Vol23 No4 OCR 150dpi PDFA1b

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THE SOCIETY FOR THE STUDY OF ARCHITECTURE IN

LA SOCIETE POUR L'ETUDE DE L'ARCHITECTURE AU

CANADA

CANADA

The Society for the Study of Architecture in Canada is a learned society devoted to the examination of the role of the built environment in Canadian society. Its membership includes structural and landscape architects, architectural historians, urban historians and planners, sociologists, folklorists, and specialists

in such fields as heritage conservation and landscape history. Founded in 1974, the Society is currently the sole national society whose focus of interest is Canada's built environment in all of its manifestations.

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and are tax-deductible. Please make your cheque or money order payable to the SSAC and send to Box 2302, Station D, Ottawa, Ontario KIP 5W5.

La Societe pour !'etude de !'architecture au Canada est une societe savante qui se consacre a l'examen du role que joue l'environnement bati dans Ia societe canadienne. Parmi ses membres, on retrouve des ingenieurs en structure, des architectes de paysage, des historiens en architecture et en urbanisme,

puis des urbanistes, des sociologues, des folkloristes et des specialistes dans des domaines tels Ia preservation du patrirnoine et l'histoire du paysage. Fondee en 1974, Ia Societe est presentement Ia seule association nationale dont !'interet se concentre sur l'environnement bati du Canada sous toutes ses formes.

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President I president

Rhodri Windsor-Liscambe Department of Fine Arts, University of British Columbia

6333 Memorial Road Vancouver, British Columbia V6T IW5

(604) 822-2757/f: (604) 822-9003/e: [email protected]

Past President I ancienne presidente

Dorothy Field Alberta Community Development

8820 112 Street Edmonton, Alberta T6G 2P8

(403) 431-2339/f: (403) 427-3956/e: [email protected]

Vice-President I vice-presidente

Michele Picard Historienne de }'architecture

43i2, rue Gamier Montreal, Quebec H2J 3R5

t/f: (514) 524-5013 I e: [email protected]

Treasurer I tresorier

Alexander Cross 25 Ryebum Drive

Gloucester, Ontario KIV IH6 (613) 822-26831£: (613) 822-0996

Secretary I secretaire

lanDouU Parks Canada

Hull, Quebec KIA OMS (819) 953-45991 f: (819) 953-4909/ e: ian_ [email protected]

Journal Editor I redacteur du Journal

Gordon Fulton 62 Lewis Street

Ottawa, Ontario K2P OS6 (819) 997-69661 f: (819) 953-49091 e: gordon_ [email protected]

Provincial representatives I Representants provinciaux

George Chalker Heritage Foundation of Newfoundland and Labrador

P.O. Box 5171 St. John's, Newfoundland AIC 5V5

(709) 7 39-18921 f: (709) 7 39-5413

Daniel Norris (acting) Halifax Regional Municipality

P.O. Box 1749 Halifax, Nova Scotia B3J 3A5

(902) 490-44361 f: (902) 490-4681

Bruceyene M. Collins P.O. Box 883

Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island CIA 7L9 (902) 566-93481 f: (902) 566-9321

Thomas Horrocks AD! Limited

1133 Regent Street, Suite 300 Fredericton, New Brunswick E3B 3Z2

(506) 452-90001 f: (506) 452-7303

Michele Picard (interimaire) Historienne de }'architecture

4312, rue Gamier Montreal, Quebec H2J 3R5

tlf: (514) 524-5013 I e: [email protected]

Jennifer McKendry I Baiden Street

Kingston, Ontario K7M 2J7 (613) 544-9535 I e: [email protected]

ISSN 1486-0872 (supersedes I remplace ISSN 0228-0744)

Andrew]. Gaudes Manitoba Culture, Heritage and Citizenship

Main Floor, 213 Notre Dame Avenue Winnipeg, Manitoba R3B OW5

(204) 945-71461 f: (204) 948-2348

Bill Hutchinson 2330 Smith Street

Regina, Saskatchewan S4P 2P6 (306) 522-66681£: (306) 525-1550

Janet Wright Parks Canada

220 ·4th Avenue S.E. Calgary, Alberta TIG 4X3

(403) 299-394!1£: (403) 292-4185

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Vancouver, British Columbia V5K IE7 tlf: (604) 251-1707

Anthony Zedda Aorian Maurer Architect Ltd.

P.O. Box 5172 Whitehorse, Yukon YIA 4S3

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Yellowknife, Northwest Territories XIA 3P7 tlf: (403) 873-3455

Produced with the assistance of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada I Pub lie avec I' aide du Conseil de recherches en sciences humaines du Canada

COVER I COUVERTURE :Delegates to the first convention of the British Columbia Society of Architects on the steps of the Empress Hotel, Victoria, June 1912 [detail]. (B.C. Archives , J.C.M. Keith File, photo F-09372) See page 109.

J 0 U R N A L 0 F T H E 5 0 C I E T Y F 0 R T .H E 5 T U D Y 0 F

JOURNAL DE LA SOCIETE POUR L'ETUDE DE L'

ARCHITECTURE I N I A U

CANADA VOLUME I TOME 23, NUMBER I NUMERO 4 ( 1 998)

Contents I Table des matieres

108 Taming the West: The Thirty-Year Struggle to Regulate the Architectural Profession

in British Columbia Donald Luxton

124 New Building Technology in Canada's Late Nineteenth-Century Department Stores:

Handmaiden of Monopoly Capitalism Angela K. Carr

Taming the West: The Thirty--Year Struggle to Regulate the Architectural

Profession in British Columbia

DONALD LUXTON

British Columbia was very late in regulating the profes­

sion of architecture. 1 Following thirty years of debate

and political manoeuvring, the Architectural Institute of British

Columbia was incorporated by an Act of Legislature in 1920.

The reasons that B.C. lagged behind the rest of the country in

professionalization were linked to an enduring frontier men­

tality, violent swings in economic cycles, political and popular

sentiment that distrusted monopolies, and personal differences

between strong-willed individuals . The maturation of the

architectural profession strongly parallelled the taming of the

frontier spirit in many segments of the province's societal

structure. Aspects of this struggle still resonate today.

There were few architect-designed buildings in the

province before the Fraser River gold rush of 1858. But with

the rush came a major wave of immigration, including eight

architectural practitioners - five of whom had been living

in California - who settled on the coast.2 The progressive

western march of the transcontinental railway created a

momentum of settlement, promoting the establishment of a

more stable resource-based economy. The province's seem­

ingly unlimited potential was widely publicised throughout

Eastern Canada, the United States, and Great Britain. Many

restless settlers followed the railway in the 1880s, seeking

fortunes offered by vast, unexploited western lands. As the

infrastructure for permanent settlements was established, a

crop of immigrant architects, almost exclusively English and

Scottish, found a bustling frontier economy eager for their

talents. Their professional collegiality and a common back­

ground in the British system led to their almost unanimous

support for regulation.3 This mirrored contemporary move­

ments in Eastern Canada, where architects achieved legal

recognition in Ontario in 1890, and in Quebec the following

year. Bills to establish similar status in B.C. were stonewalled

by a hostile legislature that viewed professional organizations

1 OB .JSSAC I ..JsE:Ac 23:4 (1998)

VANCOUVER

as elitist monopolies, reflecting popular sentiment that embraced

the concept of the "self-made" man. Professional affiliation

received little public support, and a collapsing economy in the

mid 1890s further fragmented the architectural fraternity.

Attempts to establish registration were abandoned for almost fifteen years.

A renewed drive for registration started about 1908, coincid­

ing with the province's greatest boom period. Conflict was

certain, as there was no longer consensus among those who

considered themselves architects. The established practitioners

of this era (ranging from those competently trained and with

professional credentials from the old country, to those with

more dubious credentials) clashed personally and profession­

ally. The situation was exacerbated by an ongoing rivalry

between the two main cities in the province, and by regional

squabbling. Those who promoted registration were also moti­

vated by fear of outside competition, mainly from American

architects. The booming economy brought a flood of members

of the building trades into the province. They were free to bill

themselves as architects, and therefore resisted registration

(and confirmation of their credentials) for as long as possible.

Registration was desirable for those who were established and

qualified, but anathema to the unqualified. Added to this

volatile mix was a get-rich-quick frontier mentality and a

vigorous distrust of regulation -if these men (for at this time

those that called themselves architects in British Columbia

were almost exclusively male, white, and British 4) had craved

stability and regulation they would not h ave travelled so far to

such a wild and untamed area to make their fortune . These

intrepid immigrants had followed the boom trail as far west as

they could, and were determined, or forced, to make a go of it

there.

Two competing architectural societies emerged, one inclusive

of virtually anyone who wanted to join, the other a splinter

Figure 5. Delegates to the first convention of the British Columbia Society of Architects on the steps of the Empress Hotel, Victoria, June 1912: 1. Charles Herbert Bebb, Seattle; 2. Hoult Horton (president); 3. Norman Leech, Vancouver; 4. J.L. Putnam, Vancouver; 5. Harold Joseph Rous Cullin, Victoria; 6. J.C.M. Keith, Victoria. (B.C. Archives, J.C.M. Keith File, photo F-09372)

group of elitists who worked to reserve the profession for those

properly trained and qualified, based on British and American

models. The depression of 1913 and the subsequent devasta­

tion of the local economy during the Great War resolved the

situation in favour of the elitist group.

Very little has been recorded about the history of this

struggle. Robert Percival Sterling Twizell, one of the key

players, wrote a very brief history of the development of the

Architectural Institute of British Columbia, published in 1950

in the Journal of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada.5

This article related the bare facts of the A.I.B.C.'s development,

and demonstrates not only a selective memory on the writer's

part but also a few obvious grudges, decades after the events

described. The development of the architectural profession

in B.C. was much more complicated than Twizell described.

FIRST STEPS: THE BRITISH COLUMBIA ASSOCIATION

OF ARCHITECTS, 1891

The arrival of the transcontinental railway on the West Coast

in 18856 and the establishment of local resource-based indus­

tries created an economic climate of explosive growth:

Nor is Vancouver the only city in British Columbia. Its older sisters,

Victoria, Nanaimo and New Westminster are coming on apace and

also showing wonderful development, each of which contains features

of special interest in the lines on which the CANADIAN ARCHITECT

AND BUILDER is conducted. Not only are these progressive, but all

British Columbia, for many years in the Slough of Despond [sic]. Its

architects and builders are the sons of England, Ireland and Scotland

and of the Eastern Provinces, and no nation on earth can boast of

better workmen.7

-.ISSAC I t..ISE::Ac 23:4 ( 1 998) 1 09

Until this time there had been few resident architects in

B.C., but the seemingly unlimited opportunities based on the

expanding exploitation of natural resources and facilitated

by the confluence of rail and water transportation proved

irresistible to a number of British-trained architects eager to

seek their fortunes in the colonies. Victoria was still the largest

and most important city in the province, but Vancouver was

fast growing in size and importance.8 Architects in this period

were often transitory, staying mobile to follow potential work.

Some were following the railway to its terminus on the coast;

some were intending to pass through but stayed; and some

kept right on travelling.9 The 1891 Henderson's B.C. Directory

listed 25 architects in its classified business directory. 10 Among

those who settled on the coast there was a clearly defined

architectural fraternity based on a common background of

apprenticeship and academic training. Even at this early

stage in the province's and the profession's development

there was a general agreement on the value of registration,

as well as a developing sense of a local architecture based on

the Arts and Crafts movement and rooted in the indigenous

landscape. 11 Here, on the edge of the wilderness, these men

were working together to establish collegial bonds.

The first major step to self-organization of the profession

was a meeting held in the rooms of the Young Men's Christian

Association building in Victoria on 29 June 1891. 12 This session

lasted from 10:30 in the morning until 10:00 at night. Eleven

men were present: Cornelius]. Soule, William Ridgway Wilson,

Edward Mallandaine, L. Buttress Trimen, A Maxwell Muir,

Edward McCoskie, and Thomas Hooper, all from Victoria;

C. Osborn Wickenden, Noble Stonestreet Hoffar and Alan E.

McCartney from Vancouver; and Richard P. Sharp from New

Westminster. Seventeen others had sent a proxy or a letter of

support, or had indicated their willingness to join a provincial

organization. 13 Thus, twenty-eight men who considered them­

selves qualified as architects were represented. These names

intertwine, harmoniously and acrimoniously, throughout the

ongoing debates that occurred over the next thirty years

before official incorporation finally passed.

The minutes of this meeting offer a number of clues as to

the background initiatives that led to this marathon meeting:

Mr. Muir, having acted as secretary pro tern for the Victoria Architects

at a previous meeting, again took his seat in a similar capacity.

At the suggestion of the Chairman, Mr. McCartney read the minutes

of the several meetings that had been held in Vancouver. 14

There is no known record of these earlier meetings, but it is

clear that a movement had been underway since at least early

1891 , and probably the previous year, to self-organize as a

prelude to asking the province to pass regulatory legislation. 15

A number of resolutions were passed at the 29 June meeting.

The group agreed to call itself the British Columbia Association

1 1 D ..JSSAC I ..JsE:Ac 23:4 ( 1 998)

of Architects, with the ultimate goal of incorporating on a

similar basis as the Ontario Association of Architects. 16 A

constitution was adopted, based very closely on that of the

O .A.A. Officers were elected, with John Teague as president,

C.O. Wickenden as first vice-president, R.P. Sharp as second

vice-president, W. Ridgway Wilson as secretary, Edward

Mallandaine as treasurer, and L.B. Trimen, C.] . Soule, Thomas

Hooper, R. Mackay Fripp, and A.E. McCartney as directors.

Following the election, the association was considered formed,

with the names of 2 7 men attached. 17 After lunch the group

passed a set of bylaws, also based on those of the O.A.A. The

meeting then drafted a proposed bill for professional regulation,

based on a recently passed bill that enabled the registration of

Ontario architects. The preamble of the bill is of special interest

to the debate that ensued over the next several decades:

An Act Respecting the Profession of Architects

WHEREAS, it is deemed expedient for the better protection of public

interests in the erection of public and private buildings in the Province

of British Columbia, and in order to enable persons requiring profes­

sional aid in Architecture to distinguish between qualified and

unqualified Architects, and to ensure a standard of efficiency in the

persons practicing the profession of Architecture in the Province,

and for the furtherance and advancement of the art of Architecture.

THEREFORE, Her Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the

Legislative Assembly of the Province of British Columbia, enacts as

follows : ...

The preamble was followed by thirty-three articles that out­

lined the powers and responsibilities of the British Columbia

Association of Architects. The meeting adjourned with instruc­

tions to the president and directors to interview the government

as quickly as possible to determine the feasibility of passing

this bill and accepting the attached list of 2 7 as those legally qualified to call themselves architects.

The B.C.A.A.'s first Annual General Meeting was held at

Victoria on 5 December 1891. 18 Fourteen of the 24 paid-up

members were present. Wickenden reported that, with the

assistance of their legal advisor, the proposed registration bill

had been considerably altered "but which now appeared to

be about as near perfection as could be wished for." Officers

were then elected, with Teague re-elected as president. 19 The

association was now poised to submit their bill to the Provincial

Legislature.

THE BRITISH COLUMBIA INSTITUTE OF ARCHITECTS,

1892-1894

Soon after the A.G.M. the name of the association was

changed to the British Columbia Institute of Architects. The

explosive growth of the architectural field, and of the economy

in general, is demonstrated by the total of 46 architects listed

in the 1892 B.C. Directory, almost double the previous year. 20

On 8 May 1892, the B. C.I.A. adopted a code of professional

practice and a set of standardized charges, which included for

the first time a fee of 5 percent on works above $2,500. This

was based primarily on the practice and charges of the Royal

Institute of British Architects, but also referenced the archi­

tectural societies of Liverpool, Glasgow, Melbourne, Ontario,

Kansas State and the American Institute of Architects.21

The government's reaction to the proposed registration bill

was less than heartening. It was submitted in the spring of

1892 but was defeated on third reading. Although it had been

introduced as a private member's bill, the Speaker ruled that

it was in essence a public bill and would have to be reintro­

duced. In response , the group made application to register the

B.C.I.A. under the Literary Societies Act, which was granted

on 24 June 1892. The Declaration of Establishment was signed

by ten men who would be the first trustees. 22 Subsequently,

the B.C.I.A. published its bylaws, professional practices, and

charges, reiterating the 5 percent fee structure.23 In the fall of

1892 Ridgway Wilson seems to have been active in contacting

prospective members and honorary fellows. 24 This could only

be a voluntary organization until legislation was passed, but

the stage was now set for a strong push for official recognition.

The B.C.I.A.'s second A.G.M. was held on 4 November 1892,

in Vancouver.25 There were now nearly 40 members. One of

the council's main activities had been monitoring and comment­

ing on two competitions in Victoria, for Christ Church Cathedral

and the new legislative buildings, their interest apparently moti­

vated by fear of American architects. It was also reported that

Probably the most important action taken during the pas t year has

been the attempted passage in the Local Legislature of our "Bill

respecting the Profession of Architects," which, as you all know, was

thrown out by the small majority of one, the time of its being voted

on being late on a Saturday at the fag end of the session, with a very

few members present. It is a question for your consideration whether

the Act should be brought up again at the next session of Parliament

or not. After some further discussion on the subject of the proposed

Bill respecting the profession of architects, a committee consisting of

Messrs. Soule, Bayne, and Ridgway Wilson, with power to add to the

number, was appointed to consider what further steps should be

taken in the matter and to report to the Council.26

In February 1893 the B.C.I.A. introduced another private

bill that would have required architects to register with the

Institute; it was "more badly beaten than its predecessor."27 At

the B.C.I.A.'s third A.G.M., held in Victoria on 2 December

1893, there was not much good news to report. Vice-president

R.R. Bayne reported that "a period of unexampled dullness

has prevailed in our profession - we have not a single new

member to welcome .... Before we meet again, gentlemen, let

us hope that things may improve with us all, and that we will

be all busy men as now too many of us are idle men."28

C. ()si<OIUI \VICKX:<CDI!.t(, V ... nc:ou v~ r , f'r~•i,Jen t.

, ., ..... li.,. ...... ,vaona,•t.m.<>fC.....d!.

OFFICERS OF THE BRITISH COLUMBIA INSTITUTE OF ARCHITECTS.

Figure 1. Officers of the British Columbia Institute Of Architects. (Canadian Architect & Builder 7, no. 10 [October 1894]; Thomas Fisher Rare Book Collection, University of Toronto}

Concerns were expressed about the conduct of competi­

tions, which were becoming an important source of work. The

established architects had clearly been startled when a virtually

unknown 25-year-old English immigrant, Francis Rattenbury,

won the prestigious competition to design the new legislative

buildings, though they did acknowledge the apparent fairness

of the process, and appear to have been relieved that an

American was not chosen.29 The discouraged members aban­

doned their attempts for provincial registration and decided to

approach the associations in Ontario and Quebec to work

toward national registration. Their inquiries, however, revealed

that there was little interest in pursuing this ambitious goal,

and worsening economic conditions caused them to turn their

attention to their own struggling practices.

.JSSAC I .JsEAc 23:4 ( 1 998) 1 1 1

INTERREGNUM, 1894-1909

The Canadian Architect & Builder reported in early 1894 on

the worsening economy in B.C. : "There is very little in the

way of building news to report at present as architects and

builders in this province in common with those in other

countries are feeling the effects of the world-wide commercial

depression. "30

In October 1894 photographic portraits of the officers of

the B.C.I.A. were published in the Canadian Architect & Builder (Figure 1), but there was no further mention of their

activities and no record that their fourth A.G.M. , scheduled to

be held in New Westminster in November, was ever held. As

the economy worsened the B.C.I.A. faded away. But the idea

of registration never quite died: in 1899 Ridgway Wilson was

still contacting other provincial associations, gathering infor­

mation for yet another try at regulation.3 1

As consensus on the need for professional registration

faded, conflicting currents developed in the architectural

community. Many in the profession were devoted to serving

the needs of the entrepreneurial class made rich as a result of the

Klondike gold rush. They provided overwrought and fanciful

designs that boasted of newly-acquired wealth, framed in a

frontier context of new urban centres being carved out of

forest wilderness. This was opposed by an emerging school of

design that pursued the evolution of a local architecture rooted

in the native landscape and natural materials, reflecting the

growing influence of the Arts and Crafts movement. This

conflict can also be ascribed to competing American and

British stylistic influences, a battle that waxed and waned for

decades.32 The more British-aligned mentality is illustrated by

the comments of an anonymous B.C. correspondent (likely

R. Mackay Fripp; Figure 2) describing Victoria's buildings in

1899 (Figures 3, 4) in the Canadian Architect & Builder:

The Five Sisters Block though not exactly a new building is one of

the more recent improvements, a plain red brick building with man­

sard roof, with refined detail throughout, marred by its execution in

painted metal, a hopelessly lifeless material to design in. The Bank of

British Columbia though not lacking a certain degree of dignity is

rendered trivial by its overload of cement and metal ornament, some

of which is flimsy; the style is a conventional style of Italian .... the

Board of Trade Building and the new home of the Colonist news­

paper are attempts in that species of American Architecture which is

described by the ubiquitous reporter as "That Splendid Block" or

"That Handsome Structure," both having much of the swaggering,

braggadocio, painted and galvanized iron, rock faced stone and tuck

pointed brick genus of features which may be more but generally are

less original and cannot be deemed architectural.33

In a subsequent edition, the writer complained about the

state of affairs in Vancouver:

1 1 2 JssAc 1 .JsE:Ac 23:4 < 1 998)

Figure 2. Robert Mackay Fripp, c. 1888. (City of Vancouver Archives, CVP Port 552)

It must be borne in mind that this is the west, and that there has not

been sufficient time to evolve a stand ard in matters of taste. There

are no old established interests, no cultivated leisure class. The town

does not possess a museum, much less a gallery of arts, not even a

fine arts society. Every man is fully occupied in making a way for

himself, and until he decided to buy a lo t and build a ho use, never

gave two thoughts to building. His idea of what constitutes the call­

ing of an architect is a beautifully mixed one, and consequently, in

his utter ignorance, turns to what he is pleased to call a practical

man, with the hapless results that defy criticism. That bogey, the

practical man, is ever the most hopeless; unpractical; knows nothing

of planning; his designing is not less ridiculous than his planning or

more feeble than his drawing; his va unted practical knowledge is

invariably confined to the one trade he followed before he started

speculative jerry building opera tions on his own accounr.34

Despite signs of emerging cultural organization in these

frontier cities, the architectural profession maintained a low

profile. The first annual event of the Arts and Crafts Association,

which had been founded by Fripp, was held in Vancouver at

the Alhambra Hall from 24-26 September 1900.

Figure 3. The Five Sisters Block, Victoria; T.C. Sorby and William Ridgway Wilson, architects, 1891. (Victoria City Archives, #98207 -15-540)

Figure 4. The Bank of British Columbia (Craft & Norris Block), Victoria; Elmer Fisher & William Ridgway Wilson, architects, 1888. (B .C. Archives, HP #71442)

When it is considered that the number of architects practicing in

British Columbia is probably nearly half a hundred it is surprising to

find but three of that number exhibiting on the walls of the association.

The disregard, not to say ignorant neglect, of the art of architecture

by the public is not all that surprising. If the practice of the first and

highest of the arts lie with men who are themselves so little appreciative

of the real position of architecture in the world of art, or so little desirous

of impressing upon the public the high nature of their vocation, what

can be expected from the same public but a continued attitude of

indifference? .. . This is, no doubt, a digression, but, really, an Arts and

Crafts Association with scarcely a sign of the architectonic found ation

upon which such associations must of necessity rest is a noteworthy . . 35 cunostty.

The situation at the Association's second annual show in

1901 was even worse, where the only architectural drawings

exhibited were several by Fripp; perhaps other architects shied away to avoid his withering criticisms.

THE BRITISH COLUMBIA SOCIETY OF ARCHITECTS

AND THE ARCHITECTS' ASSOCIATION OF VICTORIA,

1909-1914

The dream of a national architectural organization persisted.36

In April 1907 a letter was sent to 500 architects inviting them to join a proposed Institute of Architects of Canada. An encour­

aging response led to a convention being held in Montreal from 19-23 August 1907. The sole representative from B.C.,

William H. Archer, sat on the Institute's provisional council.37

In an address to the convention, Edmund Burke, president of the O.A.A., stated:

I regret to say that we in Ontario are behind the Province of Quebec

in our laws in connection with the status of the architect. We have

tried two or three times to obtain restrictive legislation, but have

failed so far, partly through the opposition of the labour organizations,

whose members seem to think that it will prevent their sons from

becoming architects on the ground that architecture as a profession

will become too exclusive and expensive, and partly by others who are

opposed to restrictive legislation on the ground that it is class legisla­

tion. We hope, however, some day soon, to see a change in public

opinion, and that these people, will learn that it is to their own interest,

even more than to ours that such legislation should be passed.

I have heard to day that the architects of Manitoba expect to obtain

restrictive legislation, either at the end of this or early next year.

The Province of Alberta obtained it last year, and the Province of

Quebec has had it for many years. So we are all moving forward in

the direction desired.38

Many topics of interest were discussed in the sessions, including uniform building laws, public competitions, the con­

servation of historical monuments, and copyright considera­tions. The convention appears to have been an unqualified

success, and was followed by the first general annual assembly of the Architectural Institute of Canada39 in Ottawa from 28

September to 1 October 1908. The federal act assenting to

the Architectural Institute of Canada was passed on 16 June 1908, and an alliance with the R.I.B.A. was completed on 15 May of the following year, allowing the prefix "Royal" to be

added on 2 June. The second general annual assembly was held in Toronto from 5-6 October 1909.

The establishment of the national organization revived the

idea of a local organization in British Columbia. On 29 January

1909 a group calling itself the British Columbia Association

of Architects met "to look into the formation of a provincial

association of architects." Among those who were elected as offi­

cers were Francis Rattenbury (president), William Tinniswood

Dalton, R.M. Fripp, Samuel Maclure, and William Goodfellow

(likely Sr.) . W.H. Archer, T. Ennor Julian, Norman A. Leech,

Sholto Smith, and a Mr. Jones were appointed an entertainment committee for a smoker early in February to bring members

together. 40

.JSSAC I .JSE:AC 23:4 ( 1 998) 1 1 3

The stupendous economic boom that lasted from 1908 to

1913 attracted record numbers of new settlers to the coast,

including many involved in the building trades. The situation

within the architectural community was chaotic, as many of

the new arrivals billed themselves as architects whether or not

they had any training or qualifications. Concerned about

public confidence as well as their own livelihood, a small

group in Vancouver experienced with architectural societies

had its goal of establishing the "British Columbia Society of

Architects" well underway by the fall of 1909. It became

apparent that the qualifications of prospective members could

not be confirmed, and the original founders were soon out­

numbered, with estimates of up to 300 in the province claiming

to be architects. Trained, qualified architects were clearly in

the minority.

A parallel group was developing in the capital city. The

first meeting of the "Architect's Association of Victoria" was

held at the Driard Hotel on Tuesday, 25 October 1910. Francis

Rattenbury was elected honorary president, Samuel Maclure

president, W. Ridgway Wilson vice-president, and Percy

Leonard James secretary-treasurer. Twenty-two architects sub­

scribed as members at a meeting on 10 November, although

their minutes show only sporadic gatherings through 1911 .41

By October 1911 the British Columbia Society of Architects

had been firmly established in Vancouver. The Victoria and

Vancouver associations remained separate during this time,

though they appear to have been in communication with each

other: on 18 December 1911, for example, a special meeting

was held in Victoria for several of the members to meet

delegates of the B.C.S.A. who had come to Victoria to inter­

view Dr. Henry Esson Young, the Provincial Secretary. The

question of registration of architects was discussed at this

meeting. One of the greatest concerns facing the profession at

this time was how the government would conduct the compe­

tition for the proposed campus for the University of British

Columbia. A number of meetings and delegates addressed this

issue in the following months; it was apparently considered

advantageous to present a united professional front to the

government. 42

On 23 March 1912 the Architects Association of Victoria

voted to become the Victoria chapter of the British Columbia

Society of Architects. The Vancouver chapter was by far the

larger group, with 70 members listed in January 1912. The

biggest issue facing both groups continued to be the UBC

competition. After extensive study a location was chosen at

Point Grey, outside of Vancouver, and the competition was

announced for the master plan of the campus.43 On 3 April

1912 a special meeting was held between delegates of the

Vancouver and Victoria chapters regarding this competi­

tion. At the time it was reported that the Society was running

smoothly, and that all its committees were working properly.

President Norman A. Leech 44 announced plans to hold

1 1 4 .JSSAC I ..JsE:Ac 23:4 ( 1 998)

Vancouver's first architectural exhibition, although he favoured "the postponement of the display until after the summer

holidays as all the members are in the thick of the spring

building rush at present and will not be able to give to the

exhibit the attention which such an event needs."45 Perhaps

the members were busier than reported, or other events

intervened, as the exhibition was not held until the following

summer.

The first annual convention of the British Columbia Society

of Architects was held in Victoria in June 1912 (Figure 5,

page 109). Hou!t Horton was elected president, Norman

Leech vice-president, John Wilson honorary secretary, and

Percy Leonard James honorary treasurer.46 This seemed to be a

real step toward cooperation among architects on a provincial

level, but trouble was soon to erupt.

The Society's meetings in the predominant Vancouver Chapter were

moderately harmonious during the first year of its life, but after that

time until it ceased to function the meetings became increasingly

turbulent and noisy mostly due to charges made by certain members

of the open and continued unprofessional conduct of many of the

others, and the indifference of the executive to obvious irregularities.47

A joint meeting of the Vancouver and Victoria chapters of

the B.C.S.A. was held in Vancouver on 6-7 September 1912,

with about a dozen architects attending from Victoria.48 The

B.C.S.A. finally held its "First Annual Architectural Exhibi­

tion" in the chambers of the Progress Club49 in Vancouver

from 28 June to 5 July 1913 (Figure 6).

It is estimated that fully 20,000 people visited the Architect's Exhibi­

tion .... The exhibition was divided into two departments, one dealing

with the architects' plans, sketches and drawings exclusively, and the

Figure 6. The Architect's Exhibition at the Progress Club, 28 June to 5 July 1913. (Industrial Progress, August 1913, 15; Vancouver Public Library, Special Collections)

other showing exhibits of building materials, builders, builders' hard­

ware, and other essentials of construction. Both departments were

tastefully and artistically set out, the floors being covered with Oriental

rugs and the corners being filled with palms. 5°

In conjunction with the exhibition the Society published a

year book lavishly illustrated with architectural renderings; a

foreword by W. Marbury Somervell5t summarized the history

of the profession and discussed the civic role of the architect. 52

A design for the Society's seal was also included (Figure 7).

This publication is the best evidence we have of how the

Society had matured in a very short time. For 1913 the

Vancouver chapter listed four executive, ten council members,

and 116 members; one additional member showed up on the

1913-14 executive, for a total of 131.53 The Victoria chapter

listed three executive, five council members, and 50 additional

members for a total of 58. W.T. Whiteway was president in

Vancouver, J.C.M. Keith was president in Victoria, and Hoult

Horton was provincial president. This list of 189 presents a

snapshot of those who considered themselves to be architects

at the height of the boom era.54 It is noteworthy that about

half of them either disappeared from the scene or were not

considered eligible for registration just seven years later.

The B.C.S.A. held its second A.G.M. at about the same

time as the exhibition. President Hoult Horton of Victoria

and vice-president W .T. Whiteway of Vancouver welcomed

the members, and the committee reports indicate that the

society was in excellent shape and fast growing in influence.

There was a continued push for the province to pass a regis­

tration act, with the hope that there would soon be official

recognition of the profession, placing it on the same footing as

other provinces. Hoult Horton was re-elected as president,

J.L. Putnam of Vancouver as vice-president, and P.L. James of

Victoria as treasurer, with George A. Horel, William Marshall

Dodd, Archibald Campbell Hope, Charles J. Thompson, and

G.A. Birkenhead of Vancouver and H .J. Rous Cullin, John

Wilson, Mr. Jameson, Ridgway Wilson, and J.C.M. Keith of

Victoria elected to the executive council. 55

The general public might have been given an impression

that all was well within the profession, but this seemingly

close-knit fraternity was about to split apart on clearly defined

lines of self-interest. 56

SPLINTER GROUP: THE ARCHITECTURAL INSTITUTE

OF BRITISH COLUMBIA, 1913-1914

A number of architects felt that the all-inclusive nature and

in-group clubbishness of the B.C.S.A. served neither their nor

the public's best interests . They decided to form a parallel

society that reflected the British and American models for

professional organizations, requiring relevant education and

office experience as criteria for accreditation.

Figure 7. First prize for a design for a seal for the British Columbia Society of Architects; J. Drummond Beatson, 1913. (Year Book of the British Columbia Society of Architects Vancower Chapter AD MCMXIII; Architectural Institute of British Columbia collection)

In the fall of 1912 a special meeting was called at the demand of a

small group of dissatisfied members after a case became known of

flagrant collusion between an assessor and winner of a school

competition. The competitor was an officer of the Society and every

attempt made to have an enquiry was evaded and finally blocked.

This episode and the general prevailing conditions convinced the

small group which had requested the enquiry that there was no hope

of improvement in the society; they severed from it in March 1913

and formed a club of very limited membership for friendly inter­

course among architects. 57

The leader of this breakaway group was R. Mackay Fripp, who

continued to fire broadsides at everyone involved:

Why do not the efficient archi tects do something to raise the

standard of professional competence? Simply because provincial and

federal legislatures refuse the enabling legislation. A registration bill

which proposed to render examination compulsory has been turned

down three times by this provincial legislature. Even in those provinces

where such a bill has been enacted the educational facilities are

either non-existent or wholly inadequate. The young Canadian who

wishes to become an all-round efficient architect must seek in

Europe or the United States the higher training denied him by his

own country. Having spent his years and his money, he returns to

find himself in competition with the practical man, the self-made man,

the shyster, and all the tribe of incompetents that are encouraged by

the ac tions of the legislatures and the preference of the public to

style themselves "architects" .. .. It is considered most desirable that a

.JssAc I .JsE:Ac:: 23:4 ( 1 998) 1 1 5

school of architecture should be established in our new university,

but apparently it is too early to do more than agitate gently .... There

being no compulsory test of qualification, the undesirables and the

inefficients pour in at the open door. 58

Despite the continued existence and obvious dominance

of the B.C. Society of Architects, this elitist breakaway group

of ten established itself in Vancouver as the "Architectural

Institute of British Columbia." Membership was closed until

incorporation was obtained under the Benevolent Societies

Act. There were ten signatories to the application for incorp­

oration made in April1914; the society was duly incorporated

on 10 June of that year.59 The signatories to the application to

incorporate the society were R.M. Fripp, James W. Keagey,

R.P.S. Twizell, Samuel Buttrey Birds, William Charles

Frederick Gillam, Gordon B. Kaufman, Arthur Julius Bird,

Kennerley Bryan,]. Charles Day, and John James Honeyman.60

The search began for other suitable members. The first

A.G.M. was held on 25 June 1914. Fripp was elected president,

W.T. Dalton vice-president, Fred Laughton Townley secretary,

and S.B. Birds treasurer. A hearty vote of thanks was given to

Kennerley Bryan "for his unceasing efforts in connection with

the formation of the Institute.'o61 Twenty-one men indicated

their intention to become members of the Institute.62 On 25

June an official application was made for affiliation with the

Royal Architectural Institute of Canada.

THE B.C.S.A. STRIKES BACK, 1914

The Victoria chapter of the B.C.S.A., learning of this action,

immediately sent a similar application to the R.A.I.C., stating

that they had the much larger membership. At the 25 August

1914 meeting of the Victoria chapter, members discussed the

questions regarding provincial registration and the new Archi­

tectural Institute in Vancouver. They also prepared a draft

bill, intended to be introduced in the provincial legislature.

Thirty men were listed as supporters of the bill, most notably

Hoult Horton, Ridgway Wilson, Maclure, Hooper, Rattenbury,

G.L. Thornton Sharp, and Charles J. Thompson.63 It is notable

that the preamble was closely modelled on the proposed bill of

1891:

An Act Respecting the British Columbia Association of Architects

WHEREAS, it is deemed expedient for the better protection of the

public interests in the erection of public and private buildings in the

Province, and to enable persons requiring professional aid in archi­

tecture, to distinguish between qualified and unqualified architects,

and to ensure a standard of efficiency in the persons practicing the

profession of architecture in the Province, and for the furtherance

and advancement of the art of architecture;

And whereas it is desirable that the persons hereinafter named,

together with such other persons as may be hereafter admitted to

membership as hereinafter provided, be incorporated by the name of

1 1 6 .JssAc I .JsE:Ac 23:4 ( 1 998)

the "British Columbia Association of Architects," having for its objects

the acquirement and interchange of professional knowledge by and

amongst its members, and more particularly the acquisition of that

species of knowledge which shall promote the artistic, scientific and

practical efficiency of the profession of architecture:

Therefore, His Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the

Legislative Assembly of the Province of British Columbia, enacts as

follows: ...

The Society's bill proposed the following broad qualifica­

tions for membership without examination:

• Any person twenty-five years of age or older practicing the pro­

fession of architecture in B.C. at the time of the bill's passage;

• Any person engaged for seven years as an assistant in an

architect's office; or

• Any member in good standing of the R.I. B.A. or any asso-

ciation of similar standing.

Others who did not qualify would be subject to qualifying exami­

nations. These rules opened the membership to many who had

never received any formal education in the profession, but would

close the doors soon afterward. The scale of fees was not set, but

would be established by the council. The act was to apply to any

works over $10,000. This bill does not appear to have ever been

introduced in the legislature, which would have been unlikely to

have considered it once war had broken out.

The two competing applications to the R.A.I.C. also caused a

deadlock, and after further correspondence a letter was sent to

each organization on 27 April 1915 stating that neither group

would be admitted until they had resolved their differences.

At this time the B.C.S.A. was still recognized as the voice

of the architectural profession. W.M. Dodd and C.J. Thompson

represented the Society on the general committee for the

Vancouver Civic Centre competition of 1914.64 This seems to

have been the Society's last official function. To quote

Twizell, "In the meanwhile the Great War had become all

important and questions of architectural affiliation were laid

aside. The B.C.S.A. withered, never to recover.'o65

With the great building boom over many architects volun­

teered for overseas service, and some were killed or seriously

wounded in action.66 Others left the province, held on in

reduced circumstances, or changed occupations entirely.

During the war the B.C.S.A. faded away, symptomatic of its

lack of central purpose beyond self-interest. The upstart,

highly-motivated Institute was kept alive by several active

members who filed the yearly returns required under the act.

At the A.I.B.C.'s second A.G.M., held 10 March 1915, a

committee was appointed

to collect Data and Statistics of existing and proposed legislation for

purposes of Registration. That this committee have power to further

affiliation with RAIC. To have power to prepare any proposed

legislation for B.C. To have power to fill vacancies in itself and add

to its numbers . This Committee to report to a Special General

Mee ting of the Institute to be called for the purpose. The following

Committee were appointed: Kennerley Bryan - Chairman; J.J.

Honeyman; J.W . Keagey; R.P.S. Twizell.67

At their 23 January 1917 meeting the A.I.B.C. drafted a

letter to Charles Thompson to enquire whether or not the

B.C.S.A. still existed. A reply is not recorded, but undoubt­

edly the answer would have been no. At the third A.G.M.,

held 7 March 1917, the A.I.B.C.'s registration committee

reported that "it would be unwise to do anything this year, but

valuable information has been gathered.'o68 Correspondence

with the R.A.I.C. regarding affiliation continued throughout

the war, but no further progress was made. R. Mackay Fripp,

president since the Institute's formation, passed away unex­

pectedly on 16 December 1917, his 60th birthday. He had not

lived long enough to see his profession officially recognized in B.C.69

Of the competing architectural factions only the A.I.B.C.

survived the war. After armistice the Institute rounded up

most of its previous members and renewed its application to

the R.A.I.C., which was finally accepted on 5 October 1918.

Substantial correspondence was sent to American jurisdictions

in 1918 and 1919 researching the states in which architecture

was a "closed" profession. The A .I.B.C. also continued to

voice its opposition to the passage of a proposed bill to incor­

porate the Engineering and Technical Institute of British

Columbia. 70 The stage was now set for the passage oflegislation.

INCORPORATION OF THE A.I.B.C., 1920

In January 1920 it was announced that both architects and

civil engineers would shortly be seeking the passage of private

bills calling for professional registration. As reported in the

Vancouver Daily World on 10 January 1920,

While the architects have an association among themselves, this

association has no standing such as is possessed by the legal, medical

or dental professions, and it is with the object of placing the profession

as near as possible on the same footing as these other professions that

steps are now being taken. The granting of a certificate to an architect,

under the provisions of the act, will mean that he is properly qualified

to undertake work in which, it is pointed out, not only the lives of

the men engaged on the work are sometimes at stake, but the safety

of the public during the life of the building must also be safeguarded.

On 13 February 1920, two private members bills were intro­

duced, Bill 51 concerning the regulation of architects, and Bill

54 for the incorporation of the Association of Professional

Engineers. These two bills were to proceed along a parallel

and equally perilous course. They were subject to a great deal

of public comment and scrutiny, and their passage was not a

foregone conclusion. They were part of a series of broader

issues widely debated in newspapers and journals of the time.

Popular sentiment favoured hard-working, self-made men

rather than elitist academics, and many young men had spent

their prime years on the battlefield rather than in school.

Many who worked in the building trades saw their livelihood

threatened, and those hoping to rebuild a new post-war

prosperity hated the thought of further government regulation;

or the possibility of paying useless professional fees . Why pay

an architect when an experienced builder was more practical?

These were the same arguments that had been heard for the

last thirty years.

The General Contractors and Master Builders' Association

mounted a campaign against the passage of Bill 51, which

would regulate who could call himself an architect. In addition,

objections were received from Imperial Oil and the American

Can Company, which maintained in-house design staff and

resisted the idea of having to hire outside expertise. A letter

was also received from the B.C. Manufacturers' Association

opposing the bill's requirements, but it was exposed as fraudu­

lent, as it had been written by the contractors' and builders'

section of the association, who had affixed the secretary's

name to it without his knowledge. This admission did not

help their case in opposition of the bill, and indeed upon

· further investigation many individual contractors were found

to be in support of it.

There was also considerable opposition to the regulation of

engineers, based on the fear of loss of American investment

in mining. The British Columbia Prospectors' Protective

Association had publicly opposed the bill even before it was

tabled. On 25 February 1920 the lobbying of the Mining

Institute sent the engineering bill back to the private bills

committee. On 18 March, Bill 51 and Bill 54 came up for

second reading, with the Engineer's Act up first. By all accounts

it was an antagonistic debate. Liberal Premier "Honest John"

Oliver said he would not oppose second reading, but that he

would oppose the bill unless it was rewritten. The premier

stated that

in expressing his views he was no t speaking for the government. Nor

did he wish to cast any reflection on the engineers, who as a class

were as beneficial to the world as any of which he had knowledge.

But when they sought to put laws upon the statute books that would

deny an unprofessional man the right to earn an honest living, they

had reached a stage at which the voice of the common people should

be raised against it. If I were engaged in mining I would take the advice

of a practical mining man with a lifetime's experience in preference

to the vast majority of men who will register under this act as pro­

fessional engineers.

Mr. Anderson, Liberal Member for Kamloops who was

sponsor for the bill, interrupted with "The Premier is abso­

lutely mis-stating the bill. He has not read it at all or he would

tJssAc 1 .JsE:Ac 23:4 ( 1 998) 1 1 7

not make such wild statements." J.H. Shofield, Conservative

Member for Trail, considered this a bill to create a closed

shop, and did not know of any class of industry willing "to act

as wet nurses for it. It is another octopus with tentacles reaching

out from Vancouver and the classiest of class legislation, of

which we already have too much." He also called it "another

case of Coast against Hinterland. Kootenay had too long been

the milch cow of British Columbia, but there was a limit in all

cases. Any man coming into the country to ask advice about

the development of property would go to a practical man, not

necessarily a man with letters after his name, but a man who

worked in the mine and not in the office." J.W. Weart, gov­

ernment Member for South Vancouver, adjourned the debate. 71

After this fractious reception, it was the turn of David

Whiteside, government Member for New Westminster, to intro­

duce the architect's bill for second reading. The Royal City

representative observed with fitting solemnity that the bill in

his charge was designed in harmony with the dignity and

importance of architecture: "One only had to look around at

the public buildings in Victoria to recognize the importance of

architecture in securing harmony and beauty. While the bill

was brought in at the request of 70 architects in the province

there was no desire to create a high board fence around the

profession. The bill had been carefully considered by the private

bills committee, the objectionable features had been elimi­

nated, and the contractors had withdrawn their opposition."72

Presumably there were no perceived gains from further grand­

standing. There were no real political or economic implications

to the registration of architects, and a number of perceived

public benefits. The architect's bill was given second reading

without further discussion.

On March 29, Bill 54 was given third reading, establishing

the Association of Professional Engineers of the Province of

British Columbia. As a compromise, regulations concerning

mining were removed and covered under the Mining Act, a

situation that continues to the present day. 73

1 1 a .JssAc 1 .JsE:Ac 23:4 ( 1 99Bl

Figure 8. Competition drawing for a seal for the Architectural Institute of British Columbia; H.L. Swan, 1920. (City of Vancouver Archives, Add. MSS. 326, Vol. 5, File 28)

Figure 9. Competition drawing for a seal for the Architectural Institute of British Columbia; Maclure & lort, 1920. (City of Vancouver Archives, Add. MSS. 326, Vol. 5, File 28)

Figure 10. Winning entry for a seal for the Architectural Institute of British Columbia; Robert C. Kerr, 1920. (Courtesy Architectural Institute of British Columbia)

At the 30 March meeting of the Standing and Select

committees of the Provincial legislature, Schedule A was added

to Bill 51, setting out, among other changes and conditions, a

fee for architects of 6 percent on works over $4,500. Additional

changes and refinements were also agreed to. Bill 51 was sent

on to the Legislature and was passed after considerable debate,

and with some amendments, on 7 April 1920. The profession

of architecture had finally been regulated after thirty years of

debate and controversy.

On 20 May 1920 the first council of management for the

A.I.B.C. was chosen, which included Professor E.G.

Matheson, CE, of UBC (who was also chosen to be on the

provisional executive council of the Association of Professional

Engineers), Percy Fox, C.E. Watkins, R.P.S. Twizell, and

Andrew Lamb Mercer. At their first meeting on 10 June, Mercer,

a Scottish immigrant who commenced working in British

Columbia in 1911, was elected as president, S.M. Eveleigh

as treasurer, and Fred Laughton Townley as secretary. Townley

began the task of notifying those engaged in the practice of ar­

chitecture to apply for registration. At their second meeting on

14 July an official seal was chosen, designed by Robert C. Kerr, from among a number of others submitted in competi­

tion (Figures 8, 9, 10).74 The first A.G.M. following incorpo­

ration was held in the Board of Trade rooms, Saturday, 4

December 1920. Council began the task of approving applica­

tions to the Institute, and the 1921 register listed a total of99

registered architects.

On 25 February 1921 the A.I.B.C. held its first annual banquet in the Rose du Barry room of the second Hotel

Vancouver. Previous divisions seem to have been forgotten, and by all accounts this was a jolly event. President Andrew

Lamb Mercer acted as toastmaster and there was musical entertainment, including a flute solo by Harold Culleme and

a banjo solo by S.A. Kayll. A specially designed menu card

was prepared for the occasion:

Specifications of labour to be performed and eatables to be supplied

... General Conditions: the Head Waiter is to give his personal super­

intendence to the meal and keep competent accomplices on the job

during demolition and is to furnish all service, cutlery, napery, etc.

needful for the consumption of each item hereinafter specified.

And if anything is mentioned in this Specification and not provided

on the table, it shall be vigorously demanded; but if anything should

appear on the table that is not mentioned in the Specification the same

shall be drunk as though it had been both mentioned and provided.

All knives, forks and spoons, as instruments of Service, are the prop­

erty of the hcitel and shall be returned to them upon repletion.

Celery: All celery is to be properly fluted and tapered .

Olives: Olives to have not more than one stone each of quarter inch

mesh.

Oysters: Oysters to be properly supported on fifty per cent of shell.

Clear Turtle: To be coloured green and carefully soup-ervised.

Filet of Sole: To be fin-ished, although scale not given.

Sweetbread en Villeray, French Peas: Provide 'P' trap for catching

French Peas.

Roast Capon Favorite, Pomme Noisette: Capons to be securely trussed

and the Noisette to be made soundproof.

Salade de Saison: To be the best that the local market affords and free

from roots, knots, sap, etc.

Peach Melba Friandises: To be guaranteed to maintain a zero tem­

perature in a 70° atmosphere.

Demi T asse: All coffee to be "Berry" brothers.

All toothpicks to be kiln-dried . 75

The province's architects had finally settled on common cause. From three decades of drawn-out and rancourous

debates had evolved the Institute that still regulates the

profession of architecture in British Columbia.

POSTSCRIPT, 1921-1998

The subsequent development of the A.I.B.C. during the remainder of the century is worthy of comment. Over time, the white, male, British dominance of the organization was

progressively diluted, allowing a more egalitarian and Cana­dian focus. In 1933 Sylvia Holland became the first female ar­

chitect to be accredited in B.C. The establishment of the

School of Architecture at UBC in 1946 increased opportuni­ties for local training, and the post-Second World War build­

ing boom ensured steady employment. As conditions

stabilized after the end of the war, the architectural profession in B.C. evolved into a more open and welcoming place for

women and non-British immigrants. Women, although still in the minority, have clearly made steady progress, with Bonnie

Maples serving as the Institute's first female president from

1995 to 1997.76

Despite these advances the A.I.B.C. faces many chal­

lenges. The continuing boom-and-bust nature of B.C.'s econ­omy has given rise to alternating periods of openness and

self-protectionism in the profession, and a tradition of western individualism has led to difficulties in establishing strong col­legial bonds. The Institute has suffered assaults on its author­ity,77 and undercutting of fees is a chronic issue. At times the

Institute has been portrayed as elitist and inflexible in an era when practice and technology are experiencing rapid and

monumental change. Connections with the UBC's School of Architecture have often been tenuous, partially due to the lack of a cooperative program that would directly involve stu­

dents in the working aspects of the profession. Recently, and devastatingly, there has been a public crisis of confidence in

the entire construction industry, engendered by the failure of practice and technology that has resulted in the "Leaky Condo" fiasco.78 The A.I.B.C. continues to struggle with these

and larger societal issues. Even at the tum of the 21st century, we may not be able to answer to what extent the West has

truly been tamed.

.JssAc 1 .JsE:Ac 23:4 < 1 999) 1 1 9

Endnotes

The development of provincial architectural associations has been admirably covered by Kelly Crossman, Architecture in Transition: From Art UJ Practice, 1885- 1906 (Kingston: MeGill-Queen's University Press, 1987) . Crossman briefly mentions attempts to organize the profession in B.C. prior to 1906. In order to complete the story it has been necessary to consult widely-scattered primary material. Discrepancies in factual information and the spelling of names have been verified against A. I. B.C. membership files, city directories, and other sources.

2 John Teague, Richard Lewis, Edward Mallandaine, Charles Vereydhen, and Thomas Trounce had been in California; J.C. White was a surveyor with the Royal Engineers who remained here after they disbanded; Hermann Otto Tiedemann and Frederick Walter Green came directly to Vancouver Island. Only Teague and Mallandaine played a role in the later attempts to regulate the profession. See Madge Wolfenden, "The Early Architects of British Columbia," Western Living, September 1958, 17-19. There were at least two others involved in the design of buildings around this time, but architecture was not their primary occupation (both turned to more lucrative industrial pursuits): James Syme worked as an architect in Victoria in 1862, but later operated a salmon cannery, and T .W. Graham (another retired Royal Engineer) designed Irving House in New Westminster but later operated the Pioneer Mills at Moodyville. Others arrived shortly afterwards: by 1863 William Oakley was established in Victoria, advertising himself as an Associate of the Royal Institute of British Architects. There were certainly others, but most did not stay for long. It was not until the arrival of the railway that the profession began to grow and stabilize. Research on the careers of these early architects is ongoing.

3 The contemporary debate in Britain about whether architecture was a profession or an art is covered in John Wilton-Ely, "The Rise of the Professional Architect in England," in The Architect: Chapters in the History of the Profession, ed. Spiro Kostof (New York: Oxford University Press, 1977), 180-204. Ruskin, among others, advocated for the alliance of architecture with sculpture rather than engineering, a view that became less p6pular as the century progressed. By 1884 the Society of Architects had been formed, which promoted a series of registration bills. Those who received training in Britain at this time would have been well aware of the growing trend towards professionalization. The situation in the United States was somewhat different: the American Institute of Architects had been founded in 1857, but there were no state laws regulating architecture until one was passed in Illinois in 1897. See Joan Draper, "The Ecole des Beaux-Arts and the Architectural Profession in the United States: The Case of John Galen Howard," in The Architect, 209-237.

4 The extent to which the profession was male, white, and British until after the First W orld War can be clearly documented. It is virtually im­possible to find any mention of women in the profession before 1920; Mother Joseph of the Sacred Heart is the only real exception. The first woman to be registered as an architect by the A.!. B.C. was Sylvia Holland, in 1933. See Constructing Careers: Profiles of Five Early Women Architects in British Columbia (Vancouver: W omen in Architecture Exhibits Com­mittee, 1996). Lydia H. Archer is listed as an architect in the 1915 and 1916 city directories (sharing an office with W.H. Archer), but nothing is known of her career. The virulent racism of the time has been well documented. Only one Chinese-Canadian, W.H. Chow, stands out in the early history of the profession. He was working in Vancouver just after the tum of the century, and was listed as an architect with the British Columbia Society of Architects (an organization that did not stipulate qualifications for membership) in 1913, but his application to the A.I.B.C. in 1921 was rejected for his "lack of technical training." In the opinion of Percy Leonard James (through the reminiscences of his daughter Rosemary James Cross), there were a number of architects registered at the time who were not properly qualified, so the exclusion of Chow is telling. The vast majority of the early architects in B.C., and certainly those who led the profession, were from England and Scotland, a factor that did not change until well into the 20th century.

5 R.P.S. Twize ll , "Evolution of the Architectural Institute of British Columbia," B.C. Architecture Edition, Journal of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada 27, no. 9 (September 1950) : 287,326-27.

1 20 JSSAC I .JsEAc 23:4 ( 1 998)

6 The first transcontinental train arrived in Port Moody in 1885, after years of political foot-dragging, and in Vancouver two years later.

7 Canadian Architect & Builder 2, no. 5 (May 1889): 56. The "provenance" of the architects can be more precisely defined (A.!. B.C. membership files list place of birth): virtually all of the men considered to be architects had apprenticed or studied in Great Britain, and a high percentage were Scottish. Many who came from Eastern Canada were in fact British-born and, like Thomas Hooper, quick to point this ou t in tern1s of loyalty and connections. Some were the product of a colonial upbringing: William Ridgway Wilson was born in China but educated and apprenticed in England. Others had experience in other parts of the Empire: G.L. Thornton Sharp and H.W. Cockrill worked in South Africa; R. Mackay Fripp practiced in Auckland, New Zealand, from 1884 to 1888 before moving to Vancouver, and returned there from 1896 to 1898. There were very few Americans (N.S. Hoffar was one) or Europeans practicing in B.C. prior to the pre-First World War boom era; even then they were the exception and often did not establish permanent connections. Samuel Maclure was unique in having been born in B.C. The balance did not shift to non-British architects until the middle of the 20th century, and an R.I. B.A. qualification was considered a great asse t until the 1940s. The extent of the Scottish influence on the local profession was signifi­cant: As S.W. Jackson wrote, "It was once said that Scotland gave its people to Canada, and England gave its institutions" (The Men at Cary Castle [Victoria: Morriss Printing Co., 1972]).

8 Other cities in the province such as New Westminster, Nanaimo, Vernon, and Nelson ultimately played a minor role in the development of the architectural profession. They generally supported one or more resident architects, but the difficulties of communication, as opposed to the close, daily ties between Vancouver and Victoria, ensured that the profession was driven by those practitioners in the Lower Mainland and the capital. This is still largely the case, given the current distribution of population.

9 Thomas Hooper reputed ly walked the last five hundred miles to the coast. One notably itinerant pioneer architect was Elmer H . Fisher, a Scot who worked his way across the United States, ending up on the West Coast. He chased Great Fires, transcontinental railways, and other opportunities from city to city, barely staying in one place long enough to finish projects. Fisher arrived in Victoria in 1886, worked in Vancouver and Port T ownsend , Washington, simultaneously, and had established his Seattle, Washington, office by November 1887. He had a few extremely success­ful years but was dogged by personal scandal ; he gave up architecture and moved to Los Angeles, where he ended up working as a carpenter.

10 B.C. Directory (Vancouver: Henderson, 1891), 725. This list includes 11 names in Victoria, 8 in Vancouver, 5 in New Westminster, 2 in Vernon, and 1 in Kamloops. Hooper & Goddard are listed in both Vancouver and Victoria.

11 Crossman, 120.

12 The following information is extracted from the Report of Provincial Architects' Meeting, Held 29th]une 189 1 at Victoria, B.C. (Victoria, B.C.: The Colonist Steam Print, 1891) [A.!. B.C. collection].

13 John Teague and Richard Roskell Bayne from Victoria were unable to attend, but sent a message of support for forming a provincial association. Sharp had brought written authority to act by proxy for another four mainland architects, C. H. C low, William R. King, and Samuel Maclure from New Westminster, and Charles E. Hope from Vancouver. Eleven others had indicated their support: T.B. Norgate, Cole Woodall, and E.M. Mallandaine, Jr., from Victoria; George W. Grant from New Westminster; R Mackay Fripp, William Crickmay, and C.W.H. Sansom from Vancouver; J.A. Coryell and J.P. Burnyeat from Vernon; R.H. Lee from Kamloops; and J.J. Honeyman from Nanaimo.

14 An additional reference may be found in the report of the A.G.M. held on 5 December 1891 : "Mr. Wickenden therefore explained in as few words as possible that the formation of the present Association had emanated among some of the Architects on the Mainland who held two or three local meetings and then arranged a meeting with the Victoria Architects which was held on 29th of June last." See "Report of the Annual General Meeting of the British Columbia Association of Architects," 5 December 1891 , held at the B.C. Archives, NW 720.9711 B859.

15 Crossman, 43. This group apparently wanted to model itself on the provincial associa tions in Ontario and Q uebec.

16 The progress toward registration in O ntario and Quebec was regularly reported in the Canadian Architect & Builder. Although western issues were rarely covered, this journal was an invaluable connection to the profession in the res t of the country. Local architects were clearly aware of the growing national trend toward professionalization.

17 For some unknown reason R.R. Bayne was omitted from this list.

18 "Report of the Annual General Meeting," 1891.

19 Teague, president; Wickenden, and R.P. Sharp, vice-presidents; Ridgway Wilson, secretary; Edward Mallandaine, Sr., treasurer; and Trimen, McCartney, Bayne, Soule, and Hooper, directors.

20 William's B.C. Directory, 1892, 1202. This list includes 23 names in Victoria, 11 in Vancouver, 3 in Nanaimo, 8 in New Westminster, and 1 in Steves ton.

21 British Columbia Institute of Architects, "Professional Practice and Charges of Architects. Adopted by the Institute 8th May 1892" [A. I. B.C. collection]. During the Victorian era the architectural profession in Great Britain was more concerned with status and business ethics than education, leading to the imposition of uniform fees. In 1845 the R.I. B.A. adopted a standardized figure of 5 percent, reinforced by the publication of "Professional Practice and Charges for Architects" in 1862. This was increased to 6 percent after the end of the First W orld W ar. See Wilton-Ely, 177.

22 Mallandaine, Ridgway Wilson, Sharp, McCartney, Wickenden, Teague, Soule, Bayne, Hooper, and Trimen.

23 British Columbia Institute of Architects, Declaration of Establishment and Bye-Laws (Victoria, B.C.: The Colonist, 1892) [AI. B.C. collection] .

24 Letter, Ridgway Wilson to Edward Mohun, CE, 26 October 1892 [Victoria City Archives, CRS 104 13E4].

25 Reported in the Canadian Architect & Builder 5, no. 12 (December 1892) : 118.

26 Ibid .

27 Canadian Architect & Builder 7, no. 1 Oanuary 1894) : 12.

28 Ibid.

29 Professional jealousy dogged Rattenbury throughout his career. The feeling of the archi tec tural community may have been somewhat justi­fied, however, as Rattenbury freely exaggera ted his past experience and credentials. See the discussion in the first two chapters of Terry Reksten, Rattenbury (Victoria, Sono Nis Press, 1978), and in Anthony A. Barrett and Rhodri Windsor Liscombe, Francis Rattenbury and British Columbia: Architecture and Challenge in the Imperial Age (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1983) .

30 "British Columbia Correspondence," Canadian Architect & Builder 7, no. 5 (May 1894): 64.

31 Crossman, 159.

32 B.C. architects were well aware of the prevailing styles in other areas, either through travel or architectural journals. Hooper travelled back east courtesy of his Methodist clients, and the Metropolitan Methodist Church in Victoria (1890-91) is copied almost directly from Edmund Burke's work in T oronto (among others, Sherbourne Stree t Methodist Church, 1886-87, and Trinity Methodis t Church, Toronto, 1887-89, both by the office of Langley & Burke). After importing the Romanesque Revival to B.C., Hooper continued to be more influenced by American models, to his ultimate detriment. For the context of the Romanesque Revival and the source of Hooper's inspiration, see Angela Carr, Toronto Architect Edmund Burke: Redefining Canadian Architecture (Montreal: MeGill-Queen's University Press, 1995), and William Westfall and Malcolm Thurlby, "Church Architecture and Urban Space: The Devel­opment of Ecclesiastical Forms in Nineteenth-Century Ontario," in Old Ontario: Essays in Honour of ].M.S. Careless, ed. David Keane and Colin Read (T oron to: Dundurn Press, 1990) . Commercial work was generally influenced by American models, including Maclure's sublime Temple Building, Vic toria (1893), which draws on the Romanesque, heavily

influenced by Sullivan (although his residential work was purely English in derivation). The Classical Revival arrived late but it did arrjve (see G.D. Curtis' seminal Catholic Cathedral of Mary Immaculate, Nelson, 1898-99; Dalton & Eveleigh's Royal Bank, Vancouver, 1903; Rattenbury's Vancouver Court House, 1906-11 ; Hooper & Watkins' B.C. Permanent Building, Vancouver, 1907). Most residential work was clearly British in derivation, and Colonial Revival styles are almost completely absent in B.C. (except in vernacular Foursquare houses) until much later. The enormous influence of the California Bungalow movement is, arguably, based on English Arts and Crafts sensibilities.

33 "British Columbia Letter No. !,"Canadian Architect & Builder 12, no. 3 (March 1899): 50.

34 "British Columbia Letter No. II," Canadian Architect & Builder 11, no. 7 Ouly 1899) : 137-38.

35 "British Columbia Letter No. IV," Canadian Architect & Builder13, no. 12 (December 1900): 235.

36 Covered by Dr. Thomas Howarth, "Royal Architectural Institute of Canada College of Fellows: A History," revised 1977 [courtesy R.A.J.C.] .

37 He was confirmed as a council member in the elections held in Montreal on 22 August 1907, and also served on the council in 1908 and 1909, although it is not certain he attended the following two conferences.

38 Programme, "First Congress Of Canadian Architects and First Annual Convention of the Institute of Architects of Canada," Montreal, 19-24 August 1907, 12-13 [City of Vancouver Archives, Add. MSS 326 Vol. 1 File 2].

39 Howarth, "College of Fellows: A History," notes some political significance in the subtle name change.

40 Reported in the Institute of Architects of Canada Quarterly Bulletin 2, no. 2-3 (April-July 1909) : 31-32. It is not known which Jones is referred to.

41 Architect's Association of Victoria I B.C. Society of Architects minutes, 1910-1914 [B.C. Archives, Q /Q/B77] .

42 Crossman makes the point that architectural competitions stimulated the drive to organize throughout the country. See also Carr, 167-69.

43 Included on the jury were two resident architects, Samuel Maclure of Victoria and A. Arthur Cox of Vancouver; British architect W . Douglas Caroe was chairman. Sharp & Thompson 's "free style" Gothic design was chosen. Although it refers to American Collegiate Gothic precedents, the outcome of this competition firmly established a British idiom as the fitting mode of local design. The concept of British tradition was explicitly stressed in the competition documents. The outright rejection of his American-influenced Beaux-Arts plan appears have been a contributing factor in Thomas Hooper's decision to leave B.C. for New York in 1915. See Douglas Franklin, "The Competition for the Design of the University of British Columbia," W est Coast Review 15, no. 4 (spring 1981): 49-57.

44 Leech was later the architect for the Vancouver School Board.

45 The Daily Province [Vancouver], 6 April1912, 51.

46 Menu from the convention dinner, Empress Hotel, 22 June 1912. John L. Putnam, William T. Whiteway, Kennerley Bryan, RichardT. Perry, John J. Honeyman, J.C.M. Keith, Maj. Ridgway Wilson, Capt. H.J. Rous Cullin, and S. Maclure were elected to the council [City of Vancouver Archives, Add. MSS 326 vol. 1 file 3] .

47 Twizell, 287.

48 The Architect, Builder & Engineer, 16 September 1912, 11.

49 Located in the E.A. Morris Building at 437 West Hastings Street. The Progress Club was a booster group established in Vancouver in 1912 as a joint effort of local business people and the city. Dedicated to continued civic growth in optimistic anticipation of the opening of the Panama Canal, this short-lived group did not survive the 1913 economic down­turn. See Patricia E. Roy, Vancouver: An Illustrated History (Toronto: James Lorimer and National Museum of Man, 1980) , 87.

50 Industrial Progress , August 1913, 14-16 [Vancouver Public Library, Special Collec tions].

.JssAc 1 -.Jst:Ac 23 : 4 ( 1 99Bl 1 2 1

51 Somervell, a highly talented practitioner, was one of the Americans drawn to the province during the boom years. Originally from Washington, D.C., he attended Cornell University and worked in New York before he settled in Seattle. He opened a branch office in Vancouver in 1910, forming a partnership with J.L. Putnam. Although Somervell served overseas, the office remained open and active until just after the end of the First World War. Other Americans, and branch offices of larger firms, had gained a foothold just before the war, but virtually all were driven out as a result of the 1913 economic downturn.

52 Year Book of the Briti.sh Columbia Society of Architects Vancouver Chapter AD MCMXIII [U.B.C. Special Collections, and A.I.B.C.].

53 Two honorary members are also listed in Vancouver, artist Charles Marega and landscape architect /town planner Thomas H. Mawson.

54 One obvious name missing from the B.C.S.A. list is that of Francis Rattenbury. There were still no limitations on who could call himself an architect, and it is extremely difficult to determine accurate counts of architects in the city directories during this volatile time. Names show up for one year only, or in one directory only; some move from city to city; some are more accurately builders than architects; and there are numerous inaccuracies, especially in spelling. Nevertheless, the effect of the boom and bust is obvious: a rough count yields approximately 56 architects listed in B.C. city directories in 1909, 172 in 1912, and 50 in 1917.

55 Industrial Prowess, August 1913, 15. The Jameson referred to has not been identified; both a Jameson and a Jamieson were practicing in Vancouver, but no-one by that name in Victoria.

56 It has been difficult to extract information about the public perception of the registration issue, or indeed of the profession itself. B.C.'s earliest architects seem to have been part of the general entrepreneurial mix, and they often had other business interests. Despite increasing recognition of professional status, there was little coverage of the architects themselves. B.C. lacked truly heroic figures in this profession (Rattenbury, arguably, being the exception). Many led quiet albeit industrious lives. Joan McCarter, daughter of architect John Young McCarter, recalls what contrac.tors generally thought about several leading architects: Rattenbury and Thomas Hooper were considered very competent, pragmatic practi­tioners, the best around; Samuel Maclure was dismissed as "just a water­colour painter," not terribly practical and not good with stairs. The split between architects being perceived as business people or artists is discussed in Andrew Saint, The Image of the Architect (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983) .

57 Twizell, 287.

58 RM. Fripp, "Inefficiency in Architectural Practice," The Contract Record 27, no. 12 (17 March 1913): 290-91. His comments about the lack of Canadian-based architectural education are exaggerated, given the opportunities in the East; see Crossman, 51-63, and Harold Kalman, A History of Canadian Architecture (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1994). The development of architectural education and the role of apprenticeship in the West are not covered in this article, but other than Fripp's comments, we find little discussion of the inherent value of academic training. The British system was traditionally one of apprentice­ship, which Canada followed quite closely. The situation in the United States was somewhat different, with a growing influence from the French Ecole des Beaux-Arts, which was the preferred place of training for those who became the leaders in American architecture (Richard Morris Hunt, Louis Sullivan, and Henry Hobson Richardson among many others). See Draper, "Ecole des Beaux-Arts." There is no evidence that any of B.C.'s early architects ever trained in France; rather, almost all were apprenticed in Britain. One architect is known to have maintained the traditional · British apprenticeship system: Thomas Hooper, born in England in 1859, apprenticed in London, Ontario, with J.H. Dodd & Son from 1875 until 1879. In tum, C. Elwood Watkins apprenticed under Hooper, starting in 1890, and did not pursue any other formal architectural education. Later in partnership (c. 1902 to c. 1909), Hooper & Watkins' office grew to become the largest in Western Canada. It was a fertile ground for the training of many young men; John Young McCarter, for example, was articled directly to Hooper from 1907 to 1912. A school of architecture was not established at UBC until 1946.

59 Benevolent Societies Act, certificate no. 411.

1 22 .JSSAC I ..JsE:AC 23:4 ( 1 998)

60 Twizell, 327.

61 A.I.B.C. minute books, 1914-1918 [A.I.B.C. collection].

62 Ibid.: R. Mackay Fripp, A.J. Bird, R.P.S. Twizell, C. D. James, S.B. Birds, S. Mason (associate), Max Downing (associate), D. Jamieson, W.F.T. Stewart, J.J . Honeyman, Gordon L. Wright, Kennerley Bryan, Cecil Croker Fox, W.T. Dalton, S.M. Eveleigh, F.L. Townley, G.P. Bowie, W.C.F. Gillam, Gordon B. Kaufman, J.W. Keagey, and George Twizell. Several other members also were listed in the letter sent on 25 June 1914 to the R.A.I.C. requesting affiliation, including J.C. Day and George Mackay Fripp.

63 Hoult Horton, Victoria, J.C.M . Keith, Victoria , W.T. Whiteway, Vancouver, W . Ridgway Wilson, Victoria, S. Maclure, Victoria, J.L. Putnam, Victoria, J.J. Honeyman, Vancouver, John Wilson, Victoria, Percy Leonard James, Victoria, N. Emms Read, Victoria, J. Rous Cullin, Victoria, R.T. Perry, Vancouver, G. Thornton Sharp, Vancouver, H.S. Griffith, Victoria, F.M. Rattenbury, Victoria, L.W. Hargreaves, Victoria, F.S. Gardiner, New Westminster, W.M. Dodd, Vancouver, Thomas Hooper, Victoria , J.A. Berkinhead, Vancouver, C.J. Thompson, Vancouver, G.A. Horel, Vancouver, J.D. Beatson, Vancouver, A.C. Hope, Vancouver, C.B. Fowler, Vancouver, A.J. Russell, Vancouver, J.H. Bowman, Vancouver, T.E. Julian, Vancouver, W.F. Gardiner, Vancouver, Edward Mallandaine, Cranbrook [printed bill in the collection of the A.I.B.C.].

64 Vancouver Civic Centre: Report by Plans Committee (Vancouver: News­Advertiser Printers), 8 Aprill915 [U.B.C. Special Collections, SPAM 23275]. There were 37 submissions. The competition was won by Theodore Komer and Robert H. Mattocks, draftsmen in T.H. Mawson's office, but the project was never started. Second prize went to F.L. Townley, who was eventually awarded the design of the new city hall in 1935, partly on the strength of this competition. Komer had a more problematic career, and ran into numerous troubles with the A.!. B.C., including a rancourous lawsuit.

65 T wizell, 32 7. The last recorded meeting of the Victoria chapter of the B.C.S.A. was held on I September 1914.

66 It is unknown how many architects were killed overseas, but at a minimum this would include C.C. Fox, George Fripp (the son ofR. Mackay Fripp) , D. Jamieson, and H .S. Davie [City of Vancouver Archives, Add. MSS 326 Vol.! File 5; and G.P. Bowie].

67 A.I.B.C. minute books 1914-1918 [A.I.B.C. collection].

68 Ibid.

69 R.P.S. Twizell was elected second president of the A. I. B.C.

70 Correspondence in City of Vancouver Archives, Add. MSS 326 vol. I file 7. The history of the incorporation of the engineering profession has not been fully covered. Notice of the intention to introduce a bill to regulate engineering had officially been given as early as 1917, but the bill was delayed until after the war. By 1918-19 there was a country-wide move­ment to regulate engineering. Many returning soldiers had received tech­nical but not necessarily academic training; self-interest among qualified engineers presumably drove this movement. A national committee was struck, which provided a draft bill to nascent provincial organizations. In contrast to the late incorporation of architects, British Columbia was among the first to regulate engineering.

71 As reported in the Vancouver Daily World and the Daily Province [Vancou­ver], 18 March 1920.

72 Ibid.

73 The Association's first A.G.M. was held 16 October 1920. It is now called the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of the Province of British Columbia.

74 A.I.B.C. council minutes [City of Vancouver Archives, Add. MSS 326 Vol. 2 File II].

75 Illustrated by Ross Lort [City of Vancouver Archives, Add. MSS 326 Vol. 5 File 32]. The event was also covered in the local press [A.I.B.C. collec­tion].

76 In addition to Constructing Careers, the struggle of women for professional acceptance has been covered in Blanche Lemco van Ginkel, "Slowly and Surely (and Somewhat Painfully}: More or Less the History of Women in Architecture in Canada," Society for the Study of Architecture in Can­ada Bulletin 17, no. 1 (March 1992): 5-11. See also two articles by Annmarie Adams, "Archi-ettes in Training: The Admission of Women to McGill's School of Architecture," SSAC Bulletin 21, no. 3 (September 1996}: 70-73, and "Building Barriers: Images of Women in Canada's Architectural Press, 1924-1973," Resources for Feminist Research 23, no. 3 (fall1994): 11-23.

77 William F. Gardiner, on behalf of the A.I.B.C., took Charles Bentall and Dominion Construction to court in 1938 over their design-build activities for Vancouver's Bay Theatre. Bentall, as a registered engineer, stamped the drawings for it and many other structures without the involvement of a registered architect. After dismissal and appeal, the case was ultimately decided in favour of the architects, and Bentall was fined a nominal twenty­five dollars. It was a hollow victory, as the architectural profession contin­ued to languish while Dominion Construction prospered throughout the following decades, continuing to design many of their own projects. See Shirley F. Bentall, The Charles Bentall Story: A Man of Industry and Integrity (Vancouver: The Bentall Group Ltd., 1986), 118-22, and Rhodri Windsor Liscombe, The New Spirit: Modem Architecture in Vancouver 19 38-1963 (Montreal: Canadian Centre for Architecture; Vancouver: Douglas & Mcintyre, 1997), 44.

78 Covered extensively in rhe local press throughout the last several years but now reaching crisis proportions. There is no quantifiable answer yet as to how much responsibility architects may have to bear in the resolu­tion of this issue.

This article has benefitted greatly from the review and comments of Fred Thornton Hollingsworth, Harold Kalman, Gordon Fulton, Stuart Stark, Jennifer Nell Barr, and Rosemary James Cross, to whom I extend my sincere appreciation.

Society for the Study of Architecture in Canada Annual Conference, MCft{ 26-29, 1999

Halifax, Nova Scotia

Call for Papers Themes:

Architectural Modernism in Canada

Industrial Architecture

Coastal Architecture

Post-Colonial Views on Canadian Architecture

Urban Representations I Deconshucting the Architectural Image Practising in Public

Strategic Buildings

Current Research

Those interested in presenting a paper should send an abstrart (maximum 250 words,

in the language of your choice) before 15 February 1999to MichMe Picard,

4312 Garnier, Montreal, Quebec H2J 3R5; telephone and lax: 514-524-5013;

e-mail: [email protected]

The SSAC may cover a portion of speakers' travel costs. Those submitting abstrarts

who will be requesting financial support must irKiude cin estimate of travel costs.

Funds from the SSAC travel grants are extremely limited. We strongly urge speakers

to seek funding from other sources .

• La Societe pour I' etude de I' architecture au Canada

Conference annuelle, du 26 au 29 mai 1999 Halifax, Nouvelle-fcosse

Depot des Communications Themes:

La modernih! architecturale au Canada

L' architecture industrielle

L' architecture cotiere

Considerations post-coloniales sur I' architecture canadienne

Les representations urbaines I Deconshuire !'image architedurale

La pratique architedurale dans le sedeur public

Les batimenh shategiques

Recherches en cours

Veuillez envoyer, avantle 15 fevrier 1999, vos propositions d'au plus 250 mots (dans Ia langue

de vatre choix) il Michele Picard, 4312, rue Garnier, Montreal (Quebec) H2J 3R5; teh\phone at

telecopieur : 514-524-5013; courrier elertronique : [email protected]

La SEAC paurrait rembourser une partie des Ira is de voyage des conlererKiers.

Veuillez joindre une estimation de vas besoins financiers il votre envoi de communication.

Cene an nee, Ia SEAC dispose de fonds restraints at c' est pourquoi ella incite lortementles

conlerenciers il obtenir des fonds d' outres sources .

.JSSAC I .JSEAC 23:4 ( 1 99B) 1 23

New Building Technology in Canada's Late Nineteenth--Century Department Stores: Handmaiden

of Monopoly Capitalism

ANGELA K . CARR, CARLETON UNIVERSITY

The emergence of a handful oflarge-scale distributive enterprises in the 1880s and 1890s [added to] independent proprietors' con­

cerns [about an increase in 'destabilizing' competition] .... These stores were all characterized by their 'departmental' organization

(the separation of display stock, workforces, accounts, and buying by type of goods) and by the centralization of their administration

and management. But it was not their form that made them so singular; it was their size. These businesses came to be called 'mass

merchandisers' not because they sold 'to the masses,' but because they sold so much. 1

P"'lf1us assessment by David Monod oflate nineteenth-century

..1. retailing in Canada describes one fragment of a much

larger economic reorientation - from mercantile to monopoly

capitalism -the consequences of which were at least as far­reaching as any precipitated by free trade or modern retail giants

like Wal-Mart. By the 1890s department stores were cutting

out local wholesalers and buying directly from overseas agents

to assure their profit margins. As for their smaller r~tail com­

petitors, the big-store discounts on volume buying, together

with loss-leaders, mass-marketing campaigns, and mail-order

services, drew customers away to such an extent that many

faced bankruptcy. Dislocations occurred not only in the urban

centres, but in the surrounding rural areas, and nationwide. In

the cities, business districts formerly made up of single shop­

fronts with residential accommodation upstairs gave way to

entire blocks occupied by single enterprises. When a major

retailer began land assembly for a new store, the focus often

shifted to a less densely developed area of the city, leaving the

old commercial core in a state of decline.2 In architectural

terms, the concentration of capital dictated an unprecedented

growth in building scale, the dimensions of which could be

sustained only with the help of new technology. Iron and steel

quite literally supported the ample stage upon which the

premier economic and social upheavals of the age were being

enacted. Structural "modern-ness" and size became the hall­

marks of the successful department store. Entrepreneurs knew

that the latest in built form could establish a corporate profile

commensurate with the best stores in Chicago, New York,

1 24 o.ISSAC I o.ISEAC 23:4 ( 1 998)

Paris, or London. As a result, Canadian architects had to master

innovation or lose major commissions to their American

counterparts, whose audacious synthesis of European theory

heralded a new era in commercial design. At first, the Canadian

response was cautious and freighted with older conventions,

which scholars have regarded in pejorative, evolutionary terms.

But inscribed in these dissonances is a distinctive architectural

topography negotiated in relation to specific market pressures.

The nineteenth century has often been described as an age

of secularization, in which architects dedicated their talents to

"the modern Mammon worshipper."3 The department store­

that emporium of profligate consumerism - was the supreme

culmination of this tendency. Its large open floors, designed

for the storage and display of goods in volume, were adapted

from the conventions of the wholesale warehouse. The open,

flexible interiors were ideally suited to a new consumer culture

in which shoppers wandered at will, selecting according to

their own preferences, instead of relying on a proprietor to

draw down items from stock in response to specific requests.

The peripatetic buying expedition was replaced by one-stop

shopping that offered both variety and personal selection.

Ultimately, coat-check and restaurant facilities were also

introduced to encourage customers to linger all day, in the

expectation that this would boost sales still more. It was an

environment calculated to appeal to women, whose traditional

role in the management of household resources was now

harnessed to the engine of consumer demand. Department

store salons were conceived as places to see and be seen.

In these venues for public display, away from the confinement of domesticity, aspiring middle-class matrons might demonstrate their taste and status simply by cutting a figure in the right sort of setting.

The vigorous entrepreneurialism of the late nineteenth century is still clearly inscribed in the building stock of many Canadian cities, not least in Montreal, the country's main

port of entry in this period. In the old city near the harbour are small retail stores and warehouses of the mid century, whereas the large departmental stores of the 1890s are clustered on rue Sainte-Catherine beneath the mountain brow, near a suburb known as the Golden Square Mile, where the families of nouveau-riche railway barons practised the conspicuous consumption of the Gilded Age.

In the narrative lineage of "significant" architectural form, much has been made of the historical continuities between the warehouse type and later retail emporia. Montreal's place

in this modernist paradigm was described by Jean-Claude Marsan in 1974, when he identified the mid-century ware­houses as "proto-rationalist" and first credited them as worthy of recognition among "the authentic types of architecture in the province." They were, he wrote, similar to American

examples like the 1824 Quincy Market stores in Boston, designed by Alexander Parris, the Granite Block and Roger Williams Bank in Providence, Rhode Island, and the 1849

Jayne Building in Philadelphia, designed by William Johnston.

These buildings had already been described by American scholars Henry-Russell Hitchcock and Winston Weisman as

conceptual precursors of the Chicago School.4 The Spartan

aesthetic of their skeleton facades and their open interiors supported by post-and-beam construction were proposed as

exemplars of rational structure. Yet this synthesis was far from being fully realized in all cases. Philadelphia's Jayne Building, for example, had only a single file of columns aligned with the

centre bay of its five-bay facade. By contrast, Montreal's ware­houses were usually planned on a common mathematical grid

that dictated i:he placement of both exterior stone pilasters and internal wooden framing. Recent scholarship, however, has largely avoided the issue of rationalism, which lends itself too conveniently to the construction of an artificially linear narrative, and has focused instead upon the sociological changes that accompanied the growth of the department store. The two strands meet in the understanding of use as an

expression of cultural ritual, and technological innovation as a factor that responded to or facilitated cultural change.

Historical narratives are constructed in part by the questions we as historians choose to ask, and in part by the records that survive to form the object of our inquiry. One can, for example, peruse nineteenth-century publications for descriptions of different types of commercial premises, such as the ware­houses in old Montreal, which had a "first [floor] flat utilized for show and salesrooms [while] the remaining two storeys [were] a manufactory." Such accounts usually appear in chronicles of commercial prowess intended to celebrate the city's progressive spirit, whereas today they provide evidence

of how the economic order was structured.5 Criticisms written in the 1890s about the social costs of these changes offer lucid insights, but no recognition of their ubiquity and permanence.6

In the professional journals, theorists heralded the aesthetic superiority of facades with windows extending from street level to cornice over earlier commercial designs, in which

large areas of plate glass, sustained by cast-iron stanchions, seemed overweighted by conventional masonry in the upper

storeys. Yet these same reports rarely mentioned either the framing techniques or the materials used to achieve these

results, or, more broadly, the changing character of business

that required larger areas for display on the building facade. 7

Debates often centred on whether or not structures so func­tional and so utterly devoid of ornament could be called "architecture." Frequently, the only secure evidence to recon­

struct the technological response comes from insurance atlases, surviving architectural drawings, or details revealed through

o.ISSAC I o.ISEAC 23:4 (1998) 125

the renovation, decay, or demolition of the structures them­

selves. The challenge is to describe or perhaps construct a

sociology of change from fragmentary writings that conceptu­

alized economics, technology, and aesthetics as discrete issues

instead of aspects of a single problem.

By examining one of the earliest extant stone building

skeletons in the old city, it is possible to recognize both the

pattern of future design in the sparse geometry of the four-bay,

four-storey facade, and what this represented in terms of the

market at mid century. The Urquhart Building of 1855, at 434

rue Saint-Pierre, was planned for the retail sale of European

specialties (Figure 1) .8 Instead of living upstairs, however, the

owner dedicated the entire premises to his business, a decision

that implies a significant increase in the volume of business,

and a growing separation between residential and commercial

uses within the city commensurate with the upward social

mobility of the mercantile class. The building's load-bearing grey­

stone piers, which ascend without interruption through the

four storeys, frame large glass lights mounted and mullioned in

wood. In all, the design is a direct response to the demands of

commercial life, not to the conventions of architectural prece­

dent. With party walls of conventional rubble construction

and an interior almost certainly wooden post-and-beam (now

extensively renovated), the resulting open floors, lit by natural

light, facilitated display and inspection of a varied range of

goods without any need for oil lamps or gasoliers.

Urquhart's architect, George Browne, like most practitioners

of his day, is remembered more for his neoclassical public

buildings than for his commercial designs. A native of Belfast

Figure 1. Urquhart Building, 434 rue Saint·Pierre, Montreal; George Browne, architect, 1855. (Canadian Inventory of Historic Building, 1970)

1 26 o.ISSAC I o.ISEAC 23:4 ( 1 998)

Figure 2. Cathedral Block, boulevard Saint·Laurent, Montreal; Michel Laurent and William Spier & Sons, architects, 1859.60. (Canadian Illustrated News 6 [30 November 1872]: 339) ·

and educated by his father, Browne immigrated to Quebec

City in 1830, where he taught architectural draughting and

established a reputation, in collaboration with John Howard,

for his work on the city's legislative buildings. Apart from the

street architecture to which he was exposed in his youth, the

most likely influence on his commercial work was a five-year

period he spent in the United States, beginning in 1835.

When he returned to Canada - this time to Montreal - he

founded an architectural school and sustained himself

through investments in real estate.9 It is significant in the

context of architectural practice of the day, and the emphasis

placed by historians since, that commercial commissions have

figured so little in later assessments of his career.

There were many similar projects undertaken in the old

city in those years, but one, the Cathedral Block, has attracted

particular attention because of its size (Figure 2) . Its facade

extends some 176 feet along boulevard Saint-Laurent on

lands left vacant by a fire in Christ Church Cathedral in 1856.

Although the scale prefigures that of the later department

stores, it is important to note that the building was conceived

as eight separate but similarly articulated units, executed inde­

pendently for different clients by two firms of architects,

Figure 3. lves & Allen Company, 261, rue Queen, Montreal; Alexander Cowper Hutchison, architect, 1872. (Canadian Inventory of Historic Building, 1974)

Michel Laurent and William Spier & Sons. In addition to the

increased size, the designers also experimented with mono­

lithic greystone piers instead of ashlar construction to frame

the window bays. Otherwise, the methodology was conventional,

with rear walls of brick enclosing a separately framed interior. 10

Within a decade, as Renee Losier has described, cast iron

was also in use for Montreal's commercial buildings, after

favourable tariffs encouraged its import and a modest level of

manufacture. Of the half-dozen foundries established in the

city, one operated by Americans Hubert R. Ives and Roger N.

Allen flourished from the 1860s, in des Recollets quarter. A

single four-storey, seven-bay structure, purpose-built in 1872,

has survived on what was once a very extensive site on rue

Queen (Figure 3). Remillard describes the building as the last

cast-iron skeleton facade in the city, but recent deterioration

reveals that the main piers on the ground floor are cast iron,

while the transverse beams are wood sheathed in metal, like

the posts and beams of the upper facade. Similarly, the interior

is, at least partially, slow-burning wood construction. Most

remarkable, however, is the brick infill in the spandrels beneath

the windows. The brick is carried on the wooden frame in a

manner similar to medieval nagging, a concept adapted by

Viollet-le-Duc in his project for a brick and iron shopfront,

and later realized with great success in the facade of the Meunier

chocolate factory.' '

The designer of the I ves & Allen building at 261 rue

Queen was Alexander Cowper Hutchison, a Montrealer of

Scottish descent. He apprenticed as a stone cutter in his father's

building practice and was proficient enough by age twenty to

execute the masonry for Christ Church Cathedral on rue

Sainte-Catherine, before receiving an invitation to · work on

the Parliamentary precinct in Ottawa. When he returned to

Montreal four years later he began teaching architectural and

geometrical drawing, first at the Mechanics' Institute and

then for the Board of Arts and Manufactures. In 1863 he

went into business as an architect, and became sufficiently

well-recognized by 1880 to be named a founding member of

the Royal Canadian Academy by the Marquis of Lome. Sub­

sequently, in 1895, he was elected president of the Province of

Quebec Association of Architects. 12 His thoughtfui solution for

Ives & Allen reflects a level of professional competence on the

leading edge of his contemporaries. It foregrounds the client's field

of specialty rather than the architect's, and, together with the

stone building skeletons, underlines both the pace of economic

expansion and the degree to which new technologies played a

part in the process. By the same token, it is important to recog­

nize that stone and wood construction dominated work in the

old city throughout this period, because Quebec's economy

was centred on forestry products rather than on iron and steel,

and masonry was an established part of the province's heritage.

By the 1870s Montreal's stone skeleton facades were being

conceived on a still larger scale, sometimes with interiors of

cast-iron columns. One of the most notable examples is Cours

Le Royer, a vast complex of stores and warehouses built for

the Sisters of Saint Joseph on lands formerly occupied by the

Hotel Oieu (Figure 4). Now restored as a precinct of offices,

stores, and cooperative apartments, the five-storey commercial

Figure 4. Cours le Royer, Montreal; Victor Bourgeau, Michel laurent, Albert Mesnard, Henri-Maurice Perrault, architects, 1861-74. (A. Carr, 1993)

.JssAc I .JsE:Ac 23:4 ( 1 998) 1 27

Figure 5. New York Life Insurance building, Place d' Armes, Montreal, 1889; Babb, Cook & Willard of New York, architects. (National Archives of Canada, PA-45937)

blocks are fully articulated on every side with minimal skeletal

facades of Montreal greystone. Undertaken in four stages

between 1861 and 1874, the complex still occupies two full

city blocks and parts of two others, abutting Saint-Paul, Saint­

Dizier, de Bresoles, and Saint-Sulpice streets. Initially, the Sisters

commissioned ten shops on Saint-Paul from architect Victor

Bourgeau, which were rented to reputable merchants. This

strategy, recommended by the Order's financial advisors to

support the cost of running their hospital, proved so successful

that a further expansion was initiated a decade later. Eleven

more storefronts were completed on Le Royer by architect

Michel Laurent in a similar if less elaborate idiom. Then, in

1872, a third section by Albert Mesnard opened on Saint­

Dizier. Surviving drawings of this latter project confirm that

Mesnard introduced cast-iron columns to support the structure's

interior wooden lintels and red-pine floors . Meanwhile, a

fourth phase in 1874 by Henri-Maurice Perrault brought the

enclosed area to 43,000 square metres. The repeated expansions

speak to thf· lucrativeness of the undertaking, while the result

in architectural terms represents a high level of mastery. Still,

the stores and warehouses of the Sisters of Saint Joseph were

conceived as a series of units that housed no fewer than

thirty-three tenants. Within two decades the same floor space,

united through a common sysi:em of structural support, would

1 28 .JSSAC I .JsE:Ac 23:4 ( 1 998)

be occupied by a single retail enterprise. 13

By the late 1880s insurance companies and banks had begun

building not for their immediate needs, but for future growth.

Expansion was clearly anticipated in the construction of the

New York Life Insurance building on Place d'Armes in 1888

(Figure 5). Much of the space was initially rented to lawyers

and wholesale merchants, but New York Life preened its cor­

porate image and covered its future needs by erecting a large

building claimed to be "a quarter of a century in advance of

anything in the Dominion" to "place at the disposal of the

Montreal public a series of offices which challenge comparison

with any in the world." It was no idle boast. For the first time

Montreal had the type of multi-storey structure that had been

a feature of American cities for about a decade. New York

architects Babb, Cook & Willard used load-bearing walls and

internal metal piers to carry iron girders that sustained its

eight floors, fireproofed in brick. The red Scottish sandstone

exterior, in the Romanesque Revival idiom of American archi­

tect Henry Hobson Richardson, reflected both commercial

fashions south of the border and the heritage of the Scottish­

descended railway barons whose businesses and fortunes fuelled

the economy of the city. The load-bearing wall construction

ignored the structural economies of the curtain wall to articu­

late an air of corporate gravity through sheer mass and solidity

- "the enormous size and solidity of the company is well

exemplified by the building its has erected and owns on Place

D'Armes Square." The fireproof character of the interior,

claimed by its rental agent to be the first of its type in the

province, was a selling point - even the internal division

walls were brick. Each office had separately controlled steam

heat and electric light, and individual wash-stands, while the

building's elevators ensured that the view from the upper

storeys, well above the height of human climbing endurance,

would command premium rentals. For the era the technology

was conservative, but its execution represented a significant

turning point in the context of Canadian practices of the day.

American commentators were unimpressed, however:

Canadians are rather slow in adopting novelties ... . Their elevators

are few and far between, and are looked at askance by many who

would as soon attempt to walk upon the waters, as Peter did of old,

as to trust their precious lives in one of those "bird-cages." 14

While it is not possible in many cases to document all

aspects of the technical developments as they were assimilated

throughout this period, it is clear that the transition from

load-bearing to curtain-wall construction was under study as

part of the increased scale and international competitiveness

of commercial enterprises in major urban centres. Within two

years of the opening of the New York Life Insurance building,

attempts were made to translate Romanesque Revival vocabu­

lary into a less weighty idiom. The skeletal facade of the Brunet

Figure 6. Brunet Building, boulevard Saint-Laurent, Montreal; Daoust & Gendron, architects, 1890. (Gordon Fulton, 1996)

Building, designed by Daoust & Gendron, was part of an 1890

urban renewal project on the west side of boulevard Saint­

Laurent intended to give Montreal its own version of the

Champs Elysees (Figure 6). Four round-arched bays framed in

greystone enclosed a sparse grid of verticals and horizontals

that supported large areas of glass on three floors. The internal

framing consisted of iron, so the result may be described as a hybrid of the proto-rationalist architecture of the old city and

elements of the Chicago School. Yet, the facade is still articu­

lated as a series of four conjoined shopfronts, despite an internal space that may have been contiguous. (The result was suffi­

ciently commodious to include a concert stage for the Montreal

Symphony.) Indeed, in a similar project metal posts were placed

immediately behind the building facade to support the floor

upon which the stone pilasters of the exterior were carried. 15

In the meantime, the character of retailing in the city was

undergoing significant change. The urban population had

doubled in a decade and residential areas in the city were

spreading to the north and west. As a result, some business

people found it possible to operate successfully outside the

traditional mercantile core. Among them was Joseph Nazaire

Dupuis, who in 1868 established a dry-goods business on rue

Sainte-Catherine est at the comer of Montcalm, close to the

French-speaking districts that were the mainstay of his clientele.

Through hard work and a singular reputation for honesty,

Dupuis built up his enterprise sufficiently by 1871 to support a

move to larger premises next door. He then expanded his

stock into the upper storeys of the building, which were pre­

viously residential, and added an annex. By 1872 Dupuis

considered his returns sufficient to justify semi-annual buying

expeditions in Europe, a practice that seems to have continued

despite a world-wide economic downturn that plunged Canada

into a recession between 1874 and 1879. His premature death

in 1876 left his younger brothers to continue the firm as a

partnership until 1907 (then under federal incorporation, and

finally, in 1921, as a provincial corporation; the pace of expan­

sion slowed in this latter period). In 1877, just a year after the

founder's death, Dupuis Freres built a new three-storey ware­

house at the comer of Sainte-Catherine and Amherst streets

(Figure 7). The design was a larger version of a conventional

mixed-use property, with load-bearing masonry in the upper

two storeys and plate-glass windows at street level to attract

passersby. 16

While Dupuis Freres seem to have relied upon the loyalty of

its customers rather than upon the glamour of technical inno­

vation to preserve its market share, a second retailer, farther

west on rue Sainte-Catherine at the comer of University, was

quick to take advantage of the new aesthetic as soon as the

opportunity presented itself. W.H. Scroggie had occupied

three out of six shopfronts in a row known as the Queen's

Theatre Block since the 1880s, when the firm decided to alter

the ground floor of its rented premises by mounting plate-glass

windows between iron uprights. In the course of this work the

entire building collapsed dramatically, as terrified bystanders

rescued a startled night watchman. A year later, in 1890, Scroggie's reopened in a fashionable three-storey "palazzo"

with a minimal skeletal facade (Figure 8). Without mentioning

the building methods, the newspapers described the new

premises as a "modem department store" of the type favoured

by "popular demand." Its principal attractions were said to be

the convenience of shopping in one location and the economies

available through volume buying_ On opening day visitors

noted the brightness, cheerfulness, and freshness of the interior,

where they were treated to a fashion show and found a millinery

department well stocked with the latest fashions from New York,

Paris, and Rome. The premises also boasted a well-furnished

Figure 7. Dupuis Freres, Sainte-Catherine and Amherst streets, Montreal; architect unknown, 1877. (Canadian Illustrated News 11 [1 0 November 1877]: 301)

.JSSAC I .JSE:Ac 23:4 ( 1 998) 1 29

Figure 8. W.H. Scroggie's store, rue Sainte-Catherine, Montreal; architect unknown, 1890; demolished. (Archives of Ontario, Eaton Fonds: AO 4010, F229-308-0-604)

ladies' parlour on the second floor, which was expected to

become "a favourite meeting place for the women of Montreal."

For Scroggie, the new design was a coup that placed its bargain

business in direct competition with several of its more prestig­

ious neighbours. 17

Scroggie's was so successful at attracting customers that it

soon became the object of censure for its cut-throat business

practices. Its reputation for deep discounts persisted until the

enterprise finally closed its doors in 1914, when one employee

painted a vivid picture of the store's reputation and clientele:

Scroggie's is one of the best known names in Montreal, and well it

ought to be, the firm having paid enough out in advertising to make it

so. [It] is a departmental store, one of the sort the great body of the

public goes to in the full conviction that here may be obtained goods

at a low price .... [Always] a liberal patron of the advertising columns

of the newspapers, its half-page and full-page advertisements have

furnished interesting reading matter to thousands of economic house­

wives who search diligently for bargains every night and get up with

the lark in the morning and fall into line at eight o'clock to secure first

chance at the counter. These are the people of whom the patrons of the

store are largely composed. Even in these hard times they buzz to and fro

from one floor to another like bees, spending their money frugally and

elbowing their way around with a determination deserving of results. 18

By this time Scroggie's was in a new location at Sainte­

Catherine and Peel streets, having abandoned its three-storey

palazzo in 1908 to John Carsley's firm. A year later the building

passed to Rea & Company, then to Goodwin's, and finally, in

1925, to Eaton's, whose reputation for fixed prices and cash

sales presented as formidable a presence in the retail sector as

any to which Scroggie's aspired. Shrewd business decisions

propelled Eaton's to national prominence, so that it came to

outrank even stores like Macy's and Gimbel's in New York. The

key to its dominance, like its Toronto competitor, Simpson's,

1 30 .JssAc 1 .JstAc 23:4 ( 1 99B>

was that it seized upon the potential of mail-order to extend

its influence across the country. Following a major three-storey

addition in the year of its acquisition, the former Scroggie­

Goodwin's store became Eaton's flagship in eastern Canada.

A second expansion on the same scale five years later under­

lined the retailer's determination to master the Montreal

market; even as the country sank into the Depression in 1931,

an elegant new Art Deco restaurant by no less a light than

French architect Jacques Carlu was opened on the building's

ninth floor. By that time the departmentals were sufficiently

well established to pretend imperviousness to even the most

dramatic of economic reversals. 19

As for the assimilation of ideas in the 1890s, Montreal's

architects came to grips with the principles of new construction

methodologies just as the city's retail enterprises expanded on

a scale never before seen. On 21 April 1891 Henry Morgan & Company opened Colonial House on rue Sainte-Catherine

ouest, on the doorstep of the Golden Square Mile (Figure 9).

For two years the opening had been anticipated by everyone

from Morgan's competitors to the architects who served them.

One among the latter group, A.F. Dunlop, remarked pro­

phetically that the "establishment of Messrs. Morgan's store

on St. Catherine street will be followed by the erection of oth­

ers of the same class; the other down-town traders of impor­

tance will be forced to go up the hill." Within five years, rue

Sainte-Catherine ouest was home not only to W.H. Scroggie,

but also to firms including John Murphy & Company and

James Ogilvy's. But Morgan's was the largest of them all, and

the most prestigious.20

It had not always been so. The first dry goods business

founded in the old city in 1845 by Fifeshire emigrant Henry

Morgan lasted only six years before an economic downturn

caused his partner David Smith to move on. Morgan then

allied with his brother James, who sold a dry-goods interest in

Glasgow to come to Montreal. They began buying goods directly

from an agent in London, and within a year had established

themselves sufficiently to move to a larger premises with twice

as many employees. Over the next five years of 15-hour days

the firm grew. First it expanded into an adjoining building in

the next block, then in 1866, with a staff of a hundred and

stock worth $50,000, it relocated to Great Saint James Street

and Victoria Square. A decade later the firm was forced to

reorganize on a departmental system in order to control the

growing enterprise in the recession of the 1870s. Each section

was headed by a manager responsible for his own purchasing

and sales. Results were positive, and by 1889 it was clear that

a far larger building would be required so the lot on Phillips

Square "in the suburbs" was purchased. There was not so

much as a streetcar stop nearby, but within a year one was

installed immediately outside the front door. 21

The architect of Colonial House was a virtual unknown by

the name of John Pierce Hill , who se t up his practice in the

~J,.._o•f'lo- ( • '< !'A~ til~- ~Mo H. ~I' tl Y C. 0-

- ['An rJ T"- f_/"• ..,..-

__s~. C.r r rlr.~· rJc ..S'· E ... ~ JI'r •o rJ -­

.. ·: .··- -~- -~ · c - ¢-c 6::: ... . ;~~?'·.

Figure 9. Henry Morgan & Co., rue Sainte-Catherine at Phillips Square, Montreal; John Pierce Hill, architect, 1889-91. (A. Carr, 1993)

Figure 10. Front elevation of the Henry Morgan & Co. store, rue Sainte-Catherine, Montreal; John Pierce Hill, architect, 1889-91. (Courtesy of W. Hyndra, The Hudson's Bay Company, Montreal)

city about 1886 with a series of small residential commissions.

He then completed two larger works, Mountain Methodist

Church and an office tenement, also on rue de Ia Montagne,

owned and occupied by Messrs. Wells, Richardson & Co.,

makers of diamond dies. The tenement was noteworthy not

only for its imported Scottish sandstone facade but also for its

fireproof construction, which included sprinklers activated by

temperatures in excess of 150 degrees and an elevator shaft

enclosed at every level by automatic steel doors. At the time

there was no expertise in Canada that could have trained Hill

in this field - the area of specialization was little more than

five years old in the United States.22

One can imagine the consternation among the established

architects in the city when it became clear that a commission

for what was then the largest department store in Canada had

been awarded to a neophyte. In March of 1889 the Canadian

Architect & Builder reported that a temporary architectural furore

occurred when ten designs submitted for the new Morgan

store were adjudicated privately, then returned "without note

or comment" to the unsuccessful competitors. Hill was named

to undertake the project, estimated to cost $150,000, a figure

that inflated during the course of construction to $325,000. In

the year of completion Hill disappeared from the Montreal

street directory, but his monumental red sandstone edifice

(now The Bay) still stands in Phillips Square in the midst of

the new commercial core -just as Dunlop had predicted in

January 1889 it would.23

Of the annual building starts reported in Montreal between

1865 and 1888, the years 1871 and 1887 were the most

active, each with a thousand or more new projects. In 1888

there were a further nine hundred new projects. Of these, the

largest number were tenements, followed by stores, factories,

and offices, a statistic that reflects the growth in urban popu­

lation and a concomitant escalation in the industrial and retail

sectors. Unlike the previous year, in which $1.9 million had

been concentrated in Saint-Antoine ward, the values in 1888

were almost evenly divided between Saint-Antoine and Centre

wards. It was clear that the city was in the process of a signifi­

cant reorientation, which Morgan's anticipated and promoted

through its project on Phillips Square.24

Proclaiming "the tendencies of the present age to break

loose from the traditions and customs of the past .. . in every

phase oflife ... religious, political, social and commercial," the

Montreal Gazette heralded the opening of Morgan's new "dry

goods palace" as part of a developing trend towards mammoth

enterprises. So many "precious goods" were displayed, the

columnist thought it difficult "to be modest in one's desires in

the presence of so much that is seductive." Phillips Square had

been transformed by a building that stood forth as a "triumph

of architecture." Comparisons were not to other enterprises

within the city, but to world-class establishments that competed

on the international stage :

A New York lady who visited the new Colonial house yesterday

expressed the opinion that there was nothing in Gotham to equal

Messrs. Morgan's new store, except perhaps A.T. Stewart's.25

A.T. Stewart's was the first American department store. In

the 1840s the firm initiated the process of buying from over­

seas suppliers, and had established its own manufacturing

plants by the 1860s. Its New York emporium, known as the

"marble palace," was designed by architect John Kellum in

1859. It was fully framed and faced in iron, but was not fire­

proof. By sheer good fortune the structure survived as part of

its successor Wanamaker's until 1956, when it burned to the

ground during demolition. The metal framing, which facilitated

its grand scale, was vulnerable to collapse in extreme heat of

the kind that developed very rapidly in open floors . For this

reason, many considered the technology unsuitable for crowded

public settings such as department stores until better protection

methods were refined in the latter part of the century.26

.JssAc 1 .JstAc 23 : 4 ( 1 99B> 1 3 1

Between 1859 and 1889, when Hill began his plans for the

Phillips Square store, a great deal had occurred in the United States in the field of retail design. In 1877, American Architect

& Building News published plans of James MacLaughlin's John Shillito store in Cincinnati. Its exterior was lined with free­

standing brick piers , which, in turn, were pinned to · the internal metal frame by means of metal rivets. A year later, in

Chicago, William Le Baron Jenney adapted this concept for

his first Leiter store in Chicago by introducing metal columns immediately behind the load-bearing pilasters of the exterior.

Within five years Jenney had made the conceptual leap that brought the underlying structural frame to the surface of the

building, where it was lightly veneered with cladding to protect it from the elements. This synthesis, partly realized in his design

for the Home Insurance building, was later refined in his second Leiter store of 1889, the same year Hill conceived his scheme for the new Morgan's store in Montreal. Fireproofing the metal

frame with concrete, brick, or terra cotta simply extended the principle of cladding to the building's interior. Judging by reports of Hill's other works in Montreal, these techniques

and the use of sprinkler systems, only just being introduced in Canada, were already known to Hill before he submitted plans for Morgan's in 1889.27

Instead of Jenney's skeletal facades, however, Hill adopted

the still fashionable Richardsonian Romanesque and introduced a light well into the centre to illuminate the four-storey interior. His choice of idiom was consistent with Canadian commercial tastes of the day, which still saw Richardson's work as a progressive contrast to the Gothic Revival, long

established and sustained in Canada by a generation of British­born immigrant architects.28 Like the New York Life Insurance

building completed one year earlier, the exterior of the new Colonial House was of imported Scottish sandstone, evocative of Morgan's own heritage and that of the city's railway barons,

whose money was at least partly responsible for the store's success. A solitary surviving copy of Hill's front elevation for

the new store confirms that the facade is load-bearing, the marginal notations revealing that the stone is three feet thick

at the base and only 1.8 feet at the cornice (Figure 10) .29

There is no clear indication of the nature of the internal framing nor how it was connected to the sandstone facade, but the size

of the bays and the scale of the interior, reportedly covering

some 94,000 square feet, suggests that the new idiom owed its dimensions to the tensile strength of the metal 1-beam.

The competitive atmosphere was such that within months

of the Morgan's opening, John Murphy & Company had

determined to construct a new five-storey building of red

sandstone two blocks to the west, at the comer of Sainte­

Catherine and Metcalfe streets (Figure 11) . Like Colonial House, Murphy's boasted a fire-proof interior, an elevator,

and a centralized cash system, as well as large plate-glass

windows. A report in the Daily Herald on 1 December 1894

1 32 o.ISSAC I .JSEAC 23:4 ( 1 998)

]obn murpby ~ ~o's " " " 1899 Christmas &

New Year's 1900 Annual ...

Gre&t Departmental

Store

Cor. Metcalfe "' St. Catherine Sts.,

MONTREAL

Figure 11 . John Murphy & Co., Sainte-Catherine and Metcalfe streets, Montreal; architect unknown, 1894; demolished. (John Murphy & Co's 1899-1900 Christmas & New Year's Annual, National Archives of Canada)

emphasized that the store made "no pretensions to great archi­tectural beauty, utility having been the chief point kept in view," although the new premises were stylistically "by no

means behind the other buildings on this thoroughfare." Advertisements at the same time offered assurances consis­

tent with claims made by many departmentals that customers would see the same goods at the "usual low prices," despite

the lavish new surroundings.30

The John Murphy enterprise grew in a series of defined stages, just like its competitors. The son of Irish immigrants,

its founder took over the family linen importing business with

his brother in 1867. Within three years their partnership had ended, but John Murphy, now incorporated, moved into the

Tiffin Building on northeast corner of Notre-Dame and Saint­

Pierre streets in the old city. There the firm remained until

1891, when it relocated to rue Sainte-Catherine ouest in the

wake of the Morgan's move. Retailers no longer needed prox­

imity to wholesalers in Montreal's lowertown; the primary

consideration was location - in a place and manner suitable to attract customers.

Murphy's proved to be an early casualty of Canada's con­centration in the retail sector, which was more severe than in

the United States because of the smaller size of the market. The firm was bought by Simpson's of Toronto in 1905 as part

of the latter's campaign to confound the ambitions of its chief

rival Eaton's in the national market. Eaton's had just opened a

new branch in Winnipeg to challenge the power of the Hudson's

Bay Company in the west. Murphy's was Simpson's toe-hold

in the east. The name remained unchanged until 1929, but

the new owners quickly doubled the size of the rue Sainte­

Catherine store, employing architects Ross & MacFarlane to

undertake the concrete and steel extension. A quarter-century

later, on the eve of the Great Depression, Chapman & Oxley

began a second major renovation. They extended and converted

the old red sandstone building into a sleek Art Deco monolith

with six times the floor area of the original, a rate of growth

that exceeded even that of the ciry's population.31

The gradual concentration of businesses on rue Sainte­

Catherine ouest continued throughout the 1890s as upscale

entrepreneurs like jeweller Henry Birks and retailer James

Ogilvy joined the contingent, in 1894 and 1896 respectively.

The red granite Romanesque Revival edifice commissioned by

Birks occupied a prominent position on Phillips Square opposite

Morgan's. A sparser design more in keeping with the grid

facades of the American mid-west defined the new Ogilvy

store, located still farther west at the corner of rue de Ia

Montagne (Figure 12). The architect, David Ogilvy, son of

the owner, took a leaf from Scroggie's book and worked in a

manner consciously evocative of the Chicago School. But the

technology stopped short of a fully realized free-standing metal

frame - the prerequisite for true curtain-wall construction.

The piers of the facade were massively built to bear the weight

of the 1-beams from the internal framing (Figures 13, 14).

Announcements proclaimed the result to be "splendid," and

Figure 12. James A. Ogilvy store, Sainte-Catherine and de Ia Montagne streets, Montreal; David Ogilvy, architect, 1896. (A. Carr, 1993)

Figure 13. Plan of the James A. Ogilvy store, Sainte-Catherine and de Ia Montagne streets, Montreal; David Ogilvy, architect, 1896 (National Archives of Canada, NMC 56076)

Figure 14. Section through the James A. Ogilvy store, Sainte-Catherine and de Ia Montagne streets, Montreal; David Ogilvy, architect, 1896. (National Archives of Canada, NMC 56078)

correctly predicted that the rather isolated location well to the

west of Phillips Square would "yet be the centre of a large

retail shopping district."32

Like most of the other rue Sainte-Catherine entrepreneurs,

James Angus Ogilvy had moved from lowertown- His first

store of 1866 was at the corner of Bonaventure and de Ia

Montagne streets, across from the old St. Antoine market. At

the time of his arrival from Kirriemuir, Scotland, the population

of the city was 100,000, concentrated in the southeastern part

of the island. Over the next decade it doubled in size, and

residential districts began to spread closer to the Ogilvy's loca­

tion. Just one decade later a move was essential, so the firm

took premises a block farther north on Saint-Antoine, east of

rue de Ia Montagne, where several wealthy public figures

lived_ After another seven years Ogilvy was obliged to build

.JssAc 1 .JsEAc 23:4 < 1 99B> 1 33

an entirely new store nearby, and within four years that premises,

in tum, had to be enlarged. When the time came "to move up

the hill" in 1896, nothing but courage and intuitive business

sense could have guided the selection of what was then an

extremely remote site. Ogilvy, like his competitors, survived

by playing the odds, and was richly rewarded for his audacity.

Judging by the pattern that characterized these early years,

firms such as his simply ignored the recession that slowed the

economy after 1874, and left the less aggressive to fall by the

wayside.33

The pattern of the retail development in Montreal was

mirrored in Toronto. King Street East had been the old commer­

cial centre of the city, but by the 1890s the core had moved

north and west.34 Eaton's and Simpson's squared off in a battle

for market share on opposite comers of Y onge and Queen

streets. Both firms had survived shaky starts in the 1860s to

emerge as giants of retailing two decades later. Timothy Eaton

left a modest dry-goods and grocery business in St. Mary's,

Ontario, to move to Toronto in 1869, where he hoped to

benefit from the larger population base. Initially, the upper

floors of his mixed-use premises on Yonge Street below Queen

were rented to tenants, but the volume of trade soon displaced

them and necessitated additions. Then, in 1873, Robert

Simpson arrived from Newmarket, Ontario, to establish himself

in a similar property a few doors up the street. Within a decade

the thirteen dry-goods businesses in the block had diminished

to two serious competitors. Each tried to outdo the other in

pricing, but when Simpson succeeded in impeding future

Eaton expansion by renting an adjacent property, the latter

reacted by building a new store at 190 Yonge Street. When it

opened in 1883, Eaton's had an enclosed area of 25,000

square feet on four floors, its plate-glass display windows

measured sixteen feet square, and the interior was illuminated

by electricity and light wells. There were also two hydraulic

Figure 15. Eaton's store, Yonge and Queen streets, Toronto; architects unknown, 1883-93; demolished. (Archives of Ontario, Eaton Fonds: AD 8387, F229-308-0-390)

1 34 .JSSAC I .JsEAc 23:4 ( 1 998)

Figure 16. Oak Hall, Toronto; architect unknown, 1893; demolished. (Construction 3 [September 191 0]: 83)

elevators to ferry shoppers to the upper floors . Within a year

the company had also introduced the earliest mail-order cata­

logue in the country, which had a dramatic impact on sales

and made further additions imperative. An extension along

Queen Street more than doubled the store's floor area, its

convenience promoted in advertising that trumpeted the store's

"Mammoth Buildings." Over the next decade 190 Yonge

Street grew to more than ten times its original size (Figure

15). It was predictable, therefore, that Robert Simpson

would answer Eaton's challenge by relocating his enterprise

directly across the street, on the southwest comer of Yonge

and Queen, going his rival one better in 1894 with the very

latest in Chicago-School design. 35

Whereas Eaton made a point of pursuing every innovation

in retail sales by carefully monitoring the market trends tested

by his American counterparts, his approach to architecture

was less inventive. His store grew in increments of convenience

Fugure 17. Central Chambers, Confederation Square, Ottawa; John James Browne, architect, 1890. (W.H. Carre, National Archives of Canada, C-7029)

to cover most of the block north of Queen Street. On the

other hand, Robert Simpson determined to create a coherent

architectural statement when he retained Toronto architect

Edmund Burke, then president of the Ontario Association of

Architects, to build a new premises in time for the 1894

Christmas rush. Earlier that year, delegates to the convention

of the OAA had attended a lecture by Gambier Bousfield on

"Shop Fronts During the Next Decade." The speaker explored how

the profession might respond to the needs of retail marketing

by opening up the facade to the display of goods on every

floor. The load-bearing systems of the past were dismissed in

favour of facades of iron or steel with glass, like that of Oak

Hall in Toronto (Figure 16). During the discussion, several

observed that plate glass facades "could not be accepted as high

art, but ... might be tolerated as what was demanded by commer­

cial requirements of to-day." Specifically, Ottawa's Central

Chambers was cited as having a pleasing effect, although it

could not be considered "pure architecture" (Figure 17). Its

floor-upon-floor of plate-glass oriels, supported on steel girders

set in load-bearing brick and sandstone walls, answered the

purpose of Seybold & Gibson, the dry-goods firm for whom it

was executed in 1890-91 by John James Browne, son of Montreal architect George Browne. Many architects were still troubled

by these new ideas, but Burke, who two years earlier had read

a lecture on "Structural Iron Work" before the same body, was

more venturesome. His correspondence with former colleagues

then living in New York and Chicago told him that the

"Chicago men had solved [the problem] as nearly as it was

possible to do, having resolved their supports into simple iron

stanchions with sufficient masonry to protect the iron from

damage in the case of fire." Prophetically, he added that his

experience with proprietors of retail establishments led him to

dread any attempted solution of a problem of that kind.36

In the summer of 1894 Burke began Simpson's six-storey

retail palazzo on the comer opposite Eaton's (Figure 18). The

facade was undoubtedly influenced by one that Chicago archi­

tect Louis Sullivan had recently published, but structurally the

design drew back from the idea of a fully freestanding metal

frame in favour of an internal steel cage enclosed by self­

sustaining brick piers, like the Shillito store in Cincinnati.

Burke did introduce 1-beams in the lower two storeys of the

facade, so the bricklayers could start constructing the upper

piers while masons veneered the metal framing at street level

(Figure 19). This decision, made to meet the deadline of the

Christmas shopping season, engaged directly with ideas then

being explored by leading practitioners in Chicago and formed

part of a coherently expressed exterior of dimensions that spoke

directly to the new economic order. In the haste to complete

the project, however, the owner also decreed shortcuts that

Figure 18. Robert Simpson store, Yonge and Queen streets, Toronto; Edmund Burke, architect, 1894; destroyed. (Canadian Architect & Builder 8, no. 1 [January 1895]: after 18)

US SAC / .JsE:Ac 23:4 ( 1 998) 1 3 S

Figure 19. Section through the Robert Simpson store, Yonge and Queen streets, Toronto; Edmund Burke, architect, 1894; destroyed. (Archives of Ontario, Horwood Collection, C 11-24-0-1 [26)8)

proved to be the building's undoing in the months to come.

Pine floors were laid over the steel frame without either cement

or concrete to protect the metal. Consequently, when an arsonist

torched the building in March 1895, fire raced through the

open flats, quickly heating the steel to a temperature that

precipitated a complete collapse of the structure within

twenty minutes (Figure 20) .

A chastened Robert Simpson announced that a new

structure would be rebuilt immediately, this time with every

fireproofing measure that modem technology could provide

(Figure 21). Burke, now in partnership with his old colleague

John C.B. Horwood, who had recently returned from New

York, redesigned the building with a fully realized curtain wall

and concrete fireproofing in the interior. Visitors to the annual

agricultural exhibition that year were astonished to see the

freestanding iron frame of the new and larger building out­

lined against the sky, as the project proceeded. Utilizing the

same proportions and configuration as its predecessor, the

result was generally agreed to have "succeeded in giving a

dignified solution without in the least entrenching upon the

first requisite of such a building - abundance of light." The

success of the rebuilt design enhanced Simpson's prestige, and

earned Burke & Horwood a well-deserved reputation as the

country's premier retail design firm.

By this time Eaton and Simpson had succeeded in dividing

the Toronto retail market between them. So dramatic was the

effect of their rivalry upon the local economy that one journ­

alist became extremely exercised over the issue. Citing the

commercial dislocations caused by departmentals across the

continent, Joseph Clark, assistant editor of Toronto's Saturday

Night magazine, published a series of scathing articles between

February and July of 1897 under the pseudonym "Mack." He

discussed in minute detail the impact of the department store

1 36 .JSSAC I ..JsE:Ac 23:4 ( 1 998)

Figure 20. Remains of the Robert Simpson store, Yonge and Queen streets, Toronto, 4 March 1895. (Toronto Reference Library, T-13288)

upon the retail sector in Ontario, first in terms of economic

issues, then on a level of overt consumer advocacy. His tirade

elicited sufficient response to merit republication of his columns

in the form of a pamphlet entitled "The Bamums of Business,"

and even roused the politicians sufficiently to inspire an abortive

piece of consumer protection legislation in the Ontario legis­lature.37

The campaign began judiciously, with a passing remark

on mail-order services in an article about free newspaper postage:

This matter of postage, then, is not one that interests only the country

editor, but the country merchant, who, while postage of newspapers

is free, is submitting to a tax that assists the department stores to

place their bait under the noses of the people in every hamlet in

Canada. The growth of [Toronto] and its trade is a good thing for

residents of the city and I am telling tales out of school in writing

this, but the forces at work are bigger than even the facts here

pointed out would indicate, and I think the very commercial life of

the country, as it is, hangs for the present on the action of the Postal

Department. 38

As the writer observed, professionally written advertisements

circulated free under an exemption granted to newspapers, so

that Toronto department stor~s. through their mail-order

services, could reach customers in the most remote areas of

the country. The effect on the economy was to overthrow ."all

the mercantile, financial and industrial conditions that at present

prevail. "39

In the next two weeks "Mack" warmed to his task, describing

how department stores were feeding off a significant demo­

graphic shift that had swelled Canada's urban population

from 19 percent in 1870 to 29 percent two decades later, after

Figure 21. The second Robert Simpson store, Yonge and Queen streets, Toronto, after the addition of 1898-99; Burke & Horwood, architects, 1895. (Archives of Ontario, Horwood Collection, C 11, Additional 5)

agricultural machinery relieved much of the need for manual

labour in rural districts. 40 At the same time, corresponding

developments in the retail sector meant that "trade that was

once diffused over the whole city is now concentrated on a

few acres in the center, and ... the profits that were once

divided among a hundred houses now enrich only two or

three," referring of course to Eaton and Simpson.41 A tongue­

in-cheek advertisement for KETCHEM, SKINEM & COOKEM's

Mammoth Department Store , at the comer of Skin Street and

Humbug A venue, which appeared on the same page as one of

Mack's commentaries, was a thinly disguised jab at Eaton's.

The earnest promise to "sell some goods at high prices to

cover our Enormous Expenses" as part of the company's goal

to corner "all the business on earth" and "ruin trade in all

locations" was a harsh indictment of the retailer's decade-long

initiative to lower prices by eliminating local middlemen in

favour of overseas agents or direct purchase from manufacturers.

Eaton's made its reputation on quality goods at fair prices, but

Mack's mythical department store staged phony sales and fatu­

ous contests to entice ingenuous female customers to part with

more money than they intended. The Mack retailer used mass­

marketing to push inferior quality goods at what purported to be

discount prices. Loss-leaders were just another ploy to attract

shoppers and drive competitors out of business one by one, the

sales being sustained through higher prices on other itemsY

Whether or not there was any substance to these claims,

the results were not in doubt. Mack enumerated 117 whole­

sale and retail businesses in Toronto, worth nearly $4 million,

that had gone into liquidation in recent years, among them

houses like McMaster and Company, which had been estab­

lished for sixty years. Many were victims of the direct­

purchase policy that Eaton pioneered in an effort to secure

the best possible prices for his customers. As for small retailers,

store vacancies across the city topped 585, standing as mute

testimony to the impact on shopkeepers, landlords, and the

building trades that depended upon them. 43

Mack also alleged that the women clerks favoured by Eaton

to attract female customers were paid half the salary of their

male counterparts. Joy Santink believes this discrepancy may

have been a facsimile of the turnover in women employees, as

gender stereotypes discouraged married women from continuing

their business careers and few ever achieved the seniority that

went with the highest rates of pay. Nevertheless, Mack viewed

such strategies as cynical ploys to cut the payroll and cultivate

..JssAc I ..JsE:Ac:: 23:4 ( 1 998) 1 37

profligate consumerism. In addition, the market was fuelled

not by demand per se, but by advertising, which artificially

inflated the consumption of products, "The volume of trade

was no longer regulated by the necessities of the people ...

but for the things that happen to be offered at apparent or

pretended reductions in price."44 Female bargain-hunters

tempted by the spurious puffery of advertisers were even accused

of wasting valuable domestic resources. One local minister

took it upon himself to rebuke his women parishioners for

ruining their husbands and for making it inevitable that both

wives and daughters would have to go "out into the world to

earn their own living." Such an expedient was considered to

damage the structure of the family, which, being the sole

responsibility of women, left them accountable for every social

evil from the neglect of children to increased rates of crime!

Legislators began to consider special licensing provisions to

regulate department stores. In the United States, in Illinois,

New York, and Minnesota, draft statutes were already under

review. In Aprill897, the Hamilton Member of the Provincial

Parliament, J.T. Middleton, introduced a private member's

bill that would have provided for municipal licensing of

department stores. The proposal seems to have taken the Liberal

government of Arthur Sturgis Hardy entirely off guard, although

Hardy himself was sensitive to the social issues. The proposal

was sufficiently topical to draw a sympathetic response, but

action on the bill was deferred. As readers of Saturday Night

were quick to point out, cities like Vienna and Berlin already

had legislative constraints upon sharp business practice, but

the measure did not even begin to tackle the problem of

misleading advertising, already under review in New York

State. In the end, Canada's response to the problem was

deferred into the second decade of the twentieth century.45

Meanwhile, Mack contented himself with offering a platform

for all the consumer complaints his readers were prepared to

provide. He protested that he was not trying to "make water

run up hill," but that the journal wished to expose those who

ground their employees to starvation along with labourers in

shops, factories, cellars, and garrets in order to "sell goods cheap."

In most cases, according to Mack, these attempts to depress

the intrinsic value of merchandise meant that it was not a cent

cheaper than elsewhere, but retailers thereby got four profits

instead of one.46 Mack's editorials were part of a movement

that ultimately led to the formation of the Retail Merchant's

Association of Canada to police the conduct of all store owners.

Saturday Night even allowed their literary contributors to

demonize the department store owners in two poetic quips. The

first, signed Earnest E. Leigh, was entitled "The Departmental":

Old Satan sticks to business well

Since he, the great insolvent, fell,

Resolving when he struck to sell

"Hot bargains" at "rockbottom."

1 38 ..ISSAC I .JsE:Ac:: 23:4 ( 1 998)

Long centuries he rack'd his brain

For swifter schemes of getting gain,

Until at last, almost insane,

He tour'd the earth for pointers.

What chuckles left his grimy jaws

When he the departmental cause

Espous'd amid the lowd [sic] applause

Of his sulfuric escort.

"Hurrah!" he said and swished his sting:

"Hurrah, thou blatant, bloated thing!"

And all his imps with swagg'ring swing,

Yell'd, "Bargain day's next Friday!" .. .

"Yo ho!" said Pluto, "well I know

That many a faked and lying blow

Hath laid these looted highways low,

Thou scooping departmental."47

The following week, "G." added a briefer stanza headed "No

More Room- He Hogged It":

Said Satan, "Stir up the fire,

There's room for one or two more."

"Not so," said the stoker, "the last

On earth kept departmental store."48

Such vilification had no effect on the entrepreneurs to whom

they were directed, an indication, perhaps, that their stores

were more fitted to needs and expectations than anyone but

the retailers themselves could have predicted.

Figure 22. Poured concrete frame for the second phase of the Hudson's Bay Co. store, Vancouver; Burke, Horwood & White, architects, 1926. (Stuart Thompson, Vancouver Public Library, 11260)

In the years to come the grand retail palazzo became the

normative index of a store's pretensions in the retail market.

But the trappings of success were not always so indicative of a

lucrative enterprise as was the case with the national chains.

Furthermore, architectural education was introduced in

Canadian universities only in the 1890s, and even then the

training was shaped largely by the Arts-and-Crafts rather than

the Beaux-Arts tradition upon which teaching curricula in the

United States was based. This meant that many Canadian

practitioners learned their skills in an apprenticeship system

that tended to perpetuate the traditions of an older generation

of architects, many of whom were British-trained and not

conversant with American technical innovation. While Burke

& Horwood went on in their later work for the Hudson's Bay

Company to explore both the refinements of the reinforced

concrete frame and the Beaux-Arts idiom so favoured

by American architect Daniel Burnham (Figure 22), some

Canadian architects were still interpreting the Chicago School

in an idiosyncratic fashion that reflected a lack of familiariry

with the details of the construction technology.

Ottawa architect Moses Chamberlain Edey is a case in

point. Despite an apprenticeship with Toronto architect

William Thomas and with American Z.D. Stearns of Moravia,

New York, his 1904-05 design for what later became known as

the Daly Building made use of self-sustaining stone columns

pinned to an underlying steel skeleton (Figures 23, 24). The

piers of Gloucester limestone were sufficiently delicate to

mimic the idiom of the Chicago School, but the metal frame

stood outside rather than within the stone pier. The resulting

mammoth department store, built not for a retail entrepreneur

but for an aspiring local developer, served the pretensions of a

capital city experimenting with the principles of the Ciry

Beautiful movement, but its 125,000 square feet on five floors

was ultimately out of scale with the city's population. The first

tenant, clothier T. Lindsay Limited, did not survive the

founder's death in 1908. A succession of occupants followed

-the chain store A.E. Rae & Company, then the Canadian

Navy during the First World War, then H.J. Daly Company,

whose name was thereafter identified with the structure,

despite a brief tenancy of only three years. The property was

finally subsumed within the largest of Ottawa "industries"

when it was acquired by the federal government in 1921,

under whose stewardship it deteriorated progressively until

the National Capital Commission demolished it in 1992.49

Edey was commissioned to execute the ill-fated project in

Ottawa for the simple reason that the department store had

emerged as a pivotal element in the country's economy. In

1900 W.B. Phillips codified the principles of the new order in

a 125-page pamphlet entitled How Department Stores Are Carried

On. Of the "General Principles," he wrote "the first aim is to

get the best and choicest goods direct from the makers; and,

second, to have the lowest prices, thus enlarging the purchasing

Figure 23. Daly Building, Ottawa, during demolition showing the construction of the facade; Moses Chamberlain Edey, architect, 1904-05. (A. Carr, 1992)

Figure 24. Detail of the upper facade of the Daly Building during demolition. (A. Carr, 1992)

.JssAc I .JsEAc 23:4 ( 1 998) 1 39

power of every dollar." Service was to be courteous and agree­

able under all conditions, with "everything done that can be

done to study the convenience of customers and look after

their interests." Notwithstanding Mack's allegations, Phillips

insisted that "lying advertisements never built a permanent

and successful business," and that a strict standard of reliability

must be maintained. Among the minutia of management

details, he also underlined what he considered one of the

greatest factors in the success of modem retailing:

A store large enough to accommodate thousands of shoppers arranged

to serve a purpose. Floor upon floor filled with merchandise, broad

aisles, easy stairways, elevators to do the stair climbing, cash system

for quick and easy change-making, with all the newest ideas in store

mechanism; places to sit,- wait, meet, lunch, talk, and rest; in short

an ideal place to shop in. 50

By century's end the large department stores supported over­

seas purchasing offices in many international cities. Instead of

one store in a major centre, national chains opened branches

in every major city across the country and placed mail-order

outlets in the smaller towns. One commentator even charac­

terized the department stores' engagement with the world

outside as contributing to the country's educational and

cultural value on a level that was "hardly to be estimated."

The retail sector honed managerial skills, stimulated marketing

and promotional expertise - and challenged the creativity of

Canadian architects:

By the architectural excellences of the building housing the larger

undertaking, standards of design and construction are set which have

an incalculable influence on the business architecture and the general

aspect of the town. This is seen in the gradual smartening of exteriors

and more tastefully arranged show windows and interiors, and a more

efficient executive administration. In the end everyone benefits. 5 1

For those who survived the coming of age, it seemed that the

department store was the quintessential symbol of Canada's

new place on the world stage.

1 40 .JssAc I .JsEAc 23:4 ( 1 998)

Endnotes David Monod, Store Wars: Shopkeepers and the Culture of Mass Marketing, 1890-1939 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996) , 27.

2 One of the bes t short summaries , referenced by Monod, who elaborates these issues at some length, is the Report of the Royal Commission on Price Spreads (Ottawa: J.O. Patenaude, 1935) , 204-12.

3 Marshall B. Aylsworth, "Departmental Store Buildings," Canadian Architect & Builder 8 (March 1895) : 48.

4 Jean-Claude Marsan, Montreal in Evolution: Historical Analysis of the Development of Montreal's Architecture and Urban Environment (Montreal: MeGill-Queen's University Press, 1981) , 231, quoting Henry-Russell Hitchcock, Architecture: Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, 2nd ed. (Baltimore: Penguin, 1964), 234; and Winston Weisman, "Philadelphia Functionalism and Sullivan," Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 20 (March 1961): 6. See also "Ante-bellum Skyscraper," Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 9 (October 1950): 25, 27, 28, and "The Jayne Building Again," ibid. , (March 1951): 25.

5 Dominion Illustrated, special number on Montreal (1891).

6 Joseph Clark, pseudo. "Mack," The Barnums of Business (Toronto: Sheppard Publishing, 1897), reprinting weekly articles from Saturday Night 10 (13 February-31 July 1897).

7 W.H.R., "Design in Shop Fronts," Building News (22 April1870): 293-94.

8 Franc;:ois Remillard and Brian Merrett, L'architecture de Montreal: guide des styles et des bdtiments (Montreal: Editions du Meridien, 1990), 64. A slightly earlier example, also by Browne (and later altered), is Frothingham & Workman at 157 rue Saint-Paul ouest; see Josette Michaud, Vieux Montreal: cite marchand (Montreal: Ville de Montreal et Ministere des affaires culturelles, 1983), 7. Also, the Hagar Building at 367-373 Place d'Youville was designed by John Springle in 1855; see Repertoire d'architec­ture traditionnelle sur le territoire de la Communaute Urbaine de Montreal: architecture industrielle (Montreal: Communaute Urbaine de Montreal, 1982), 10-13.

9 For George Browne (1811 -85), see the Archindont Index, Toronto Refer­ence Library (MTRL), Toronto, and Jennifer McKendry, With Our Past Before Us (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1995). For other infor­mation on Browne, see J. Douglas Borthwick, History and Biographical Gazetteer of Montreal to the Year 1892 (Montreal: J. Lovell, 1892) , 259, and Bulletin of the Association for Preservation Technology 2, no. 3-4 (1970): 76-7 (references courtesy of Parks Canada, Ottawa).

10 Guy Pinard, Montreal: son histoire, son architecture (Montreal: Editions du Meridien, 1992) , 5:114-19, and Repertoire d'architecture traditionnelle sur le territoire de la Communaute Urbaine de Montreal: les cinc'mas, les magasins (Montreal: Communaute Urbaine de Montreal, 1985) , 19-22. For a brief biography of Michel Laurent (1833-1891), see Gerard Morisset, L'archi­tecture en Nouvelle-France (Quebec: Collection Champlain, 1949), 133.

11 Renee Losier, Fac;:ades en fonte a Montreal (Montreal: Heritage Montreal, 1986), and "Fac;:ades en fonte a Montreal: aspects technologique et srylistique," MA, Concordia University, 1984 (Ottawa: Bibliothcque nationale du Canada, 1986). See also Andre Giroux, Etudes sur divers biltiments anciens de Montreal, serie Travail inedit n° 370 (Ottawa: Pares Canada, 1973-75), 2:422-26; and Communaute Urbaine de Montreal: architecture industrielle, 133-35. The files of the Ministcre des affaires culturelles, Direction regionale de Montreal, record the usc of metal beams in a structure of 1866-67 at 438-442 Place Jacques-Carrier. For a biography of H.R. lves, sec J. Douglas &mhwick, Montreal: Its History, Biographical Sketches, Photographs of Many of its Prominent Citizens (Mont­real: Drysdale, 1875) , 147. For similar information on Quebec City, see Sylvie Thivierge, "L'architecture commerciale de Quebec, 1860-1915," MA, Universite Laval, 1985 (Ottawa: Bibliothcque nationale du Canada, 1986), and Christina Cameron, Charles Baillarge: Architect & Engineer (Montreal: MeGill-Queen's University Press, 1990). For additional material on lves & Allen, see the Dominion Illustrated specia l number on Montreal (1891): 195; Marsan, Mcmtreal in Evolution, 162-63; and Giroux, Etudes, 2:422-26. For other Canadian examples, see A Sense of Place: Granville Street, Halifax, Nova Scotia (Halifax: Heritage Trust of Nova Scotia, 1970) ; Nancy Patricia Volcsky, "The Exterior Use of Decorative Iron Work in Ottawa Architecture during the Latter Half of the

Nineteenthth Century," MA, Concordia University, 1987 (Ottawa: National Library of Canada, 1988) .

12 For Hutchison (1838-1922), see William Cochrane, ed., The Canadian A lbum: Men of Canada ... (Brantford, Ont.: Bradley, Garretson , 1891-96), 2: 172, and "Mr. A. C. Hutchison , RCA," Canadian Architect & Builder 8 (October 1895): 117. For information on the Quebec economy at this period , see Andre Gosselin, "Histoire economique du Quebec: 1867 -1896," in Economic Quebecoise (Quebec: Les Cahiers de l'Universite du Quebec, 1969), 105-4!.

!3 "LeCours Le Royer: une seconde jeunesse a des batiments du 19e siecle," Habitat 20/21 (1977-78): 20-24; Communaute Urbaine de Montn!al: les magasins, les cinemas , 96-lll , which refers to a contract of 7 June 1873 signed before notary F.J. Durand (minute n° 4331, Archives narionales du Quebec a Montreal [ANQM]). See also contract drawings 5-06-70-SA of the same date, ANQM (reference courtesy of M. Ferron, Communaute Urbainc de Montreal); G uy Pinard, "Les magasins-cntrepots des sceurs hospitalieres," La Presse (Montreal), 5 novembre 1989, D6; Pinard, Montreal, 4:263-72; and Michaud, Vieux Montreal. For Victor Bourgeau (1809-88), see Raymondc Gauthier, "Victor Bourgeau et !'architecture religicuse ct conventuelle dans le diocese de Montreal, 1821-1892," PhD, Universite Lava l, 1983 (Ottawa: Bibliotheque nationale du Canada, 1986), and "Une pratique architecturale au XIXe sicclc- Victor Bourgeau, 1809-1888," ARQ 41 (1987) : 10-23. For very brief biographies of Michel Laurent, Albert Mcsnard , and Henri-Maurice Perrault, see Morisset, !33, !37. See Communaute Urbaine de Montreal: architecture industrielle, 20-21 , for the James McCready factory at 361 d'Youville and the building at 108-110 Saint-Pierre, also by Michel Laurent (1873) and in a similar idiom.

14 Q uote from Inland Architect & News Record 27 (March 1896) : 16. "A Magnificent Structure: The New York Life Building Unsurpassed on the Continent," Gazette (Montreal), 2 January 1889, 5; "Montreal," Canadian Architect & Builder 2 Oanuary 1889) : 9; Dominion Illustrated, special number on Montreal (1891); Lawrence F. Abbott, The Story of NYLIC: A History of the Origin and Dc'Velopment of the New York Life Insurance Company from 1845 to 1929 (New York: The Company, 1930); Madeleine Forge t, Les gratte-ciel de M ontreal (Montrea l: Editions du Mcridicn, 1990), 37-41, quoting Helene Trocme, "Les premiers gratte­cicl ," L'histoire 22 (avril 1980): 16-26; Kelly Crossman, Architecture in Transition: From An to Practice, 1885- 1906 (Kingston , Ont.: McGill­Q ueens University Press, 1987) , 17-19.

15 See "View during the widening of Notre Dame Stree t, Montreal, December, 1890," in The Dominion Illus trated 6, no. !33 (17 January 1891): 56. See also Remillard and Merrett, L'architecture de Montn!al, 146; Communaute Urbaine de Montreal: les magasins, les cinemas, 172-73; and Cochrane, Canadian Album, 2:389.

16 No further additions were undertaken until the post-war boom of 1950 encouraged renewed entrepreneurial optimism. In the end, the enterprise was forced to close its doors in 1978, along with many of its nationally known competitors, all of whom were brought down by unexpected pressures in the Canadian retail market. Sec "The House of Dupuis Frcres ," Canadian Illustrated N ews 16 (10 November 1877) : 291, 301; Paul Trepanier, "Legrand magasinage: une tournce des magasins qui ont fai t les beaux jours des rues commer~antes, " Continuite 42 (hiver 1989) : 36-39 (reference courtesy of Madeleine Forget); Special Committee on Price Spreads and Mass Buying: Proceedings and Evidence (Ottawa: King's Primer, 1934), 3860-6!. For information on the Quebec economy at this period, sec Louis Maheu, "Dcvcloppement economique du Quebec: 1896- 1920," in Economie Quebecoise, 143-59.

17 "Desastreux effondrcment: une partie de !'edifice du Queen's Block s'ecroule," La Presse (Montreal) , 18 septembre 1899, 1; "Bad Collapse: Part of the Queen's Theatre Block Falls ," Gazette (Montreal), 18 Septem­ber 1899, 5; "Scroggie 's New Store," Star (Montreal), 10 September 1900; "Un agrcable magasin," La Patrie (Montreal), 10 September 1900; Saturday Night 28 (14 November 1914) : 19; AI Palmer, "Ourtown: Scroggic's," Gazette (Montreal) 21 April1967. Palmer notes that George, W.H., and Ernest Scroggic were among the members of the family involved in the business (references courtesy of Archives de Ia ville de Montreal) .

18 Saturday N ight 28 (14 November 1914) : 19; Monod, Store Wars, 118.

19 "Annual Review of Trade & Commerce," Montreal Herald (1922) ; George Radwanski, "Mini-Store to Empire in 100 Years," Gazette (Montreal), 8 decembre 1969; Lily Tasso, "La maison Eaton celebre cette annee le centieme anniversaire de sa fondation," La Presse (Montreal), 8 decembre 1969; ''T. Eaton Company," Trace Magazine 1, no. 2 (ApriV May/June 1981) (references courtesy of Archives de Ia ville de Montreal); Elisabeth Naud, "Pour oublier Ia Crise: le 9• chez Eaton," Cap-aux­Diamants 40 (hiver 1995) : 42-44 (reference courtesy of the Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montreal) . See also Isabelle Gournay, "Le res­taurant Eaton," Continuite 42 (hiver 1989) : 20-24 (reference courtesy of Madeleine Forget). Michael Bliss, A Canadian Millionaire: The Life and Times of Sir Joseph Flavelle, Ban., 1858-1939 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1992), 80, points out that neither Morgan's nor Ogilvy's found it worthwhile to launch a mail-order service to serve the Quebec hinterland. In this respect Eaton's and Simpson's had a distinct advantage over their Montreal competitors.

20 "Sermons in Stones: The City's Buildings Preach of the City's Growth," Gazette (Montreal), 17 January 1889, 2.

21 For Henry Morgan (1819-93) , see Henry Morgan & Co. Ltd., "One Hun­dred Years," Henry Morgan & Co. Papers, McGill University Archives, Montreal; and Pinard, Montreal, 5: 440-44.

22 ]. Lovell's Montreal Directory for 1883-84 (Montreal: J. Lovell, 1884) con­tains no reference to Hill. His name appears first in the 1885-86 edition and vanishes again in 1890-9!. His business address was a room at 162 St. James St., and his home was at 17 Drummond St. For an account of the first two years of Hill's career in Montreal, see "Sermons in Stone," Gazette, 2; additional information on the early house commissions from Le Prix Courant, courtesy ofM. Ferron, Communaute Urbaine de Montreal. Hill may also have been awarded the commission for the Methodist train­ing college at Cote Saint-Antoine in 1889; see Canadian Architect & Builder 2 Qanuary 1889): 9. For information on the history of fireproof building, see American Architect & Building News 15 (26 January 1884): 37; ibid., 16 (9 August 1884): 69; and ibid., 17 (11 April1885): 179.

23 Morgan's served Montreal for 120 years before being taken over by the Hudson's Bay Co. in 1972.

24 "The City's Buildings: Annual Report of the Building Inspector during the Past Year," Gazette (Montreal) 15 January 1889, 5; "Montreal," Canadian Architect & Builder 1 Oanuary 1888) : 9; ibid. , 2 Oanuary 1889): 9; and ibid., 2 (March 1889) : 32.

25 "A Dry Goods Palace: Something About the New Colonial House on Phillips Square," Gazette (Montreal) 25 April1891, 2.

26 Joy Santink, Timothy Eaton and the Rise of His Department Store (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1990) , 42 ; Alan Burnham, "Last Look at a Structural Landmark," Architectural Record 120 (September 1956) : 273-79.

2 7 For the influence of American ideas on stores in the province of Quebec, sec Sylvie Thivierge, "Commerce et architecture," Continuite 48 (hiver 1989) : 25-29 (reference courtesy of Madeleine Forget); for the influence in Toronto, see Angela Carr, Toronto Architect Edmund Burke: Redefining Canadian Architecture (Montreal: MeGill-Queen's University Press, 1995), 114-25. The best discussions of the American development have been published by Art Institute of Chicago: John Zukowsky, ed., Chicago Architecture, 1872- 1922 (Munich: Prestel Verlag, 1987-88) ; Carl Condit, The Chicago School of Architecture: A History of Commercial and Public Building in the Chicago Area, 1875- 1925 (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1964) ; Gerald Larson and Roula Geraniotis, "Toward a Better Under­standing of the Iron Skeleton Frame in Chicago," Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 46 (March 1987) : 39-48.

28 Crossman, Architecture in Transition, discusses the problem, particularly in relation to the competition for the Ontario legislative buildings.

29 I am indebted to William Hyndra and The Bay, Montreal, for providing me with a whiteprint of the front eleva tion under the seal of John Pierce Hill, for reproduction in this paper.

30 "From the Old to the New!" and "John Murphy's Block," Montreal Daily Herald, 15 September and 1 December 1894; "Simpson's Reorganizes, C.L. Burton , J.E. Golding on the New Directorate," T oronto Daily Star, 12 March 1925, 14; "Un soixantenaire commercial: l'histoire de Ia

.JSSAC / ..JSE:AC 23:4 (1998) 141

maison R. Simpson s'identifie a celle de Ia Confederation," La Patrie (Montreal), 31 March 1932. "Soixante-cinq ans d'histoire commerciale: The Robert Simpson, Montreal, Ltd.," La Presse (Montreal), 13 octobre 1934, remarks on the fact that Murphy advertised his goods in French in La Presse. "Le nouveau magasin Simpson, une etape dans notre econo­mic," La Presse (Montreal) , 25 septembre 1954; "Present Store Capacity to be Doubled," Montreal Star, 15 November 1954; Madeleine Dubuc, "Simpson's: 110 ans biens sonnes," La Presse (Montreal) , 23 janvier . 1982; Jack Todd, "Writing was on the Wall for the Landmark Store," Gazette (Montreal), 18 January 1983 (references courtesy of Archives de Ia ville de Montreal).

31 Like Dupuis Freres, the final halcyon days were the post-war boom of the 1950s. The end came in 1979, when the market contracted under pressure from international competition. Simpson's itself was absorbed by The Bay (as was Morgan's), and the Montreal flagship store finally closed in 1989. See Report of the Royal Commission on Price Spreads (1935), 207; Cochrane, Canadian Album, 4:352; Pinard, Montreal, 5:448-49; "The T. Eaton & Co.'s Store at Winnipeg," Canadian Architect & Builder 18 Ouly 1905): 112.

32 "James Ogilvy & Sons," The Herald (Montreal), 26 November 1898 (refer­ence courtesy of Archives de Ia ville de Montreal); Communaute Urbaine de Montreal: les magasins, les cinemas, 212-15.

33 For further information on James Angus Ogilvy (1836-1911) and his store, see Pinard, Montreal, 5:449-51 ; "Dean of Montreal Department Store Dies," Saturday Night 24 (13 May 1911): 19; Joshua Wolfe, "Ogilvy," Continuite 42 (hiver 1989): 30-3 1 (reference courtesy of Madeleine Forget) . See also Edgar Andrew Collard, "All O ur Yesterdays: Ogilvy's 119 Years of Montreal Tradition," Gazette (Montreal), 20 July 1985; Walter Poronovich, "Montreal's Changing Face- No. 67: Like Topsy the Store Just Grew," Montreal Star, 19 March 1977; "Fondes 11 ans avant Ia Confederation, les rayons Ogilvy's se sont eleves au rang des plus grands magasins de Montreal," La Presse (Montreal), I octobre 1955 (references courtesy of Archives de Ia ville de Montreal) . It is also worth noting that the department stores assumed leadership in many areas not directly related to commerce, such as culture, which Ogilvy's encouraged with the addition of the "Tudor Hall" in 1928; see "The Ogilvy's Store , Montreal," Construction 22 (May 1929): 165-66, 169 (reference courtesy ofM. Ferron, Communaute Urbaine de Montreal); Claude Gingras, "Musique," La Presse (Montreal), 11 novembre 1986 (reference courtesy of Archives de Ia ville de Montreal). These were not the only department stores in Montreal, only the largest and longest surviving; see "Les grands magasins a departements," La Presse (Montreal), 11 decembre 1900, 1, 20, reprinted 15 decembre 1985 (latter reference courtesy of Archives de Ia ville de Montreal). Other important examples in Quebec City have been documented in Trepanier, "Legrand magasinage," 36-39 (reference courtesy of Madeleine Forget), and Aylne LeBel, "Une vitrine populaire: les grands magasins Paquet," Cap-aux-Diamants 4 (ete 1988): 45-48.

34 This subject has been treated in detail by Gunter Gad and Deryck Holdsworth in "Large Office Buildings and Their Changing Occupancy: King Street, Toronto, 1800-1850," SSAC Bulletin 10 (December 1985): 19-26; "Looking Inside the Skyscraper: Size and Occupancy of Toronto Office Buildings, 1890-1950," Urban History Review 16 (October 1987): 176-231; and "Building for City, Region, and Nation: Office Develop­ment in Toronto, 1834-1984," in Forging a Consensus: Essays on Historical Toronto, ed. V.L. Russell (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1984), 272-319.

35 Santink, Timothy Eaton, 58-138; Edith MacDonald, pseud. "The Scribe," Golden jubilee, 1869-1919: A Book to Commemorate the Fiftieth Anniversary of the T. Eaton Co. Limited (Toronto and Winnipeg: T. Eaton & Co., 1919); Harold Kalman, "Big Stores on Main Street," Canadian Heritage 11 (February/March 1985) : 19-23.

36 "Ontario Association of Architects," Canadian Architect & Builder 7 (February 1894): 29-32. For the Central Chambers and John James Browne, see Royden Moran, "The Central Chambers, 38-54 Elgin Street, Ottawa, Ontario," paper prepared for a course on Canadian architecture at Carleton University, Ottawa, 1980; and Fred Dickinson, "Central Chambers , 46 Elgin Street, Ottawa: An Architectural Report," paper prepared for a course on Architectural technology at Algonquin College, Ottawa, 1975 (references courtesy of the National Capital Commission, Ottawa). J.J. Browne's idea was based on Liverpool's Orie l Chambers;

1 42 .JSSAC I .JsE:AC 23:4 ( 1 998)

see Geoffrey Woodward, "History: Oriel Chambers," Architectural Review 119 (May 1956): 268-69. Browne is credited with no fewer than fourteen warehouses and a significant number of commercial buildings; sec Borthwick, Montreal: Its History, 50; History and Biographical Gazetteer of M ontreal (Montreal: J. Lovell, 1892), 455-56; Montreal Illustrated, 1894 (Montreal: Consolidated Illustrating, 1894), 348; Canadian Architect & Builder 5 (August 1893); and Edgar Andrew Collard, "Two Architects of O ld Montreal" and "Houses, Churches, Stores and Fire Stations," Gazette (Montreal), 18 July and I August 1959, respectively (references courtesy of Don Boisvenue, Parks Canada, Ottawa).

3 7 Departmental Stores: The Modem Curse to Labor and Capital. They Ruin Cities, Towns, Villages and the Farming Community (Toronto: s.n., 1897).

38 "Around Town," Saturday Night 10 (13 February 1897): I.

39 Mack, "Around Town," Saturday Night 10 (20 February 1897): I.

40 Clark, Bamums of Business, 14. For identification of Clark as "Mack," see Hector Charlesworth, "About Joe Clark," Saturday Night 52 (31 July 1937): 1, 5.

41 Mack, "Departmental Stores," Saturday Night 10 (27 February 1897): 3.

42 Ibid.

43 Mack, "Departmental Stores," Saturday Night 10 (6 March 1897): 7; ibid. (13 March 1897): 3; ibid. (20 March 1897): 3; ibid. (27 March 1897): 3; ibid. (3 April 1897): 3; "The Barnums of Business," Saturday Night 10 (10 Aprill897): 3.

44 Clark, Bamums of Business, 63. For more information on how departmen­tals affected consumption practices, see Michelle Comeau, "Les grands magasins de Ia rue Sainte-Catherine a Montreal: des lieux de monderni­sation, d'homogeneisation et de differenciation des modes consommation," M aterial History Review 41 (spring 1995): 58-68.

45 Mack, "Departmental Stores" and "The Bamums of Business," Saturday Night 10 (3,10, 17 Aprill897): all at p. 3; and Santink, Timothy Eaton, 71-81.

46 Mack, "The Barnums of Business," Saturday Night 10 (10 Aprill897): 3.

47 Earnest E. Leigh, "The Departmental," Saturday Night 10 (27 March 1897): 3.

48 G., "No More Room- He Hogged It," Saturday Night 10 (3 April 1897): 3.

49 "Departmental Store: Four-Storey to be Reared on the Clemow Lot," and "Second to None: New Lindsay Department Store Finest in Canada," Citizen (Ottawa), 13 June and 1 December 1904, 9 and 10 respectively; Gregory P. Utas, "The Daly Building, Ottawa, Ontario," Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada, Agenda Paper 1979-05; Heritage Renfrew, Faces and Facades: The Renfrew Architecture of Edey and Noffke (Renfrew: Juniper Books, 1988) , 5-9 (references courtesy of Don Boisvenue, Parks Canada, Ottawa); Harold Kalman and John Roaf, Exploring Ottawa (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1983), B3; Peter Hessel, From Ottawa with Love: Glimpses of Canada's Capital through Early Picture Post Cards (Ottawa: National Capital Commission, 1979), 68-69. For the demise of the structure after failed restoration by the National Capital Commission, see Jack Aubry, "Daly Building to be Saved," Citizen (Ottawa), 21 August 1990; Jack Aubry, "Cash-Poor Governments Link Arms with the Developers," ibid., 17 September 1990; Ron Eadc, "Daly Building Demolition Looms," ibid., 5 October 1991 ; and Michael Prentice, "The Daly Building Demolition: Jacques Greber Would be Pleased," ibid., 16 October 1991.

50 W.B. Phillips, How Department Stores A re Carried On (Toronto?: s.n., 1900), 7-9, 12, 17, 26.

51 "Department Store Growth in Canada," Construction 21 (December 1928): 401-406, 423.

I wish to acknowledge with thanks the advice of Isabelle Gournay, University of Maryland; Madeleine Forget, Ministere des affaircs culturelles, Direc tion regionale de Montreal; Louis Alain Ferron, Communaute Urbaine de Montreal; Susan Bronson, architecte, Montreal; Don Boisvenue and Colin Old, Parks Canada; and the staff of the Archives de Ia ville de Montreal and of the Canadian Centre for Architecture in Montreal.

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