism. The Prairie Style, well suited to the Canadian terrain, became a popular one for homes and other structures, especially the designs of Francis Sullivan. In British Columbia, the bungalow
Bungalow
A bungalow is a type of house, with varying meanings across the world. Common features to many of these definitions include being detached, low-rise , and the use of verandahs...
style popular in British India became a fixture in local house design, and styles such as Arts and crafts
Arts and crafts
Arts and crafts comprise a whole host of activities and hobbies that are related to making things with one's hands and skill. These can be sub-divided into handicrafts or "traditional crafts" and "the rest"...
, Queen Anne
Queen Anne Style architecture
The Queen Anne Style in Britain means either the English Baroque architectural style roughly of the reign of Queen Anne , or a revived form that was popular in the last quarter of the 19th century and the early decades of the 20th century...
and emulations of Californian Spanish and other distinctly western North America styles were common.
In Vancouver during the 1950s and 1960s, Modernist architectures inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright
Frank Lloyd Wright
Frank Lloyd Wright was an American architect, interior designer, writer and educator, who designed more than 1,000 structures and completed 500 works. Wright believed in designing structures which were in harmony with humanity and its environment, a philosophy he called organic architecture...
and fostered by the unique building materials and physical setting resulted in various daring new styles of housing, particularly on Vancouver's ritzy North Shore
North Shore (Greater Vancouver)
"Vancouver's North Shore" is a term commonly used to refer to several areas adjacent to Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada:*the District of West Vancouver;*the City of North Vancouver;*the District of North Vancouver; and...
, featuring open beams, glass walls, and innovative floor plans. Vancouver architect 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:...
, more known for grandiose exercises in institutional concrete such as Robson Square
Robson Square
Robson Square is a landmark civic centre and public plaza of modernist concrete, located in Downtown Vancouver, British Columbia. It is the site of the Provincial Law Courts, UBC Robson Square, government office buildings, and public space connecting the newer development to the Vancouver Art...
and Simon Fraser University
Simon Fraser University
Simon Fraser University is a Canadian public research university in British Columbia with its main campus on Burnaby Mountain in Burnaby, and satellite campuses in Vancouver and Surrey. The main campus in Burnaby, located from downtown Vancouver, was established in 1965 and has more than 34,000...
, pioneered the British Columbia version of the "West Coast style", variations of which are also common in Washington, Oregon and California. Erickson-designed houses are prized for their intimacy and taste, as well as their advantageous use of natural settings. A lesser, though much more common, form of Modernist architecture developed during the 1960s was the Vancouver Special
Vancouver Special
Vancouver Special is a term used to refer to houses built in a particular architectural style in the period from roughly 1965 to 1985 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada and its suburbs...
, a two-storey stuccoed box which took up most of a city lot, and typically featured two suites, one upstairs and one downstairs.
The movements and styles popular in the United States and Britain were not totally ignored in Canada. Several landmark Art Deco
Art Deco
Art deco , or deco, is an eclectic artistic and design style that began in Paris in the 1920s and flourished internationally throughout the 1930s, into the World War II era. The style influenced all areas of design, including architecture and interior design, industrial design, fashion and...
structures were erected, such as the Vancouver City Hall
Vancouver City Hall
Vancouver City Hall is home to Vancouver City Council in Vancouver, British Columbia. Located at 453 West 12th Avenue, the building was ordered by the Vancouver Civic Building Committee, designed by architect Fred Townley and Matheson, and built by Carter, Halls, Aldinger and Company...
and the Marine Building
Marine Building
The Marine Building is a skyscraper located at 355 Burrard Street in Downtown Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada near the Financial District, designed by McCarter Nairne and Partners. It is renowned for its Art Deco details....
also in that city and Commerce Court North
Commerce Court
Commerce Court is a complex of four office buildings on King- and Bay-streets in the financial district of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, The main tenant is the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce...
in Toronto. The Georgian revival that was underway in the United States also made some incursions to Canada, as did diverse styles such as Egyptian Revival and Spanish Colonial styles.
International style
International style (architecture)
The International style is a major architectural style that emerged in the 1920s and 1930s, the formative decades of Modern architecture. The term originated from the name of a book by Henry-Russell Hitchcock and Philip Johnson, The International Style...
came to dominate the Canadian scene in the 1950s through 1970s. Many of the most prominent Canadian projects of this period were designed by foreigners, who won open contests.
Prominent Modernists such as Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe was a German architect. He is commonly referred to and addressed as Mies, his surname....
and I.M. Pei designed major works in Canada. At the same time top Canadian architects did much of their work abroad. One of the first and most prominent Modernist structures was Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe was a German architect. He is commonly referred to and addressed as Mies, his surname....
's Toronto-Dominion Centre
Toronto-Dominion Centre
The Toronto-Dominion Centre, or Centre, is a cluster of buildings in downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada, consisting of six towers and a pavilion covered in bronze-tinted glass and black painted steel. It serves as the global headquarters of the Toronto-Dominion Bank, as well as providing office and...
. The T-D Centre was one of the most prominent of the early glass and steel panelled office towers, which would be imitated around the world. The International Style period coincided with a major building boom in Canada, and few restrictions on massive building projects. International Style skyscrapers came to dominate many of Canada's major cities, especially Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Ottawa, and Toronto. In Montreal fewer such buildings were erected, but those that were such as Place Ville-Marie
Place Ville-Marie
1 Place Ville-Marie , formerly Royal Bank Tower taken from its anchor tenant, is a with 47-storey, cruciform office tower built in the International style in 1962, arguably the most distinctive building in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It was built in the 1960s as the headquarters of the Royal Bank of...
and Place Victoria, were large enough to dominate the skyline.
The first phase of the Toronto subway
Toronto subway and RT
The Toronto subway and RT is a rapid transit system in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, consisting of both underground and elevated railway lines, operated by the Toronto Transit Commission . It was Canada's first completed subway system, with the first line being built under Yonge Street, which opened in...
was completed 1954 as the first subway line in Canada, with sleek but austere and repetitive station architecture, influenced by the International Style. Yet the opening of the Montreal Metro
Montreal Metro
The Montreal Metro is a rubber-tired metro system, and the main form of public transportation underground in the city of Montreal, Quebec, Canada....
opened in 1966 proved to be more architecturally significant in Canada because its individual stations each contained unique Modernist architecture with expressive uses of colour, form, and materials by different architects and incorporated works of art to enhance the experience of using the system. This influenced Toronto to take a similar course with its Spadina line by 1978, commissioning 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:...
and several Canadian firms and artists. Montreal continued upon its legacy of unique station architecture in expanding its system. Vancouver's Skytrain
SkyTrain (Vancouver)
SkyTrain is a light rapid transit system in Metro Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. SkyTrain has of track and uses fully automated trains on grade-separated tracks, running mostly on elevated guideways, which helps SkyTrain to hold consistently high on-time reliability...
rapid transit system relied on modern minimalist designs from its beginning in 1985, with some design variation and artwork in terms of the stations in the system which have been added since its opening.
The Modernist styles had mixed results when applied to residential structures, such as the large housing projects constructed in this era. Massive Canadian housing projects, such as St. James Town, were more successful than their counterparts in the United States. The postwar period saw the rise of massive and low density suburbs surrounding most Canadian cities, with Don Mills
Don Mills
Don Mills is a mixed-use neighbourhood in the North York district of Toronto, Canada. It was developed to be a self-supporting "new town" and was at the time located outside of Toronto proper. Consisting of residential, commercial and industrial sub-districts, it was planned and developed by...
being Canada's first community constructed on rigidly Modernist lines. One important development was the rise of shopping malls that became the commercial, and often social, centres of these suburban areas. The West Edmonton Mall
West Edmonton Mall
West Edmonton Mall , located in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, is the largest shopping mall in North America and the fifth largest in the world. The mall was founded by the Ghermezian brothers, who emigrated from Iran in 1959. It was the world's largest mall until 2004.West Edmonton Mall covers a gross...
was the world's largest mall for a 23 year period from 1981 until 2004.
While the glass towers of the International Style skyscraper were at first unique and interesting, the idea was soon repeated to the point of ubiquity. Architects attempted to put new twists into such towers, such as the Toronto City Hall
Toronto City Hall
The City Hall of Toronto, Ontario, Canada is the home of the city's municipal government and one of its most distinctive landmarks. Designed by Finnish architect Viljo Revell and landscape architect Richard Strong, and engineered by Hannskarl Bandel, the building opened in 1965...
. By the 1970s an international backlash was underway against Modernism, and Canada was one of its centres. Prominent critics of Modern planning such as Jane Jacobs
Jane Jacobs
Jane Jacobs, was an American-Canadian writer and activist with primary interest in communities and urban planning and decay. She is best known for The Death and Life of Great American Cities , a powerful critique of the urban renewal policies of the 1950s in the United States...
and George Baird were based in Canada.
Late and postmodernism
Brutalist architecture
Brutalist architecture is a style of architecture which flourished from the 1950s to the mid 1970s, spawned from the modernist architectural movement.-The term "brutalism":...
had been seen in Canada prior to the decade, but became more dominant in the 1970s with the backlash against the International Style. The style emphasized the reflection of the functional components of the interior in the exterior, along with geometric and sculptural uses of concrete on the interior and exterior of the building. It was a style used focally for institutional buildings for government, academic, and cultural uses, but also for high-rise residential and commercial buildings. At the same time, urban activists, architects and governments increasingly moved to influence development in favour of heritage preservation, historic view corridor preservation, and contextual sensitivity in scale and materials.
The new Canadian architecture once again turned to the past. A prominent heritage preservation movement developed, and most cities today have heritage districts of restored structures. Old factories and warehouses, rather than be demolished, have been refurbished, such as the Queen's Quay Terminal
Queen's Quay Terminal
Queen's Quay Terminal was a cold storage warehouse facility, the Toronto Terminal Warehouse, built in 1926 by Moores & Dunford and converted to a condo/mall complex in 1983...
, a former warehouse at a prominent central location on the Toronto waterfront that was rebuilt into a mix of stores, residential condominiums, and a theatre. New buildings have also began to echo the past. Ronald Thom
Ronald Thom
Ronald James Thom, OC was a Canadian architect.He was born in Penticton, British Columbia, the son of James Thom and Elena Myrtle Fennel, he graduated from the Vancouver School of Art in 1947....
's Massey College
Massey College
Massey College is a postgraduate residential college at the University of Toronto, established in 1963 with an endowment by the Massey Foundation. Similar to All Souls College, Oxford, members of Massey College are nominated from the university community, and are elected by and as fellows of the...
is a notable early example completed in 1963. It adds strong Gothic influences to a Modern concrete, brick, and glass aesthetic.
Postmodern architecture
Postmodern architecture
Postmodern architecture began as an international style the first examples of which are generally cited as being from the 1950s, but did not become a movement until the late 1970s and continues to influence present-day architecture...
was the mainstream style in Canada by the 1980s. Postmodernity in architecture is generally thought to be heralded by the return of "wit, ornament and reference" to architecture in response to the formalism of the International Style of Modernism and perceived problems with the style. The functional and formalized shapes and spaces of the Modernist movement were replaced by unapologetically diverse aesthetics: styles collide, form is adopted for its own sake, and new ways of viewing familiar styles and space abound. Architects produced what they perceived to be more meaningful buildings with pluralism, double coding, flying buttresses and high ceilings, irony and paradox, and contextualism. Skyscrapers like 1000 de La Gauchetière
1000 de La Gauchetière
1000 de la Gauchetière is a skyscraper in the Canadian city of Montreal and is the tallest building in Montreal. It is named for its address at 1000 De la Gauchetière Street West in the city's downtown. It rises to the maximum height approved by the city at 205 m and 51 floors...
in Montreal, Brookfield Place in Toronto, and Bankers Hall
Bankers Hall
Bankers Hall is a building complex located in downtown Calgary, Alberta, which includes twin 52-storey office towers , designed by the architectural firm Cohos Evamy in postmodern architectural style....
in Calgary define the style in terms of high-rise corporate architecture. These towers feature combinations of International Style design features with ornamental and potentially symbolic references to past architectural styles such as Art Deco, with pronounced base, middle, and top sections, and prominent atrium common spaces.
Mississauga Civic Centre
The Mississauga Civic Centre is city hall of the city of Mississauga, Ontario, Canada. The 37280 square metre complex is a prominent example of Postmodern architecture in Canada, finished in 1987 by Jones and Kirkland. It stands at 92 metres or 302 feet. The design was influenced by farmsteads...
completed in 1987 is an important example of public architecture in the style. It makes reference to local farm architecture around the suburban area of Mississauga as well as a clocktower - a feature associated with traditional city centres. It exhibits references to past architectural ideas, yet is decidedly untraditional. The Vancouver Public Library
Vancouver Public Library
The Vancouver Public Library is the third largest public library system in Canada, with more than 2.5 million items in its collections, 22 branches, approximately 375,000 cardholders, and nearly nine million item borrowings annually...
similarly evokes Postmodern aesthetic ideals, though references a different architectural past, demonstrating the eclectic nature of the style in Canada.
Postmodernism visibly declined by the 2000s, when architecture in Canada became more varied. Lowrise residential subdivision architecture became more strongly focused on imitating traditional styles from the likes of the Georgian and Victorian eras, though low-rise infill projects in cities demonstrated an increased popularity of the Modern aesthetic. High-rise architecture generally turned to new variations on the International Style. Starchitect
Starchitect
Starchitect is a neologism used to describe architects whose celebrity and critical acclaim have transformed them into idols of the architecture world and may even have given them some degree of fame amongst the general public. Celebrity status is generally associated with avant-gardist novelty...
s received commissions to design a small number of prominent urban landmarks. For instance, Norman Foster
Norman Foster, Baron Foster of Thames Bank
Norman Robert Foster, Baron Foster of Thames Bank, OM is a British architect whose company maintains an international design practice, Foster + Partners....
designed The Bow
The Bow (skyscraper)
The Bow is a 158,000-square-metre office building currently under construction for the headquarters of EnCana Corporation. It will also be occupied by Cenovus, which was spun off of Encana in late 2009. The skyscraper is being built in downtown Calgary, Alberta...
in Calgary, while Toronto saw the completion of the Deconstructivist
Deconstructivism
Deconstructivism is a development of postmodern architecture that began in the late 1980s. It is characterized by ideas of fragmentation, an interest in manipulating ideas of a structure's surface or skin, non-rectilinear shapes which serve to distort and dislocate some of the elements of...
Michael Lee-Chin Crystal at the Royal Ontario Museum
Royal Ontario Museum
The Royal Ontario Museum is a museum of world culture and natural history in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. With its main entrance facing Bloor Street in Downtown Toronto, the museum is situated north of Queen's Park and east of Philosopher's Walk in the University of Toronto...
by Daniel Libeskind
Daniel Libeskind
Daniel Libeskind, is an American architect, artist, and set designer of Polish-Jewish descent. Libeskind founded Studio Daniel Libeskind in 1989 with his wife, Nina, and is its principal design architect...
, and the thorough renovation and expansion project by Frank Gehry
Frank Gehry
Frank Owen Gehry, is a Canadian American Pritzker Prize-winning architect based in Los Angeles, California.His buildings, including his private residence, have become tourist attractions...
of the Art Gallery of Ontario
Art Gallery of Ontario
Under the direction of its CEO Matthew Teitelbaum, the AGO embarked on a $254 million redevelopment plan by architect Frank Gehry in 2004, called Transformation AGO. The new addition would require demolition of the 1992 Post-Modernist wing by Barton Myers and Kuwabara Payne McKenna Blumberg...
. Renewed interest and appreciation for Modernism has led to increased calls for its preservation and even overt architectural homages to it, such as X Condominium
X Condominium
X Condominium is a high-rise condominium building located at 110 Charles Street E. near the intersection of Bloor and Jarvis in downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada by Great Gulf Homes.-Architecture:...
in Toronto.
See also
- List of prominent Canadian architects
- Society of Architectural HistoriansSociety of Architectural HistoriansThe Society of Architectural Historians is an international not-for-profit organization that promotes the study and preservation of the built environment worldwide....
- Examination for Architects in CanadaExamination for Architects in CanadaThe Examination for Architects in Canada, or ExAC, is a professional licensure examination for architects in most of Canada. It has been adopted by all of the Canadian Licensing Authorities except for the Architectural Institute of British Columbia...
- Gothic Revival architecture in CanadaGothic Revival architecture in CanadaGothic Revival architecture in Canada is an historically influential style, with many prominent examples. The Gothic Revival was imported to Canada from Britain and the United States in the early nineteenth century, and rose to become the most popular style for major projects throughout the late...
- List of tallest buildings in Canada
- List of tallest structures in Canada
- List of old Canadian buildings
- List of heritage buildings in Vancouver
- List of oldest buildings and structures in Toronto
- Architecture of TorontoArchitecture of TorontoThe architecture of Toronto is most marked by its being the financial and cultural capital of Canada, as well as the political capital of Ontario...
- Architecture of Montreal
- Architecture of OttawaArchitecture of OttawaThe architecture of Ottawa is most marked by the city's role as the national capital of Canada. This gives the city a number of monumental structures designed to represent the federal government and the nation. It also means that as a city dominated by government bureaucrats, much of its...
- Architecture of Quebec CityArchitecture of Quebec CityThe architecture of Quebec City is characterized by the fact that it is one of North America's oldest cities, being founded in 1608. The original French settlers in the area imported architecture similar to that found in their native country at the time....
- Architecture of St. John'sArchitecture of St. John'sThe architecture of St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador has a style distinct from that of the rest of Canada, and its major buildings are remnants of its history and prestige as the first British colonial capital. The city of St. John's has had a long history, with inhabitation dating to the...
- Canadian Centre for ArchitectureCanadian Centre for ArchitectureThe Canadian Centre for Architecture is a museum of architecture and research centre in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Phyllis Lambert is the Founding Director and Chair of the Board of Trustees, and Mirko Zardini is the Director and Chief Curator....
External links
- "Architecture in Canada" The Canadian EncyclopediaThe Canadian EncyclopediaThe Canadian Encyclopedia is a source of information on Canada. It is available online, at no cost. The Canadian Encyclopedia is available in both English and French and includes some 14,000 articles in each language on a wide variety of subjects including history, popular culture, events, people,...
- Biographical Dictionary of Architects in Canada, – biographies of Canadian architects and lists of their buildings from 1800 to 1950.
- Canada by Design: Parliament Hill, Ottawa at Library and Archives Canada