1917 – Paris Building, Portage Avenue, Winnipeg, Manitoba

A stunning building on Portage Avenue, the Paris building is dramatically floodlit at night to accentuate its metal decoration. Constructed in two stages for the Paris Canadian Investment Company, a group of French resident investors.

On Winnipeg’s principal thoroughfare, almost opposite the General Post Office on Portage Avenue, and just South of the junction oi” Portage Avenue and Main Street, there has been erected a magnificent $200,000 reinforced concrete building which has been named the “Paris Building.”
The general contractors, Carter-Halls-Aldinger, Ltd-, have erected a five storey building 88 feet wide by 130 feet deep, but the building is designed for a future ten storey building with a 125 lb. live load on the ground and second floors and 65 lb. live load on the remaining floors.
Engineering and Contract Record, February 9 1916

The building is a total contrast with many of the warehouses in the nearby Exchange District with its lack of heavy masonry walls. Unlike the Lindsay building by the same architects, the Paris Building seems much lighter because of the amount of reflective glass and metal panels which catch the light. The building is beautifully decorated especially on the top floor where the paired windows end with a metal panel under the projecting cornice.

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