1914 – Yorkshire / Seymour Building, Vancouver, Canada

Built between 1912 and 1920, with construction delays caused by the First World War, the Yorkshire Guarantee and Securities Corporation Ltd Building, later known as the Seymour Building, is still in use today. The fine muscular terra cotta details are carried out in a Gothic style.

“The Yorkshire Building, Vancouver’s newest office block, is located on a site on Seymour street, between Pender and Dunsmuir, chosen with a view to providing the various offices with plenty of light, there being an unobstructed space on all sides. This structure is ten storeys in height and has a frontage of 50 feet and a depth of 120 feet. The construction is reinforced concrete, with pressed brick for the side walls and white glazed terra cotta for the front elevation, the design being carried out very successfully in an imposing Gothic style. The foundations on the street frontage are of granite, extending to a height of about three feet above the level of the sidewalk. The main entrance lobby, twenty feet in height, is decorated from floor to ceiling in terra cotta, the detail around the top being heightened with gold leaf treatment which provides a most attractive contrast. The flooring of this space is in marble, as is also the flooring of the elevator hall, the walls of which are finished in Rubio “G” marble. All corridors are wainscotted to a height of three feet with glazed tile and floored in terrazzo. The corridors are well lighted, this being due to the fact that above the wainscotting the walls are composed almost entirely of glass. The ground floor has been fitted up for carrying on a general banking and trust business, and will be occupied by the Yorkshire Guarantee and Securities Corporation, Limited, and the Yorkshire Insurance Company, Limited, the joint owners of the building.

The floors of the banking rooms are finislied in terrazzo with marble baseboards, and the counters and office partitions are to be of selected oak, this wood being used as interior finish throughout the building. A commodious private office for the assistant manager and the staf¥ has been provided on this floor in addition to a reinforced concrete vault. The manager’s office, situated on the mezzanine floor, is panelled from floor to ceiling in oak, and immediately adjoining there is a large room finished in the same style for the use of the directors. A feature in the construction is that the building has been left without partitions on seven of the upper floors, excepting in the corridors, this arrangement enabling tenants to suit their own requirements. The floors of all offices are covered with cork linoleum. The typical floor contains eleven single offices, and a suit at the rear comprising five offices. The toilets throughout the building are excellently lighted and ventilated, and are fitted with white porcelain basins. The walls are of white ceramic tiles. The Webster vacuum system of heating has been installed. All electrical work is laid in fireproof conduits.

Messrs. Somervel & Putnam, Vancouver, designed the building, and the work of construction is being carried out by the Dominion Construction Company, also a local firm. The cost complete is estimated at approximately $300,000.”
Engineering and Contract Record, March 4 1914

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