former
Union Station
now Government Conference Centre
2 Rideau Street, at the Canal (map
1)
Ross & MacFarlane
1908-1911 III
- Classified Federal Heritage Building
- element of Confederation Square National Historic Site
- Designated building and interior under Ontario Heritage Act
- Beaux-Arts symmetrical front façade, cross-sections,
and plan
- rational axial plan with progession of spaces via grand staircase
- granite rusticated base and Indiana limestone exterior cladding
- Doric Roman Revival style exterior, columns "in antis",
entablature
- original dome lighting Transport Board courtroom, removed
1956
- "Diocletian" or "Thermal" windows based
on Roman baths (Thermae)
- exterior expression of interior uses: office building and
great hall
- steel-frame and brick building with non load-bearing columns
- main hall a scale copy of Pennsylvania Station, New York
by McKim
- eight Corinthian columns, thermal windows, vaulted ceiling,
Travertine walls
- extensive use of imitation materials for architectural decoration.
- Roman Baths were the model for rail stations since the Columbian Exhibition
- designed for Grand Trunk Railway with Chateau Laurier Hotel
- intended as capital gateway to new public-private transcontinental
Railway
- first station on site established by J.R. Booth's Canada
Atlantic Railway, 1896
- first monumental station proposal by Ottawa architect G.F. Stalker 1895
- multiple rejected designs including five by B.L.
Gilbert (1899-1908)
- final accepted design by Ross
& MacFarlane
- drew on association with Carrère
& Hastings for Toronto Union Station
- detailed design executed and supervised by L-J.T.
Décary
- onsite supervising architect T.D.
Rankin
- operated as Union Station 1912-1966
- subsequently Centennial Centre (1967) and Government Conference
Centre
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