Paris
Many buildings from this era suffer from an excess
of ornament, but the more beautiful buildings done in this style
are truly magnificent. The Opera House in Paris by Garnier is
a good example. It is a huge building with an extravagant and
avant guard floor plan. Each wing of the building is calculated
to give maximum visual impact and to create a sense of occasion
both inside and out.
This is the kind of architecture that inspired
the Beaux Arts style in Canada. IN France it is known as the
style of Napoleon III.
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Paris Opera House
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Beaux
Arts Banks
In the late 19th century, banks as institutions
accessable to the common person had not been around for
very long. There had always been money lenders, but the
bank as we know it today did not exist. There were a few
banks around in the first half of the 19th century, and
only 28 banks in Canada by the time of confederation. In
Ontario, the great influx of people and the overnight success
of some of the more successful lead to the need for some
secure place to store wealth. In addition, the housing and
business booms lead less wealthy people to want to borrow
money in unprecedented numbers. Banking institutions did
not have a great reputation either in Europe or in North
America, as can be seen in the many 'bank robbery' western
movies. The turn-of-the-century bank needed to look secure.
|
|
The Beaux Arts style was meant to indicate that
the patron or owner of the building was both wealthy and
educated. The strong classical roots, indicating empire
and stability of government was brought into a whole new
sphere of elegant opulence by the generous use of oversized
classical motifs intermingled in ways that bore no resemblance
to the Greek or Roman origins. Huge columns, oversized cornices,
and lush ornament lead the client to believe that any monetary
transactions would be safe and secure. These enormous and
imposing buildings were implying integrity and confidence.
Large towns had solid stone banks. Smaller towns had brick
banks with stone accents when stone was not readily available.
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|
Perth
A square building with
the entrance on a cutoff corner and a multiplicity of Classical
detailing is an obvious Beaux Arts building. This bank in Perth,
built in 1903 by Darling and Pearson, is typical of this pattern
of Beaux Arts banks. On the street façades
are temple fronts with pediments,
architraves, dentils,
and engaged pilasters.
Unlike the Classical
Revival style, the Beaux Arts style makes no pretensions
to accuracy of detailing. Instead, it is an eclectic mixture
of Classical and Renaissance details.
Along with the temple front are half-round windows with keystones,
and above the pediments are corner
buttresses. The windows
on the upper floor have pediments, and within the tympanum
of the large pediments are roundels.
The building is created in a mixture of red and yellow brick
with rough cut stone on the base for rustication.
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Perth Ontario
|
Brantford
Like the bank in Perth above, this is another
corner bank in Brantford that is of the oversized Classical
mixture style. Here we have giant order, fluted,
Ionic pilasters along the sides
with giant order engaged columns
on the corner front. Above these are a continuous architrave
and frieze with a large cornice
and dentil blocks.
On the attic level is a series of windows with
alternating triangular and Florentine pediments
in the Renaissance style. The
parapet on the corner door has a small
ziggurat pattern. This mixture of
Renaissance and Classical elements
is standard for Beaux Arts style buildings.
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Brantford Ontario
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Norwich
In many parts of Western Ontario the local brick
is a lovely yello or orange colour. Here in Norwich the Bank
of Montreal sports a local brick with an impressive set of engaged
stone pilasters. The three round headed arches on the first
floor are Diocletian arches.
This building faces the street, but it is in stark
contrast to the rest of the Victorian streetscape.
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Norwich Ontario
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Galt
Galt has many fine stone buildings. This Beaux
Arts Bank is similar in design to the one in Norwich, but is
built with stone.
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Galt Ontario
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Hamilton
The Bank of Montreal in Hamilton is much larger
but is basically the same design as the two above.
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Hamilton Ontario
|
Griffin Hamilton
Beaux Arts is difficult to distinguish from Art
Deco because both styles are generally for large buildings and
both are often constructed in stone. The detailing on Beaux
Arts will be Classical. Art Deco detailing will not be something
that you can recognise from either the Greek or Roman time periods.
Here the Griffin design on the Bank of Montreal
building, first appearing in Mesopotamia, is a design often
copied in Renaissance and baroque periods.
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Hamilton Ontario
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Thunder
Bay
If Gothic was the vocabulary
for educational institutes, Classical was the vocabulary for
banks. This CIBC in Thunder Bay has four massive Doric
columns with large abacuses
and prominent fluting. There are an
unusually high frieze with windows,
a large cornice, and an attic floor
with stylized triglyphs and guttae.
The inspiration shows the relatively unadorned surfaces of Greek
architecture as opposed to the more ornate Roman.
The pedimented doorway
between the central two columns has
discrete engaged pilasters and a
very simple architrave. The Classical
elements are monumental and imposing giving the impression of
solidity and mass that is most appropriate in a bank.
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Thunder Bay Ontario
|
Thunder Bay
This bank building designed in 1913 is constructed
of local lime stone. In contrast to the extravagant Beaux Arts
buildings above, this represents a movement towards "Modern
Classicism". Instead of the frantic mixture of Classical
and Renaissance detailing,
the elements have been reduced to bare essentials.
An exaggerated Renaissance
style cornice separates the attic
floor from the monumental arcaded
façades of the first floor.
The windows are divided by unadorned paired pilasters.
The half-round windows have simple keystones.
Spandrel panels between the upper and lower halves
of the windows show restrained detailing that suggests Art
Deco influence. This is repeated on the front door where
the broken pediment and keystoned
crest containing the date have a decidedly
stylized look. All the Classical elements are here but they
are used in a more subdued and understatedly elegant manner.
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Thunder Bay Ontario

Front Door Detail
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Toronto
This is a less colourful, but much better known,
building than the Perth example above. Like it, the entrance
is on a cutoff corner and there are two temple fronts facing
the street. There is much more ornament and decorative flourishing
such as the volutes over the second
storey window, the extravagant doorway,
and the carved architrave. The
pilasters supporting the pediments
have ornate capitals as well as crests
and garlands.
This Bank of Montreal building was built in 1885
by Darling and Curry. It is now the Hockey Hall of Fame.
|
Toronto Ontario
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Aedicule
An aedicule is a Calssical Door Surround using
pilasters, a pediment, and an entablature. This is found on
the south elevation of the Bank of Montreal building.
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Toronto Ontario
|
Toronto - Balusrtade
Over the entrance, on the corner of the building,there
is an attic story crowned by a balustrade. A small edicule stands
in the center. It is flanked by scrolls and has a 'rococo' shell
in the tympanum.
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Toronto Ontario
|
Toronto - Pediment
The pediment is in the Baroque style with a broken
eliptical arch, a triangulated pediment rsing through the center,
and adroned by scrolls. There is both dentil and egg and dart
molding. The crest in the center is the Bank of Montreal crest.
Two First Nations people relax beside a sheild
which has a beaver, and elm branch which are native to Ontario,
the rose and clovers which symbolize British influence and the
French Fleurs De Lis. The words: Concordia Salus, latin for
"Well-being through harmony", means control over natural
resources by commerce.
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Toronto Ontario
|
Toronto - Entrance
The entrance has a coffered barrel vault, with
branches in the spandrel panels. There is a keystone and band
with another rococo shell within the frieze.
The engaged pilasters have stylized Ionic columns,
fluting that extend from the capital to the spring line of the
arch.
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Toronto Ontario
|
Bank Bathurst and College
Beaux Arts banks can be found in many parts of
Toronto. This oversized soffit is on a bank at Bathurst and
College Streets. The soffits are coffered and under these is
a frieze of egg and dart. Scrolls with margents flank the window.
|

Toronto Ontario
|
Bank Bathurst and College
Obviously this building needs a bit of work, but
it is interesting to see how the building was put together.
The egg and dart is wonderful as is the beading and the fluting
on the column.
|

Toronto Ontario
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Vitruvian Scroll
Above the door on the College Street entrance
is a Vitruvian Scroll.
|
Toronto Ontario
|
Reed and Ribbon
The door has a round headed arch. There are radiating
palm leaves surrounded by a reed and ribbon design.
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Toronto Ontario
|
DowntownToronto
Further downtown is an old Bank of Montreal that
has a similar door design. Instead of reed and ribbon this is
husk and ribbon.
|
Toronto Ontario
|
Toronto
The Canada Life Assurance Company was one of the
first Beaux Arts buildings on University Avenue. Insurqance
companies grew along with banks in Ontario. Finished in 1931
it was a precursor to the Great Depression, so did not have
much company on the street for a few years.
There are huge scroll consoles with triglyphs
and guttae on either side of the main door. The Florentine pediment
has an oversized keystone.
The Doric style columns start on the second floor.
The facade is achromatic and elegant.
|

Toronto Ontario
|
Toronto
The side door has a cast iron lintel with a central
acroterion. The walls are banded ashlar. The keystone is oversized
and ornate.
|
Toronto Ontario
|
Toronto
Next door is another Beaux Arts building that
has the classical bucrane as a decoration on the architrave.
The capitals are a mixture of palm leaves (on
the top) and acanthus on the bottom. Typical of the Beaux Arts
style is the mixing of various unrelated classical motifs on
the same facade. Palm capitals are more Egyptian in origin while
acanthus are more Greek and Roman.
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Toronto Ontario
|
Ottawa
In Ottawa you have a wonderful use of metopes
in their traditional use as 'signage' of what the building represents.
The metope on the left is mining and industry. In the middle
is trade and travel and on the right is a balancing of funds.
|
Ottawa Ontario
|
Ottawa
This cornice has block modillions and dentils.
The circles on the columns lead to Art Deco which
was just becoming popular at this time. Underneath is a decorative
Greek Key design.
|
Ottawa Ontario
|
Ottawa
Here is an agraffe.
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Ottawa Ontario
|
Bucrane Toronto
The bucrane is either an ox or a ram's head found
on Doric metopes. Often the head is adorned, as it is here,
with a husk - bell-flowers in a link. There are also ribbons
completing the symbol of opulence and plenty.
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Toronto Ontario
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Beaux
Arts Libraries
Public libraries were few and far between in
the 19th century, and indeed in any century prior to the
20th century. ) There was a lending library in York (Toronto)
in 1810, but it was not open to the general public. There
were a few libraries supported by the Mechanics Institute
by 1830, but it was for members only. The Mechanics Institute
ran most of the libraries in Ontario. A few private lending
libraries run by people with large estates and an interest
in the growing movement towards education, could be found
in the larger towns and cities, but the publicly funded
library was considered a necessity until the Free Library
Act was passed in 1884 making the library an established
institution. The restrictions by wealth, class and gender
on literacy since time immemorial was lifted and anyone
could apply for a library card.
(A wonderful vignette on the issuance of library
cards can be found in the new Laurence Hill book The
Illegal). .
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|
Mechanics Institutes were renamed libraries
in 1895.
Once the idea of the library was started, then
the money to build and fill the libraries, as well as to
provide staff, became an issue.
Andrew Carnegie, a Scottish-American industrialist
and philanthropist established 3000 libraries in America,
Canada, Britain and other English speaking countries between
1880 and 1920. 111 of those were built in Ontario, most
of them in the Beaux Arts style.
The Beaux Arts style was a perfect choice for
this new type of building. There has always been great reverence
for reading and literature. The grand style of the Beaux
Arts complimented this attitude.
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|
Carnegie
Dundas
by architect Alfred Hirschfelder Chapman
John Lyle studied first in the Hamilton School
of Art, then at Yale University and finally the Ecole des Beaux
Arts in Paris. He settled in Toronto and dedicated the best
part of his career to making Toronto beautiful not just through
buildings but also through boulevards, squares and other niceties
that enhance the visual landscape.
|
Dundas Ontario
|
Public
Library Ayr
The Public Library in Ayr is a Carnegie Librarry
as well. Designed by architect William Edward Binning, it was
opened in 1911.
Notice that the massing of the building is very
similar to that of the Galt Bank above.
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Ayr Ontario
|
Brantford
Here is a somewhat different adaptation of Beaux
Arts Classicism on a public building; this time it is the Brantford
Public Library.
Atop the impressive flight of stairs
is a temple-front with four Ionic columns,
an entablature announcing the
purpose of the building, a pediment
with dentiled cornices, a brick tympanum,
and an anthemion - a Greek palmette
ornament used at the peak of pediments. This temple-front lies
in front of a Renaissance styled
façade with a heavy cornice
and pedimented windows. The center of the plan has a large dome
with clerestory lighting. Altogether
an impressive place for books.
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Brantford Ontario
|
Beaux
Arts Train Stations
Train stations, like banks, had no traditional
precedent. While there had been steam powered railways in
Britain since the early 1700s, the early efforts of Ontario
travellers were more concerned with waterways. By 1850 many
rail systems across Canada had started up and were thriving.
Most of these were carrying goods, not passengers. Confederation
in 1867 was the final push that lead to the rail service
being available across the country. Shortly thereafter,
passenger trains to hold in earnest and travel from one
spot to another revolutionised the social life of Canada.
|
|
Temple Meads station in Bristol England, designed
by I.K. Brunel and built in the first half of the 19th century
in England is in the shape of a castle. Paddington station
has Venetian elements. While train travel was a modern,
revolutionary, even life altering technology, designers
were able to embrace the new technology but looked to historic
buildings as their inspiration.
The Beaux Arts style offers both the recognised
historic precedents and the image of grandure and opulence,
excitement and urban life.
|
|
Union
Station Toronto
Union Station is
possibly the most well known building designed by architect
John Lyle. That he was completely engrossed in the style can
be seen by the fact that his place of work was called an Atelier.
John Lyle studied first in the Hamilton School
of Art, then at Yale University and finally the Ecole des Beaux
Arts in Paris. He settled in Toronto and dedicated the best
part of his career to making Toronto beautiful not just through
buildings but also through boulevards, squares and other niceties
that enhance the visual landscape.
|
Toronto Ontario
|
Union Station Toronto
Tuscan Order columns line the front of the Union
Staion in Toronto. The station is fashioned after the Baths
of Caracalla in Rome. Tuscan was a Roman order, one of the original
Classical orders of architecture.
Under the upper cornice you find dentils. The
lower cornice has egg and dart. There are wreaths along the
frieze indicating wealth and opulence. The Greek key design
is found elsewhere in Toronto.
|
Toronto Ontario
|
Toronto
One door in Union station has a huge coffered
barrel vault with a cartouched keystone. The windows above the
door and the mouldings around the galss doors are all polished
brass.
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Toronto Ontario
|
Ottawa
1912
There is a fabulous Beaux Arts train station downtown
Ottawa It was meant to be a central train station situated across
for the Chateau Laurier hotel and a very short walk to the downtown
core.
It functioned in that capacity for many years,
then in the 1970s it was decided that there was no more need
for trains downtown. The Ottawa train station is now far outside
the downtown core, and a bus must be taken from the station
to the downtown core. This beautiful building is now a conference
center.
|
Ottawa Ontario
|
Ottawa 1912
The center is an easy walk to the park. The colonade
on the south side of the building, opens onto the river and
the park.
|
Ottawa Ontario
|
Ottawa 1912
The Ottawa Government Conference center is much
simpler than the Toronto Union Station. The cornice has a simple
attic storey above. The columns are Doric order, but not strictly
adhering to the Classical model. There are dentils under the
cornice.
|
Ottawa Ontario
|
Dominion Public Building
ASlo on Front street
|
Toronto Ontario
|
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|
Beaux
Arts Theatres and Commercial Buildings
In the late 19th century, banks as institutions
accessable to the common person had not been around for
very long. There had always been money lenders, but the
bank as we know it today did not exist. In Ontario, the
great influx of people and the overnight success of some
of the more successful lead to the need for some secure
place to store wealth. In addition, the housing and business
booms lead less wealthy people to want to borrow money in
unprecedented numbers. Banking institutions did not have
a great reputation either in Europe or in North America,
as can be seen in the many 'bank robbery' western movies.
The turn-of-the-century bank nee4ded to look secure.
|
|
The Beaux Arts style was meant to indicate that
the patron or owner of the building was both wealthy and
educated. The strong classical roots, indicating empire
and stability of government was brought into a whole new
sphere of elegant opulence by the generous use of oversized
classical motifs intermingled in ways that bore no resemblance
to the Greek or Roman origins. Huge columns, oversized cornices,
and lush ornament lead the client to believe that any monetary
transactions would be safe and secure. Large towns had solid
stone banks. Smaller towns had brick banks with stone accents
when stone was not readily available.
|
|
Royal
Alexandra
Not far from his very famous
Union Station, John Lyle designed the Royal Alexandra Theatre
in 1907
Like many Beaux Arts buildings, you can see that
it is an extension of the Second Empire style.
|
Royal Alexandra, Toronto Ontario
|
Royal Alexandra
The theatre is named after the grandmother of
Edward VII, of the Edwardian style of architecture. It was granted
the royal designation by King Edward and is now. This is the
sole remaining theatre in North America with the royal designation.
|
Royal Alexandra, Toronto Ontario
|
Dominion Public Building Toronto
Here is a another different adaptation of Beaux
Arts Classicism on a public building. Here we have a Renaissance
first story with crossettes and exaggerated Edwardian keystones.
Atop this is a giant order of colmns spanning three floors,
something not found in either Renaissance or Classical architecture.
There is a large cornice, like those in the above
buildings, that undulates back from the hexastyle (six columns)
quasi-temple front. The style is remeniscent of the banks found
in Hamilton, Galt and Thunder bay with the pediment and attice
being somewhat merged together.
|

Toronto Ontario
|
Ottawa
Like the Dominion building above, this building
in Ottawa has second storey giant order engaged pilasters and
an undulating attic above the cornice.
|
Ottawa Ontario
|
|
|
Beaux
Arts Civic Buildings and Schools
Train stations, like banks, had no traditional
precedent. While there had been steam powered railways in
Britain since the early 1700s, the early efforts of Ontario
travellers were more concerned with waterways. By 1850 many
rail systems across Canada had started up and were thriving.
Most of these were carrying goods, not passengers. Confederation
in 1867 was the final push that lead to the rail service
being available across the country. Shortly thereafter,
passenger trains to hold in earnest and travel from one
spot to another revolutionised the social life of Canada.
|
|
Temple Meads station in Bristol England, designed
by I.K. Brunel and built in the first half of the 19th century
in England is in the shape of a castle. Paddington station
has Venetian elements. While train travel was a modern,
revolutionary, even life altering technology, designers
were able to embrace the new technology but looked to historic
buildings as their inspiration.
The Beaux Arts style offers both the recognised
historic precedents and the image of grandure and opulence,
excitement and urban life.
|
|
Toronto
Power -Generating Station --Niagara
Falls
This is one of the most
spectacular Beaux Arts buildings in the province, enhanced by
it's incredible location beside the waters of Niagara Falls.
There is a rotunda with radiating Ionic columnd, a huge cornice
with mutules, and wonderful scrolled ornaments on the attic
level remeniscent of Cathedral of Santa Maria della Salute in
Venice. The architect, E.J. Lennox, must have had a grand time
designing it.
|
Niagara Falls Ontario
|
Niagara Falls
The main
doorway has a hexastyle temple front.
|
Niagara Falls Ontario
|
Niagara Falls
Note the
huge dentil blocks and the massive columns over an aediculed
window.
|
Niagara Falls Ontario
|
Sault
Ste. Marie
Sault
Ste. Marie's Courthouse is another example of a civic building
that is created in the Beaux Arts Classicism style. Instead
of stone block the material is brick with stone detailing. Again
we see an eclectic mixture of Classical and Renaissance
details. From the Classical are four engaged
Ionic columns under a pediment
. The columns are only half the height of the façade
and are part of a frontispiece .
Like the Renaissance palazzi, the
first floor is rusticated and
the windows create a regularized pattern.
|
Sault Ste. Marie Ontario
|
Thunder Bay
At first glance this looks like a Neo-Gothic
school because of the street level which is composed of a four-centered
arch opening, spandrels and buttresses.
But this base supports a monumental Classical Composite
order frontispiece with an exaggerated
cornice and elliptical lunette.
The cornice is ornamented with egg-and-dart
molding.
The side piers have Baroque
brackets and above the cornice band is a pediment
design completely split into two parts. The building has
permanence and presence, but the detailing is wonderfully wild.
|
Thunder Bay Ontario
|
Hamilton
At first this bank in Hamilton looks almost as
if it could be a Classical Revival. the temple front is convincing
until you see that there are four columns and two pillars making
up the front. All have Corinthian capitals, but the columns
are fluted while the pillars are not.
|
Hamilton Ontario
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Beaux Arts Extra
Reading and Films
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