The Dominion Square Building, also known as the Gazette Building, is a landmark office building in Downtown Montreal

Downtown Montreal

Downtown Montreal is the central business district of Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is nearly enitirely located at the southern most slope of Mount Royal and is approximately bounded by Sherbrooke Street to the north, Papineau Avenue to the east, Guy Street or until Shaughnessy Village to the west,...

 facing Dorchester Square

Dorchester Square

Dorchester Square is a large urban square in downtown Montreal. Together with Place du Canada, the area is just over 21,000 m2 or 2.1 ha of manicured and protected urban parkland bordered by René Lévesque Boulevard to the south, Peel Street to the west, Metcalfe to the east and Dominion Square to...

 on its northern side. It is located at 1010, Sainte-Catherine Street

Saint Catherine Street

This article is about the street in Montreal called the rue Sainte-Catherine in French. For other streets of this name, see Rue Sainte-Catherine ....

 West, in 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...

, Quebec

Quebec

Quebec or is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking population and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level....

, Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

.

The building is named after the old name of the Square and its southern access is provided by Dominion Street, which connects Peel to Metcalfe and offers access to a 600-lot parking garage under the building.

Architecture

Completed between 1928 and 1930 in the Beaux Arts style, the Dominion Square Building is both a commercial office tower and a shopping mall. Designed by the architectural firm of Ross and Macdonald

Ross and Macdonald

Ross and Macdonald was one of Canada's most notable architecture firms in the early 20th century. Based in Montreal, Quebec, the firm originally operated as a partnership between George Allen Ross and David MacFarlane from 1907 to 1912. MacFarlane retired in 1913, and Robert Henry Macdonald...

, the building comprises twelve floors above ground and a 'T' shaped shopping concourse. The main entrance primarily serves The Gazette

The Gazette (Montreal)

The Gazette, often called the Montreal Gazette to avoid ambiguity, is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, with three other daily English newspapers all having shut down at different times during the second half of the 20th century.-History:In 1778,...

 with the escalators leading to a mezzanine looking out onto the ground floor below. The main floor was conceived as an interior shopping arcade at a time when such a notion was highly experimental. Moreover, the original design allowed access to the retail spaces on the ground floor from outside and in. From the third floor up, the facade is twice set back; however, this is not as a result of municipal regulations (only the upper most levels are so regulated), but rather aesthetic choices designed with multiple 'prestige clients' in mind. As such, the twin setbacks form a double comb shape which provides ample sunlight throughout the building while further permitting natural light to pass through the setbacks onto Sainte-Catherine Street

Saint Catherine Street

This article is about the street in Montreal called the rue Sainte-Catherine in French. For other streets of this name, see Rue Sainte-Catherine ....

 below. By doing so, the building maximizes the total amount of available rental space for comparatively small city block. Moreover, multiple offices within have several different views, and recessed corners provide additional corner offices on the 9th and 10th floors.

The façade

Facade

A facade or façade is generally one exterior side of a building, usually, but not always, the front. The word comes from the French language, literally meaning "frontage" or "face"....

 is of Alabama Rockwood limestone

Limestone

Limestone is a sedimentary rock composed largely of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of calcium carbonate . Many limestones are composed from skeletal fragments of marine organisms such as coral or foraminifera....

 and is described as having an unconventional, yet plentiful Italianate decor.

During the last major set of renovations, undertaken in 1989, a second and third floor extension was made, jutting out as a protective arcade

Arcade (architecture)

An arcade is a succession of arches, each counterthrusting the next, supported by columns or piers or a covered walk enclosed by a line of such arches on one or both sides. In warmer or wet climates, exterior arcades provide shelter for pedestrians....

 with green-glass solarium

Solarium

Solarium may refer to:* Similar to a Sunroom, a room built largely of glass to afford exposure to the sun. Solariums have glass roofs , unlike sunrooms...

 on top, along the southern side of the building. The colour scheme matches well and requires up close inspection to reveal its youth.

Current tenants and services

The current principal tenant is The Gazette, which has placed a marquee title holder atop the arcaded entrance along Sainte-Catherine's. Other principal tenants include the main Montreal Tourism

Tourism in Montreal

Tourism is an important industry in Montreal. The city welcomed 14 million visitors in 2005. Like the province of Quebec, visitors to Montreal come from around the world, most of them from the United States, France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Mexico and Japan...

 office (facing Dorchester Square), HMV

HMV Group

HMV is a British global entertainment retail chain and is the largest of its kind in the United Kingdom and Ireland. The company also operates in Hong Kong and Singapore. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE Fledgling Index...

 and a women's wear retailer along Metcalfe. Also facing the Square is a branch of the Desjardins Group. In 2009 Global Television moved their CKMI-TV

CKMI-TV

CKMI-DT-1 is the Global Television Network owned-and-operated station in Quebec.Originally a privately owned CBC Television affiliate in Quebec City, the station moved most of its operations to Montreal in 1997 after launching a rebroadcaster there and becoming a Global affiliate as Global Quebec...

 station onto the 7th floor. The broadcast station includes a virtual television studio whereby anchors sit in front of a green screen and robotic cameras are controlled from remote cities.

Relation to the urban environment

The building was conceived as an ingenious solution to the multitude of building height and size regulations imposed by the City of Montreal during the early part of the 20th century. Moreover, it was conceived as an element of a new urban environment, and thus provided not only two levels of interior shopping and two levels of underground parking, but the city's first escalators as well. It was built at a time when there was significant interest (on the part of builders and promoters) to involve all elements of society, not just those who happened to work there. Furthermore, the available shopping space within was further conceived to be accessible from two sides, permitting the entire building to participate in social traffic exchange. Its modern conveniences and amenities, the prestige of location and effective beauty of the design made it an exceptionally important commercial office tower in the era before Modernist Skyscrapers.

External links

• IMTL.org: Dominion Square Building