In 1887, Canadian Pacific, just after completing the country's first transcontinental railway, began building Windsor Station in the upper town: the company wished to have a suitably imposing station in the new centre, where it could locate its head office. (Even after moving to the new location, CP would continue to play an important role in the port and the historic city centre, with its office buildings occupied by subsidiaries, and its Viger Station and Hotel.)

Bruce Price, the American architect responsible for Windsor Station, designed it in a Romanesque Revival style—one mastered by his compatriot Henry Hobson Richardson. CP then called on Price again, giving him the opportunity to create the "château" style that would become the company's architectural trademark, for instance with the Viger Station and Hotel. Windsor Station was completed in 1889, and substantially expanded afterwards while maintaining its architectural character. A wing designed by architect Edward Maxwell was added in 1900 and heightened in 1906, and a seven-storey building with a fifteen-storey tower was built from 1909 to 1914 according to plans drawn by architect Walter Scott Painter, assisted by architects John William Hurrell Watts and Lawrence Fennings Taylor.

Among the thirty or so metropolitan railway stations in North America that have survived, Windsor Station is the oldest to remain intact, including the brightly lit concourse from 1913. The tracks, which follow the same escarpment as in 1889, now stop farther west and are linked to the station by a corridor. Nonetheless, the building remains one of Canada's heritage jewels, one of the best examples of the Richardsonian Romanesque style in the country, and an essential component in Montreal's role as a hub.

…AND ITS GREAT METROPOLITAN NEIGHBOURS:

Windsor Station was built on the southwest corner of Dominion Square (today Dorchester), created some ten years earlier. This superb Victorian cityscape boasts a number of impressive commemorative monuments, including those honouring former prime ministers John A. Macdonald and Wilfrid Laurier.

BOTH RELIGIOUS...

Before the station went up on the Square, a new Baroque Revival Catholic cathedral was built close by. Although work began in 1875 on this scale model of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, designed by Victor Bourgeau, a well-known Montreal architect, it was not completed until after the railway station. Bourgeau specialized in religious architecture, but was also responsible for some particularly lovely warehouse-showrooms in Montreal.

While the Cathedral welcomed people from across the country for great celebrations, the delicate St. George's Anglican church nearby discreetly catered to its local congregation. The Gothic Revival church was designed by architect W. T. Thomas (who also has some warehouse-showrooms to his credit), who won a design competition held in 1869.

In 1881, writer Mark Twain visited Montreal. Looking out over the Square and its surroundings from his hotel room window (the Windsor Hotel, of which only a part dating from the early 20th century remains), he noted the many churches, most of them Protestant—leading him to joke at a lecture he gave that in this city "you couldn't throw a brick without breaking a church window!"

...AND FINANCIAL

Between 1914 and 1918, the influential Sun Life Insurance Company, located in the historic city centre, had a new head office built on Dominion Square. The building, in the shape of a gigantic ancient temple, was expanded in 1922-1925 and then, in the same style, elevated to a skyscraper in 1929-1931: its style a tribute to the past, and its size a promise of the future. This huge metropolitan building stood as the symbol of the new downtown for a time. Standing near Windsor Station, it was even closer to the construction site for Central Station, where construction began at the same time.

| Home | Site Map | Contact us |