CORNWALL RESPECTS ITS ARCHITECTURAL HERITAGE

Most people are going to disagree with me about this, but if you take time to see that there are well over 100 historic buildings that are still standing, you will see that it is a fallacy to say that Cornwall has destroyed its architectural heritage. While it is true that some significant buildings have been lost due to demolition, or willful alteration or demolition, such as the Capitol Theatre, most of the loss has been due to fire.

The belief that Cornwall has destroyed much of its built heritage stems for three facts. The first is due to the pseudo-academic notion that a building must be at least 100 years old to have heritage significance; second people often believe a building has to have belonged a prominent person or have religious or government connections and third, people generally don’t know how to date old buildings.

This article will help attempt to remedy this deficit by identifying and providing approximate dates for past architectural styles. If all else fails helping you identify a building’s date, look for the historian’s favourite clue, a head or cornerstone! Finally, this list of styles is far from complete.

ART DECO. The style was popular throughout the 1930s and can be identified by its sleek, bold geometric lines, the use of modern building materials, high quality craftsmenship, evidenced in stone carvings, stage like doorways, and the use of ancient forms such as pyramids and in the case of the Courtaulds’ Administration Building, at 1150 Montreal Road, built in 1925, a Mesopotamian ziggurat. The former brick Reach Plastic Building, once part of the Canada Mill Complex at the corner of Edward and Cotton Mill streets, is another example.

ART MODERNE. The overall sleek form, external horizontal pillars, and nautical port hole windows make Montreal Road’s Port Theatre, opened in 1941 as the Roxy, an example of Art Moderne, popular from the mid 1920s to the 1940s.Rounded corners are another feature often found in these buildings.

BEAUX-ARTS. The name derives from the School of Fine Arts in Paris and was popular from the 1890s to World War I for monumental buildings and exudes order, symmetry and formality. While Cornwall’s only Beaux-Arts building is not monumental, the former Bank of Montreal branch on Pitt Street, constructed in 1911, exhibits many of the features of the larger structures found in big cities, which include its symmetry, classical lines, and appearance of permanence enhanced by its concrete façade

BRUTULIST. Used mainly for non residential buildings, from the 1950s to the 1970s Cornwall has a number of examples of this style including the concrete and brick hulk at 340 Pitt St., which houses Cornwall Police Services, and the office building at 404 2nd St. E. The style is boldly austere and may have a whimsical shape, with the exterior featuring its building materials of concrete steel and glass. The Chevrier Building, at the southeast corner of Horovitz Park is a good example of the styles last days. Opened in 1984, the glass and concrete building materials set in an asymmetrical geometric layout are front and centre.“Decorative” features include the dysfunctional exterior staircase and a glass encased atrium.

CORPORATE LOGO. Businesses, especially fast food restaurant chains, design their buildings as large billboards. Visiting a canopy covered drive-in A & W, served by girls on roller-skates in your dad’s car, was part of teenage life during the 1960s and 1970s. Lola’s at 616 Pitt St., with its square restaurant and low pitched-roof with a large overhang, topped by a square and attached to the rear drive-in, is a perfect example of a Corporate Logo building.
If you have ever wondered where the name “A & W” comes from, the “A” stands for the founder Roy Allen and the “W” for this partner Frank Wright.
Not content with using the exterior of the building for advertising, Pitt Street’s TD Bank has turned the whole structure into a “green machine,” advertising emporium.

DUTCH COLONIAL REVIVAL. The Courtaulds’ Cottages (1926 plus) on Montreal Road, with their distinctive double-pitched, gambrel (barn) roofs, side gables and second floor dormer windows are good examples of this style popular during the 1920s.

EDWARDIAN COMMERCIAL. Edwardian Commercial and Edwardian architecture in general can be identified by largely unadorned walls, symmetrical shape, and a flat roof decorated with pediments. While the style can be found throughout Cornwall, the greatest concentration can be found along Montreal Road, where the style shows a strong connection to the architecture of the City of the street’s namesake. Popular well into the 1940s, The Edifice Lefebvre at 400 Montreal Road, built in 1946, is Cornwall’s finest expression of this style. As a curious footnote, Fred Lefebvre, reputed to be our most famous bootlegger, rented jail space to the Cornwall Township Police in this building!

EDWARDIAN INSTITUTIONAL. Nativity School, at 166 Chevrier, constructed in 1928, is a fine example of Institutional Edwardian Classicism identified by its overall balance, and smooth front façade punctuated by numerous window. The coming popularity of the Art Deco style is seen in the gradually set back roof surmounted by a pediment and finely crafted stone book sculpture and machine frame like brickwork repeated for each of the three sets of ten windows.

FRENCH COLONIAL REVIVAL. As far as I know the only example of this style in Cornwall is found at 425 2nd St. E. Built in 1932, the steeply pitched roof, high end walls, recessed entrance flanked by sidelights and the uneven placement of course stone overall, identify this as a Quebec inspired townhouse.

GEORGIAN. Balance and symmetry, without unnecessary adornments are the hallmarks of Georgian architecture popular throughout the 17th and early 19th century. Chesley’s Inn built in 1814, is a fine example of this style. The former McMartin house, at 1950 Montreal Road, in front of DevCor’s hotel, with its central door entrance, front porch, symmetry and dormer windows in the gently rising gabled roof is another example of this style.

GEORGIAN – INSTITUTIONAL. An imposing symmetrical block form with unadorned walls, and centrally raised entrance, all topped a low hipped roof, all designed to suggest order and permanence defines this style, making the former United Counties’ Court House, built in 1833a typical example of the neo-classical style.