1910 – First Presbyterian Church, Montreal

Designed by Alexander Cowper Hutchison (1838-1922) of Hutchinson, Wood, & Miller. Now St. John’s Lutheran Church.

“Montreal has been called “the City of Churches,” not only from the number, but also on account of the chaste and dignified character of their architectural treatment. It has been held, and rightly so, that no significant success in church building is to be expected unless the style employed be regarded, understood and developed as a living one. If the designer is broad enough to comprehend the spiritual import and can implant these ideals into the material, then his work will live beyond the lifetime of its author. The mistake is so often made of growing indifferent to the problem at hand because one’s efforts are not to be centred on a large edifice. Such a position should never be taken when it is realized that many of the world’s choicest gems in art are small — structures cut pure in style and harmonious in proportion.

The Presbyterian Church located at the corner of Prince Arthur and Mance streets reveals a rugged but ornate facade, noted chiefly for its simplicity of style. The exterior is faced with mixed blue and green sandstone, cut rock face, and trimmed with the same material tooled. The roofing is of slate.

The building is designed to hold approximately eight hundred and fifty in the auditorium, and one hundred in the gallery over the vestibule, and possible future accommodation of two hundred additional by side galleries in the transepts. The Sunday school quarters are entirely at the rear of the building, being an auditorium with gallery on three sides, accommodating about six hundred. This is lighted partly from the side and partly from a skylight over the centre of the auditorium. The main school is surrounded by church parlors and other necessary rooms.

The interior is symmetrical in treatment with the auditorium, so designed that there is an unobstructed view from any sitting in the church of the whole of the platform, placed in the front of the chancel, the organ taking up the remaining space. The artificial lighting comes from ten fixtures suspended from brackets, each one containing eight candle lights. In addition there are side brackets of similar design. The walls are of sand-finished plaster, stained a deep green, which harmonizes with the dark brown finish given to the chestnut pews and woodwork used throughout. The ceiling plaster is gray, and the glass in simple amber quarries.”
Construction, February 1915

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