1912 – McGill Building, Montreal, Canada

Divided into the classical tripartite column arrangement with a decorative base, the shaft of repetitive floors, and more ornate top floors and cornice. This was the architect Robert Ernest Bostrom’s most important work, a ten storey steel frame landmark clad entirely in white matte glazed terra cotta. This building was among the first ‘Chicago style’ skyscrapers to be built in Montreal, and Bostrom used his knowledge which he had gained with Holabird & Roche to complete the building. This building was built after the municipal bill of 1901 which was in force until 1923, that limited commercial skyscraper’s height at 10 floors or 130 feet. Later extended by a floor and the massive overhanging cornice removed.

“THE McGill street Building, Montreal, illustrated in this issue, is a commercial building of the better class, being devoted entirely to offices. It occupies a small plot of ground 7,000 feet area, facing three streets and giving an excellent opportunity of utilizing on the typical floors .1 maximum amount of space; approximately 5,000 square feet for each floor. As will be seen from the plans, the elevators are located in the centre of the rear portion of the building opposite a general entrance which allows on the typical floors the shortest amount of corridor space to reach the various offices.

The building is constructed with a steel frame fireproofed with terra cotta. The exterior has a base course of polished pink granite and walls of brick faced with matt-glazed white tile; The spandrels from 4th to 9th floors treated in a bronze-green color terra cotta. The five-foot cornice is of copper; the spandrels at the 2nd floor level and the frames at the 1st and 2nd floor windows being of east iron painted dark green.

The corridor of the second storey is floored and wainscoted with marble; elevator fronts designed in wrought iron and glass ; typical corridors floored in marble, while the elevator shafts and stairways are cut off from each floor by fireproofed partitions and doors with wired glass. The heating system of the building is a one pipe gravity system. Accommodations have been arranged on the tenth floor of the building for the National Club of Montreal, one of the popular lunching clubs of the city.”
Construction, July 1915

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