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  #61  
Old Posted Nov 14, 2020, 5:00 PM
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I think we sometimes don't fully realise the architectural value of our grand railway hotels, as evidenced by the unfolding nightmare at the rear of the Chateau Laurier.

That said, my personal favourite of all Canadian hotels must be the Prince of Wales in Alberta. Such a beautiful blend of Canadian cottage kitsch and regal Scottish Highland influence, all on a charmingly small scale. Set amidst the breathtaking scenery, you'd love to find yourself there for just tea if not a night's stay. To me the hotel represents best a romantic, idealised view of Canada's wild frontier within the lap of a bygone British age of luxury.




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  #62  
Old Posted Nov 15, 2020, 2:19 PM
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Looks very Swiss Alps to me. Quite unique for Canadian railway hotels.
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  #63  
Old Posted Nov 18, 2020, 10:33 AM
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Hamilton GO Centre (Fellheimer & Wagner, 1933)

"The new Hunter street station was built adjacent to the original TH&B Hamilton station. The original design for the new Hunter Street station consisted of a 10-story office tower with wings for the passenger facilities, and two platforms for passenger trains. However, as the Great Depression took its toll on the TH&B, the plans were reduced in size. The office tower was reduced to 7 stories (although it was built with the ability for the remaining three stories to be added at a later date), and the number of platforms was reduced to one.... The reduced size of the station resulted in an outcry from the city council, and it was only after the facade of the building was changed to more expensive stone, that the council approved the smaller structure in November 1932."


photo: Rick Cordeiro/Wikipedia
http://www.trainweb.org/hamtransithist/hunter.html
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  #64  
Old Posted Nov 18, 2020, 2:53 PM
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^ Interesting to hear the backstory of the Hamilton station. I always thought it was peculiarly undersized given Hamilton's size and the importance of passenger trains at the time... the impact of the Great Depression certainly makes sense as an explanation, though. It's an absolute beauty of a building.
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  #65  
Old Posted Nov 18, 2020, 3:14 PM
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Originally Posted by esquire View Post
^ Interesting to hear the backstory of the Hamilton station. I always thought it was peculiarly undersized given Hamilton's size and the importance of passenger trains at the time... the impact of the Great Depression certainly makes sense as an explanation, though. It's an absolute beauty of a building.
One factor in the station size as well is that it was only the station for the TH&B Railway. I think the main railway station (at least CN's station) in Hamilton was LIUNA station adjacent to the new West Harbour GO station.
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  #66  
Old Posted Nov 18, 2020, 3:56 PM
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The other train station (CN) in downtown Hamilton (no longer a train station)
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  #67  
Old Posted Nov 18, 2020, 4:45 PM
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Originally Posted by esquire View Post
^ Interesting to hear the backstory of the Hamilton station. I always thought it was peculiarly undersized given Hamilton's size and the importance of passenger trains at the time... the impact of the Great Depression certainly makes sense as an explanation, though. It's an absolute beauty of a building.
I agree, and it looks like the CNR one – another real beauty – was also built around the same time: "The Canadian National Railway (CNR) Station in Hamilton was built under the direction of CNR architect John Schofield in 1929-31, just as the depression began."
https://www.historicplaces.ca/en/rep...u.aspx?id=6637
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  #68  
Old Posted Nov 18, 2020, 6:24 PM
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Canadian Museum of Nature Renewal Project, Ottawa (KPMB Architects) (2010)

"The design focuses on the simultaneous awareness of time past and present. The heritage fabric is treated as an artifact, restoring the materials and craftsmanship of the Tudor-Gothic details and restating the original Beaux Arts principles with a series of iconic contemporary interventions."



https://www.kpmb.com/

Last edited by 🌳🌱🌿🌴🍁; Nov 18, 2020 at 6:38 PM.
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  #69  
Old Posted Nov 18, 2020, 7:05 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ������������������������������ View Post
Hamilton GO Centre (Fellheimer & Wagner, 1933)

"The new Hunter street station was built adjacent to the original TH&B Hamilton station. The original design for the new Hunter Street station consisted of a 10-story office tower with wings for the passenger facilities, and two platforms for passenger trains. However, as the Great Depression took its toll on the TH&B, the plans were reduced in size. The office tower was reduced to 7 stories (although it was built with the ability for the remaining three stories to be added at a later date), and the number of platforms was reduced to one.... The reduced size of the station resulted in an outcry from the city council, and it was only after the facade of the building was changed to more expensive stone, that the council approved the smaller structure in November 1932."
I have photos of the original Hunter st. plans, and they were much more ambitious than the extra stories imply.


This is the original rendering for the station, it reminds me a bit of Commerce Court in Toronto. There are 2 platforms in the station now, on 1 island, as opposed to the planned 2 islands. The station was meant to have a much larger plaza & driveway - notice how much Hunter St. curved in the above picture as compared to how it curves now, at the time Hunter St. was straight. When the plans changed it turned out to be a parking lot. Although, this was converted into a plaza when the station was rebuilt in 1996. Most of the project was focused on the grade separation of the TH&B's tracks; before then all of their tracks east of Park St. were at-grade, crossing 2 major streets and a junction with CN's Ferguson Ave. tracks, all surrounded by homes. The viaduct was built, however, with the caveat that most of the underpasses were changed from vehicle passes to just pedestrian passes. They also just removed a street in the process.

It's funny you mention the size of the CN station, when the GTR depot on Stuart Street was due to be replaced, CN wanted to replace it with this;
(Everything from the book Unbuilt Hamilton - a fantastic read)

Everyone complained, of course. The Herald said that residents "hoped for something a little more pretentious", and as a result we got the beautiful station/banquet hall we have today.

Last edited by ChildishGavino; Nov 18, 2020 at 7:21 PM.
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  #70  
Old Posted Nov 18, 2020, 7:41 PM
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Originally Posted by ChildishGavino View Post
I have photos of the original Hunter st. plans, and they were much more ambitious than the extra stories imply.

.... we got the beautiful station/banquet hall we have today.
Ah, thanks – great information. Yeah, that does really change the nature of the Hunter St. structure... In any case, the roofline of the existing shorter version looks very elegant/streamlined as is. That envisioned crown also brings to mind a little the front of the contemporary buildings in London and Winnipeg mentioned here:
https://skyscraperpage.com/forum/sho...&postcount=121

Re the second point on CN, definitely, what a difference due to that outcry...
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  #71  
Old Posted Nov 18, 2020, 7:57 PM
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With all the talk of the Hunter St. Station, I was reminded of a completely unknown art moderne building in Hamilton

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  #72  
Old Posted Nov 18, 2020, 8:31 PM
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Hamilton's CN station is beautiful, and we're lucky it was restored for new use. It's unfortunate that the station is not on the main rail corridor -- trains used to back in to the station from the main line, which added a lot of time for trains travelling between Windsor and Toronto. Otherwise it would probably still be a train station today. Or if GO service into Hamilton had occurred much earlier it would likely be the commuter station, a very nice book-end to Toronto Union Station for the Lakeshore West route (not that the TH&B/GO Centre is not; that building is beautiful too, inside and out)
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  #73  
Old Posted Nov 18, 2020, 8:46 PM
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Why did VIA leave Hamilton anyway? Always seemed strange to me that a city as big as that had to use Aldershot station. Having the CN station in use would have been fantastic.
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  #74  
Old Posted Nov 18, 2020, 9:01 PM
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Originally Posted by esquire View Post
Why did VIA leave Hamilton anyway? Always seemed strange to me that a city as big as that had to use Aldershot station. Having the CN station in use would have been fantastic.
The issue of the additional time to divert from the main line.

VIA trains to Niagara used it, but the service was only twice daily if I recall, and the trains were not very long.

This track originally belonged to the Great Western Railway. The Grand Trunk Railway, which absorbed the GWR late in the 19th century, had what is now part of CN's main line on the Windsor-Toronto corridor. Most of the traffic on CN's line from Hamilton to Niagara is freight now.

Two of the complications in running rail through this area are the 100-or-so-metre climb up the Niagara Escarpment, and the presence of Lake Ontario and the harbour. CN's track has the most direct route up the side of the escarpment through Dundas. CP (formerly TH&B's track) took a more convoluted route through the Dundas Valley; that track is now a walking/biking trail. A route into the city from the west could have followed the existing one, but there would have been no way to efficiently connect Hamilton to Toronto from the northeast without a long bridge or tunnel.
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  #75  
Old Posted Nov 18, 2020, 9:23 PM
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Ottawa's old Union Station, now the temporary Senate of Canada Building.



https://ncc-ccn.gc.ca/our-plans/show...anada-building

Visit the architect's website for great interior shots:

https://dsai.ca/projects/the-senate-of-canada-building/

Our current 1966 VIA train station, a masterpiece of the International style, poorly located outside of downtown, but at least served by the O-Train.


https://www.canadianarchitect.com/ottawa-train-station/


http://wikimapia.org/14995/Ottawa-Train-Station

Walkway between Tremblay O-Train and VIA Ottawa Station.


https://www.railfans.ca/otrain/snaps...anuary-10-2019
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  #76  
Old Posted Nov 18, 2020, 9:58 PM
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It's too bad that Ottawa's new station seems to be overshadowed by its lacklustre location. It really is an underappreciated masterpiece. The wikipedia article mentions that it's actually the last monumental railway station built in Canada, which I've never really thought of it as, but I suppose is true. It seems more of the era of airport terminals. My ambition for KW is that our new intermodal transit center would be as iconic, but unfortunately it seems that local politicians here are too pragmatic for such grand gestures.
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  #77  
Old Posted Nov 18, 2020, 11:13 PM
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I've always liked this building at the corner of Greenhill and Quigley in Hamilton. Not your typical commie block, it's in the style of Le Corbusier's Unite d'Habitation. The building is truly massive, but somehow looks small and fits along the street. Each balcony is two storeys, for a total of 16, and it's actually in a T shape. It's hard to capture the true size of the building



Closeup of the balconys
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  #78  
Old Posted Nov 19, 2020, 1:45 AM
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^ Interesting building... I don't recall ever seeing a picture of it before, which is strange.
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  #79  
Old Posted Nov 19, 2020, 3:49 AM
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^ Interesting building... I don't recall ever seeing a picture of it before, which is strange.
It's a bit out of the way, deep in suburbia, but going up Centennial you can catch a glimpse of it. I remember hating it when I first found it but now I can appreciate it a bit more.

Here's what it looked like brand-new; lovely that the trees have grown in now.

The Toronto Starchives via Vintage Hamilton on Facebook
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  #80  
Old Posted Nov 19, 2020, 4:18 AM
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I really love the design of Ottawa's VIA station - just wish it was better located. And the O-Train station should be better intergrated with it.
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