Canadian Historic Sites: Occasional Papers in Archaeology and History No. 24

Second Empire Style in Canadian Architecture

by Christina Cameron and Janet Wright

Department of Public Works

To discover how the Second Empire style spread so rapidly across Canada, one must look in part at the Federal Department of Public Works. Like the United States, where the Second Empire or General Grant style was used often by the post-Civil War government, the new Dominion of Canada erected a series of imposing public buildings in this same mode. There is a striking difference between the buildings inherited by the Department of Public Works from the pre-Confederation era and those put up by the Dominion Government. The former were for the most part dependent on austere classicizing sources, while the early buildings of the new Canadian government drew without exception on Second Empire prototypes.

Immediately after Confederation, the Dominion Government launched a major building programme, especially for post offices and custom houses, to establish the federal image and provide necessary services in different communities. Actual construction was the responsibility of the Department of Public Works. Although a change of direction was evident from the outset of the building programme even while it was still administered by the incumbent F.P. Rubidge, assistant engineer from 1841 to 1872, the driving force was his successor T.S. Scott, appointed chief architect in 1872. The Second Empire vogue for federal buildings began before and continued throughout Scott's tenure with the Department of Public Works from 1872 to 1881.

The question arises as to who was the actual designer of any particular federal building. We know that local architects were involved in almost all the structures erected across Canada, which would suggest that each design should be different. Yet the striking similarity of these buildings indicates that some design control must have been exercised by Chief Architect Scott in Ottawa.

The interaction between the local architect and the chief architect can perhaps most easily be defined by examining a particular example, the Custom House in Saint John, New Brunswick (Fig. 15). The Department of Public Works sent written instructions to local architects McKean and Fairweather that included sketches of ground plans showing the size and arrangement of rooms and requirements for fireproofing. Scott had apparently attempted to find solutions to the problem of fire and insisted that certain measures like solid brick inner walls and wrought-iron roof framing be adopted. The choice of material for the exterior walls was left to McKean and Fairweather. Their proposal for grey and red granite, however, was overruled in Ottawa because Mr. Mackenzie, then prime minister, was "of opinion that it was, of all kinds of stone, the most liable to damage from fire."¹ Other changes made to McKean and Fairweather's design by the Department of Public Works, bringing it in line with other federal buildings, included the addition of mansarded towers and an increase in ornamentation.

Local architects did, however, have some influence on the final outcome; although Scott preferred brick for the Water Street façade, McKean and Fairweather argued successfully for stone on the grounds that, viewed from the harbour, it was actually the principal front of the Custom House. A contemporary observer summarized the relationship between McKean and Fairweather and the Department of Public Works when he praised "the great care of the architects ... in preparing plans and specifications, and in the supervision of the work during its progress. The building itself will stand as a monument to their taste and that of the Chief Architect and the Government"²

While federal buildings differed in scale and ornamentation depending on their location, the following selection built during Scott's tenure illustrates how similar they are to one another (Figs. 16-27). Standard features include stone as construction material (more permanent and prestigious); mansard roof with slate tiles arranged in decorative patterns on the slopes; pavilion massing with mansarded towers above (convex towers often over the central pavilions of larger buildings); classicizing sculptural decoration including quoins, carved keystones, string courses, pilasters and attached columns; picturesque roof effects like iron cresting, flagpoles, clocks and oval dormer windows. These characteristics are all part of the Second Empire mode as previously defined in reference to Montreal City Hall (Fig. 1).

The element of planning, another aspect of Second Empire, is also apparent in these designs. If we return to the example of the Custom House at Saint John, New Brunswick (Fig. 15), we discover that the exterior arrangement of the façade into central and side pavilions corresponds to the internal layout. There are in fact three distinct functions within the building, each one physically shut off from the others by interior walls of brick; the Custom House in the central section, the Inland Revenue Department and Board of Works in the north wing, and the Marine and Fisheries Department in the south wing.

These federal structures were intended to impress upon the observer the stability, permanence and wealth of the new nation. As symbols of the Dominion Government, most of them now demolished, they played an important role in the dissemination of the Second Empire style in Canada. With the replacement of Scott as chief architect in 1881, the style changed and evolved for Department of Public Works' buildings until it became an entirely different form.