Download THE MUNICIPAL HEART OF WESTMOUNT

THE MUNICIPAL HEART OF WESTMOUNT:
Westmount Public Library, the Conservatory, The Gallery at Victoria Hall, Victoria Hall
This walking tour is not physically demanding and does not involve a lot of walking.
Part of it is inside. It takes from 1 to 1 ½ hours.
Directions are written in italics.
Standing by 2 benches facing older park entrance at side of Library
The walking tour encompasses a group of municipal buildings which lie on the northwest
corner of Westmount Park and form the cultural heart of our community. They are
Westmount Public Library, the Conservatory, and Victoria Hall with The Gallery at
Victoria Hall. They were designed (and later renovated) by outstanding architects, most
of them Westmount residents, and were constructed between 1899 and 1999. They are
now linked.
Westmount Public Library was the first of these buildings to be constructed. In 1898 the
citizens of Westmount resolved to mark Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee of 1897 by
building a municipal library in the town’s first park, the newly created Victoria Jubilee
Park (now known as Westmount Park). The decision reflected the importance of
education and reading to the mainly English and Scottish residents. This was the first
municipal library in Quebec. Robert Findlay, a prominent architect living on adjacent
Lansdowne Avenue, was chosen to design it. He had designed the headquarters of the
Sun Life Assurance Company on Notre Dame Street and the residences of many wealthy
Montrealers. Findlay used the Romanesque or Richardsonian style, which is
characterised by solid masonry massing, large arches, sloped roofs, big windows, and
towers. The American architect Henry Hobson Richardson was responsible for many
libraries and public buildings in New England. Findlay’s library was built of warm red
brick and sandstone with a slate roof. Its arched entrance faced the park. It had one bay
window to the right of the entrance. When it opened in 1899, the building, furniture, and
fittings, together with an inventory of 2000 books, cost less than $17,000. The main
entrance of this original library features sandstone reliefs by sculptor George Hill who
also executed the Georges Etienne Cartier monument on Park Avenue and the
Westmount cenotaph. The quotation is from Shakespeare’s All’s Well That Ends Well.
Findlay designed three phases of the library—the initial building, which opened in 1899,
the Children’s Library of 1911, and the Reading Room of 1924. The 1924 addition is to
the left of this entrance. It features another bay window which adds symmetry to the
facade. A reference room and a reading room with a mezzanine were included in this
addition.
More additions and changes were made over the years by other architects. In 1995, the
library underwent a major expansion and restoration to mark its 100th anniversary. The
extension to the left was designed by Peter Rose, a Westmount resident at the time, who
was responsible for the Maison Alcan on Sherbrooke Street and the design of the addition
to the Canadian Centre for Architecture on Baile Street. This Rose Wing replaced the
demolished 1959 children’s annex. It was built in materials and colours that
complemented the original, but in a modern design. The bay windows with their metal
cladding echo the Findlay bays. This new, large addition does not overwhelm the older
building. It is tucked in behind it and its flattish roof allows the Findlay roofline to
dominate the Library complex. The two upper floors of the Rose Wing contain the
reference collection, the stacks, a reading area with a glazed wall, administrative offices,
a board room, and two study rooms. The fiction section is housed on the main level and
non-fiction and graphic novels are on the second storey.
Enter the older Findlay wing and go to the North Reading Room on the right
The architecture firm of Gersovitz & Moss was responsible for the interior decoration
and furnishing of the Findlay Wing. Columns were uncovered or copied and were
marbleized, arches were restored, stencilling was done at the top of the walls, and the
coffered ceilings were revealed. The walls were divided as they had been originally, with
darker colours on the dado at the base, a filler of wallpaper above, and a frieze band that
was either stencilled or highly decorated in the upper section. The leaded glass windows
incorporate the names of figures in the arts and sciences. Appropriate oak furniture was
designed for the rooms by the firm. This reading room was originally two separate
reading rooms for men and women, divided by arches and a double-sided fireplace. The
fireplace was demolished in 1967.
Go into the 1911 Findlay addition, today’s Westmount Room
You are in the original Children’s Library. It was separate from the main building when
constructed. It had its own entrance, its own librarian, different hours, and contained
child-sized furniture. Its brick, wood-burning fireplace has a stone inscription and tiles of
scenes from Alice in Wonderland. There is a framed archival postcard of the way it used
to look in the corner. The original entrance door is concealed. This space is now called
the Westmount Room and is used for meetings, film screenings, and as a reading room.
The Westmount Historical Association’s lecture series is presented here.
Take a few minutes to look at the fireplace, the wall treatment, and the framed postcard.
Then you will visit the newer Rose wing of the Library.
Walk to the staircase going to the lower level
Peter Rose designed this passageway or spine running from the new Sherbrooke Street
entrance to the rear of the Library, linking the Findlay and Rose wings. If you go up the
new staircase just beyond the reference desk, there is a marvellous view of the roofline of
the Findlay buildings and the Conservatory. The inner courtyard and greenhouse can be
seen through the glazed wall of the reference section.
Take the staircase to the lower level
The bottom level is reached by an elevator and this wide staircase, which was designed
with young children and strollers in mind. It houses the children’s library, the audio
visual centre, staff areas, restrooms, and the archives of the Westmount Historical
Association. The children’s library has a story room set up for craft work. There is
access to the Storytelling Garden which has a low stone wall for sitting and a stone
carving of an owl, the symbol of Westmount Library. This space won a top landscaping
award, the Prix amenagement 2010 in a competition held by Les Arts en Ville.
There are washrooms and water fountains near the staircase.
Take the elevator or staircase upstairs and go to rear door of the Westmount Room.
On the walls in this passageway are two sets of Findlay drawings of the Library. There is
also a model of the library made by architect Peter Rose at the time of the renewal. You
are by the short passageway which joins the Conservatory to the Library. Here is the
original exterior Children’s Library door.
Leave the Library through the new entrance facing Sherbrooke Street and go to the
entrance of the Conservatory
The forecourt to the Conservatory was planted with linden trees and perennial flowers in
2001. The Westmount Flower Conservatory was opened in 1927. The steel-frame
construction, which rests on a masonry base, was manufactured by the company Lord &
Burnham in a cascade design. It originally featured a Palm House and an adjacent
greenhouse with a fishpond. Modifications were carried out in 1939, 1966 and 1967, and
in 1971. The vestibule was not part of the original. In 2004 the architectural firm
Beaupré & Michaud was hired to restore the badly deteriorated structure.
Inside Conservatory beside bridge
A contemporary water basin with a small bridge and waterfall was added in the main
building and the floor was redone in slate. The heating system was concealed behind
grills and mounted by planters. The pond in the adjacent greenhouse was lined with
marble and ceramic mosaics and was surrounded with marble. A bronze fountain
replaced one that had been stolen. The Conservatory provides magical views of the
Library. Annual bedding plants for city parks are raised in the greenhouses at the rear.
The Conservatory is now linked to The Gallery at Victoria Hall.
Take a few minutes to wander through the Conservatory, making sure to visit the pond in
the greenhouse. Then go through the passageway to The Gallery at Victoria Hall.
Inside The Gallery at Victoria Hall
You are now in The Gallery at Victoria Hall, an art space completed in 1999. It was
designed by the architectural firm Fournier, Gersovitz & Moss to match the adjacent
Victoria Hall, using similar materials and neo-Tudor architecture. The same firm had
carried out the restoration of Victoria Hall the previous year. The floors here are done in
geometric tiles, a treatment often used for similar spaces in the Victorian and Edwardian
eras. However, both the floor design and interior ceiling are contemporary in design.
The French doors open onto the Conservatory forecourt. The gallery hosts changing
exhibitions of the visual arts by Westmount artists, children from the Visual Arts Centre
programmes, and city employees. It is also used for occasional lectures and social
events.
Proceed to Victoria Hall and stand across from its front entrance.
You are standing in front of Victoria Hall, Westmount’s community centre. It is the
second Victoria Hall to stand on this site. During the Library’s construction in 1899,
three hundred residents submitted a petition to city council calling for a building where
the community could hold meetings and carry out other activities. Victoria Jubilee Hall
was designed by the Library’s architect, Robert Findlay, using a similar style and
materials, and cost about $25,000. It was the first municipal auditorium to be built in
Canada. This original Victoria Hall housed a public meeting room, a lodge room for the
Freemasons, a drill hall, bowling alley, billiard room, gymnasium, and a swimming pool.
It was destroyed by fire in 1924.
A second community centre was built in 1925, but designed this time by the firm
Hutchison& Wood (also local residents) in Credit Valley sandstone with Indiana
freestone filler. It was in the neo-Tudor style similar to the recently constructed City
Hall. Many Gothic details were included—crenellations, the square tower flanked by
four corner turrets, the oriel window jutting out above the ogival doors, and the buttresses
of the two gabled side wings. The new community centre responded to the needs of the
growing city. The YMCA had been built across the street in 1912, so many of the sports
facilities existing in the first structure were no longer needed. There was a large hall with
a balcony and stage for dances and performances, a Masonic lodge room upstairs, and
many smaller rooms suitable for different activities. For many years, spaces in the
building were rented out. The hall hosted extremely popular and well-attended Saturday
night dances in the 1930s and 40s with the Johnny Holmes Band, featuring Oscar
Peterson. The Willis piano Peterson played is still in the hall.
The Lodge Room on the second floor was used by the Masons until the end of the 1990s.
The basement level is now joined to Manoir Westmount, a seniors’ residence to the right
run by the Rotary Club, and houses its dining room and kitchen. Victoria Hall underwent
a renovation and enlargement in 1998, carried out by the firm of Fournier, Gersovitz &
Moss. (Both Rosanne Moss and Julia Gersovitz are Westmount residents.) Great care
was taken to preserve the historic character of the building and most of the original
construction remains. In the Concert Hall, the oak dados and plaster mouldings were
restored; in the foyer the black marble plinths were replaced. The building once again
serves as a community centre, providing space for municipal courses, concerts, meetings,
and many social events.
Thus you can see that this corner of Westmount’s first park is home to a group of
municipal buildings in a variety of architectural styles. These provide cultural and
recreational facilities for the residents. They are now linked, so that in poor weather you
can walk through the complex which has elevator and wheelchair access. These
buildings face busy Sherbrooke Street, but provide a tranquil haven in an urban setting.
WHA research and text prepared originally for 2010 OPAM Walking Tour