1916 – Transportation Building, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

Sited across the street from Union Station, now the Senate of Canada Building, and was thus named the Transportation Building. When fire destroyed Ottawa’s city hall in 1931 the building became Ottawa’s temporary city hall. Originally the city only occupied part of the building, but eventually it took over the entire structure. The city left for a new city hall on Green Island in 1958. Now federal offices.

“The design, which introduces a Gothic motif of simple form in the two facades, exhibits the vertical feeling characteristic of the modern tendency in buildings for this purpose, and is expressed in soft grey terra cotta with brick panels of a similar shade for portions of the front between the second and sixtli storeys. Rising from a polished granite base, the piers are carried up to the top of the first floor and are linked together with arches over which a diapered band is carried round the two street fronts, forming a base for the pier above. At the level of the sixth floor another band is introduced ornamented with medallions, which forms a sill course for windows designed with elliptic heads in the upper storey. Above this is a cornice formed of a series of pendentives with perforate
“The steel work for the superstructure was started in the middle of March, 1916, and was completely up four weeks later. As the steel work progressed, the concrete floor slabs were laid and the other trades were organized to follow in order; the entire structure being enclosed and roofed by the first of June and ready for occupancy two months later, following the completion of a portion of the interior for the Imperial Munitions Board, who desired possession earlier than the completion date.”
Construction, October 1917

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