Deputy Governor J.A.O. Osborne corresponded regularly with colleagues from other central banks throughout the planning and building process. His comments are interesting and often quite candid. Here he writes to the Bank of England's H.C.B. Mynors on 15 April 1936:
"We shall employ a Canadian architect, and we have already appointed a consulting architect, who is . . . a man of considerable taste. The sort of design he would prefer would be an extremely simple, well-proportioned, box-like building with some long narrow windows in the front . . . The other buildings on the same side are either plain and ugly or nondescript shops and hovels. We rather feel that the plain type of building suggested for us would look well in almost any situation, would be dignified and appropriate, and would be . . . too simple ever to look old-fashioned."
About the Bank
Who We Are
The Bank's Headquarters
The early years: 1935-38
The Bank of Canada opened its doors in March 1935, operating from rented premises in the Victoria Building on Ottawa's Wellington Street.
Conditions in the Victoria Building quickly grew cramped and inefficient, and in January 1936 Governor Graham F. Towers proposed the design and construction of new premises to Prime Minister Mackenzie King. King agreed, and by May the Bank had purchased a building site further west on Wellington Street, at a price of $83,500 (about $1.2 million in 2004 dollars.)
The Bank hired S.G. Davenport of Montréal to act as consulting architect and adviser for the project. Davenport, in turn, recommended that the Toronto firm of Marani, Lawson and Morris be hired as principal architects.
This firm submitted its first set of designs in May of 1936. These were rejected, however, because "they showed a building set in, somewhat in the manner of the Bank of England . . . It is extremely difficult to obtain unity in such a building. The inset part either looks like a chimney, or the whole thing looks like a flower pot in its saucer. The architects more or less agree with us, and are now trying something else." – Letter from Deputy Governor J.A.O. Osborne to H.C.B. Mynors, 4 July 1936.
A more successful set of designs was submitted later that summer. One of these was approved by the Bank's newly established Building Committee (composed of Governor Towers, his two Deputy Governors, and the Bank's Secretary), and the firm was instructed to proceed with working drawings. The Building Committee meanwhile met periodically to decide on materials, furnishings, and other details of the new headquarters.
In December of 1936, the architects presented final elevation drawings to the committee. These showed a five-storey stone-clad building, neo-classical in style and featuring two large stone urns flanking the bronze centre doors. Seven tall windows were accentuated with bronze-and-marble spandrels. There was also a substantial underground area, designed to accommodate vaults and strong rooms, "all constructed in accordance with the most up-to-date methods." The plan provided sufficient space for a projected staff of 380 people.
Ground was broken early in 1937. The principal contractor was the Piggott Construction Company of Hamilton, Ontario, and subcontractors were drawn from throughout Ottawa, southern Ontario, and Quebec. Construction proceeded rapidly, without any undue delays or cost overruns, and by 10 August the structure was sufficiently complete that Prime Minister King could join with Governor Towers in the ceremonial laying of the cornerstone. (Embedded in the cornerstone is copper box containing the signatures of senior Bank officers and other mementoes of the project.) Staff began moving in 1938.
1938-69
The Bank rapidly outgrew its new building. By 1946, staff were housed in temporary premises scattered around downtown Ottawa, and the Bank's executive commissioned Marani and Morris to develop proposals for renovations. These were never implemented. The Bank again turned to Marani and Morris in the 1950s for proposals on substantial additions to the building, but these too were eventually discarded.
In 1963, the Bank announced a competition in which a short list of Canadian architects would be invited to submit proposals for additions to the building. This appears to have spurred the Marani firm (now Marani, Morris and Allan) to revisit its earlier proposals, leading to a new design that the Bank's board found "imaginative and satisfactory." The competition was cancelled, and in January 1964, the Bank announced its intention to begin construction.
(It is interesting to note that throughout the planning phase, serious consideration was given to the possibility of demolishing the original building and rebuilding on the site. Professor Eric Arthur, a prominent architect of the day, opposed such a step, advising in a 1963 memorandum that the existing building be retained and surrounded "with a new structure which would be sympathetic in terms of material and main horizontal lines . . . the old Bank will be able to keep its identity [while being] more expressive of the twentieth century.")
The Bank's plans were soon postponed, however. Ottawa in the 1960s was in the midst of an unprecedented building boom, and it became evident to the Bank's executive that the scale of their planned expansion would place undue pressure on the already overburdened construction industry. Late in 1965, Governor Louis Rasminsky announced that the Bank had decided to "defer for the time being the start of construction of our badly needed new head office."
1969-present
By the time the Bank was finally ready to build in the late 1960s, it was decided to commission a new design. The Marani firm — now Marani Rounthwaite & Dick — and Arthur Erickson were hired as associate architects, and in 1969 their new design was presented to the Bank. It preserved the original granite building, partially enclosing it in a vast glass courtyard flanked by two glass towers.
Construction began in 1972 and continued throughout the decade. The building was completed in 1979, and staff were fully installed by 1980. One of its outstanding features was the enclosed courtyard's large tropical garden, bordering a shallow pool. The garden is open to the public and is a popular setting for wedding photographs, especially during Ottawa's long, cold winters. It also serves as the forecourt of the Bank's Currency Museum, which houses artefacts from the 100,000-item National Currency Collection.
A quarter-century later, the Bank of Canada headquarters remains one of Ottawa's most distinctive and architecturally noteworthy buildings. It has undergone only minor upgrades and renovations in that time, and will continue to meet the Bank's needs for many years.