Historical Winnipeg discussion

[Curmudgeon]

Originally Posted by bomberjet

Apparently it had major structural issues that could not be overcome. So it was torn down.

Yeah, apparently. Yeah, sure. Demolition by neglect. Funny how buildings in other cities that in many cases are hundreds of years old are still standing. But in Winnipeg, an eighty year old building that needed some repair can't be fixed and needed to be demolished. Hey pal, want the contract?

The current City Hall is a real eyesore. Can someone please produce a report stating that it has structural issues? I'm sure it does in reality. Certainly the grotesque torture-chamberesque PSB does and it was built at the same time. Why is it still standing and blighting the entire west Exchange? That was great value for Winnipeg taxpayers, a structure that just barely made it to 50.

[bomberjet]

Did you read my subsequent post curmudge?

[drew]

Originally Posted by Curmudgeon

Yeah, apparently. Yeah, sure. Demolition by neglect. Funny how buildings in other cities that in many cases are hundreds of years old are still standing. But in Winnipeg, an eighty year old building that needed some repair can't be fixed and needed to be demolished. Hey pal, want the contract?

Winnipeg is not "like other places". Unless that other place is maybe Portage La Prairie. The ground conditions coupled with the extreme weather puts the longevity of buildings at a distinct disadvantage to other areas. Especially intricate older buildings like the old City Hall.

The old City hall would have been founded on relatively shallow footings bearing directly on clay, complete with rubblestone/brick foundation walls and little to no waterproofing or subsurface water removal (i.e. weeping tile).

Had this building lived to see modern times, it would almost certainly have been out-of-level, suffering cracking finishes throughout the interior finishes and definitely in the exterior brick facade, and almost certainly severe foundation wall decay.

I would have loved if this building remained - however it must be understood that to do so would have required an enormous amount of big ticket remediation. Maybe not in the 1950s/60s - but almost certainly by then the building would have been displaying some structural issues. And at that point in time, nobody cared to keep these old buildings around.

[Curmudgeon]

Originally Posted by drew

Winnipeg is not "like other places". Unless that other place is maybe Portage La Prairie. The ground conditions coupled with the extreme weather puts the longevity of buildings at a distinct disadvantage to other areas. Especially intricate older buildings like the old City Hall.

The old City hall would have been founded on relatively shallow footings bearing directly on clay, complete with rubblestone/brick foundation walls and little to no waterproofing or subsurface water removal (i.e. weeping tile).

Had this building lived to see modern times, it would almost certainly have been out-of-level, suffering cracking finishes throughout the interior finishes and definitely in the exterior brick facade, and almost certainly severe foundation wall decay.

I would have loved if this building remained - however it must be understood that to do so would have required an enormous amount of big ticket remediation. Maybe not in the 1950s/60s - but almost certainly by then the building would have been displaying some structural issues. And at that point in time, nobody cared to keep these old buildings around.

Minneapolis still has it's old Romanesque City Hall completed in the 1890s. It is absolutely beautiful.

I agree with your last sentence. The zeitgeist was "progress, progress, progress, and you can take a pill for anything, and soon there will be flying cars and towers in the sky with moving walkways". Fifty or sixty years after the peak of modernist philosophy and design we can say what a complete failure it has been and how it has blighted many cities not only in North America but in Europe as well. The Prince of Wales has correctly stated that the modernists caused more damage to London than the Blitz. An elitist and authoritarian philosophy, it still (almost unbelievably) has its apologists, and they tend to congregate in schools of architecture.

[drew]

^ but Minneapolis isn't Winnipeg either.

[Bluenote]

Originally Posted by drew

Winnipeg is not "like other places". Unless that other place is maybe Portage La Prairie. The ground conditions coupled with the extreme weather puts the longevity of buildings at a distinct disadvantage to other areas. Especially intricate older buildings like the old City Hall.

The old City hall would have been founded on relatively shallow footings bearing directly on clay, complete with rubblestone/brick foundation walls and little to no waterproofing or subsurface water removal (i.e. weeping tile).

Had this building lived to see modern times, it would almost certainly have been out-of-level, suffering cracking finishes throughout the interior finishes and definitely in the exterior brick facade, and almost certainly severe foundation wall decay.

I would have loved if this building remained - however it must be understood that to do so would have required an enormous amount of big ticket remediation. Maybe not in the 1950s/60s - but almost certainly by then the building would have been displaying some structural issues. And at that point in time, nobody cared to keep these old buildings around.

It is tiresome to hear the same old excuse. One only needs to look at even older buildings in this city that have been saved. One just has to look on south main for some buildings no one beleived could be saved and yet they were.

The excuse the old city hall was falling down was from the same mayor that wanted to lvl the east exchange. The same mayor that ran a fuax freeway though a vibrante neighbourhood. The same mayor that tore down 6 blocks of the exchange to see his utopian eyesore. That same eyesore we are now stuck with fixing.

So in reality it would have been cheaper to just fix old city hall since everything that mayor built has fallen apart and needed extensive repairs or demo.

He used the structural issue as an excuse. Thank god he was voted out.

[drew]

Originally Posted by Bluenote

It is tiresome to hear the same old excuse. One only needs to look at even older buildings in this city that have been saved. One just has to look on south main for some buildings no one beleived could be saved and yet they were.

The key word here is "intricate".

If you can point me to another comparable building in Winnipeg built before 1890 that still exists - by all means.

FYI from here

Completed in 1886, the statuesque "Gingerbread" building complete with all manner of Victorian grandeur, symbolized Winnipeg's coming of age at the end of the nineteenth century. Yet it was not long before plans were being made for the construction of another City Hall as Winnipeg experienced exponential growth in the first decade of the twentieth century. Were it not for the onset of World War I, the "Gingerbread" City Hall would likely have been replaced. Instead, the building stood for another fifty years until its tower began to crumble. Falling plaster narrowly missed injuring City Hall visitors in 1958. In 1961, the tower had to be removed and the whole building was demolished in 1962. Though a product of another time and era, the second City Hall remains an enduring source of great civic pride.

[LilZebra]

Originally Posted by drew

The old City hall would have been founded on relatively shallow footings bearing directly on clay, complete with rubblestone/brick foundation walls and little to no waterproofing or subsurface water removal (i.e. weeping tile).

Just like 58 storey Millennium Tower in San Fran, Cali.?


• Video Link


and here...longer, in studio discussion...


• Video Link

[TimeFadesAway]

Originally Posted by LilZebra

Just like 58 storey Millennium Tower in San Fran, Cali.?


• Video Link


and here...longer, in studio discussion...


• Video Link

I'm pretty sure that San Francisco is not built on Red River gumbo.

[wardlow]

Originally Posted by drew

The key word here is "intricate".

If you can point me to another comparable building in Winnipeg built before 1890 that still exists - by all means.

FYI from here

Fair point: buildings cost money over time. Winnipeg's climate or soil conditions in some places don't make this any easier.

But I would point out that the reasons there are so few pre-1890 buildings comparable to the old city hall are:
- Winnipeg is a relatively young city; there were few 'grand' public buildings constructed before 1890. But if you're looking for examples of ones still around, Government House (1883) and the Vaughan Street Gaol (1883) come to mind.
- Winnipeg experienced a spectacular period of growth and new construction between 1900-1914, when many of the old generation of 'grand' buildings were replaced by more impressive ones (provincial legislature building, CPR station). Others that stuck around were lost to post-WWII growth (old Post Office at Main and McDermot), institutional restructuring (old Manitoba College at Vaughan and Ellice), or just plain old downtown decline and changing architectural fashions and business needs (take your pick).
- These factors aren't unique to Winnipeg, relative to other North American cities of the same age. If anything, Winnipeg is unique for how many old buildings it still has.

And while environment is a factor in Winnipeg, I don't think that was what acted alone to determine city hall's fate. Let's look at the timeline:
-1884-1910: new building
-1911-1929: to be replaced when the time is right. Deferred maintenance.
-1930-1945: depression and war. Deferred maintenance.
-1945-1962: holy shit it's falling apart! Also it's not Modernist.

[esquire]

^ That's a very pragmatic take. Although the continued lamenting of the loss of the old City Hall speaks to what a beloved building it really was. I mean, at this point not very many people have first hand memories of the old place, but it's still sorely missed.

In terms of grand buildings from pre-1890, St. Mary's Cathedral also stands out, particularly because there aren't that many 19th century buildings at all left in the area where it's located south of Portage. The only other one around there that jumps to mind is Holy Trinity Church. Beyond churches I can't think of any, although there must be some others?

From a building nerd standpoint, it's too bad the Catholic church never built a replacement cathedral during the boom era, or even into the 20s. St. Mary's was built when the population was still a frontier town of probably no more than 20,000 people... it would have been pretty cool to have a cathedral built when Winnipeg was a bona fide city. Maybe we could have ended up with a showstopper like this:

[wardlow]

Originally Posted by esquire

^ That's a very pragmatic take. Although the continued lamenting of the loss of the old City Hall speaks to what a beloved building it really was. I mean, at this point not very many people have first hand memories of the old place, but it's still sorely missed.

In terms of grand buildings from pre-1890, St. Mary's Cathedral also stands out, particularly because there aren't that many 19th century buildings at all left in the area where it's located south of Portage. The only other one around there that jumps to mind is Holy Trinity Church. Beyond churches I can't think of any, although there must be some others?

I think (and this is recollecting a paper on the old city hall I wrote in university) that even at the time -- the high point of enthusiasm for modernization and the low point for caring about old buildings -- the old city hall was something of a beloved landmark among the public. Even a lot of architects loved the council chambers as an interior space, and viewed the buildings as something of a unique curiosity.

Totally forgot about Holy Trinity and St. Mary's churches. Other grand (ie, not wood frame) churches of that time were either replaced by new buildings as the congregation grew, or lost to fire.

[Wpg_Guy]

Woman crosses Market St. next to city hall, circa 1900. (Courtesy of the City of Winnipeg Archives)


Looking over the wholesale district west of Main, circa 1926. (Provincial Archives of Manitoba)


A long-lost stretch of Main Street, looking south from Henry Avenue, circa 1969 (Source: City of Winnipeg)


The Richardson building rising up at the northeast corner of Portage and Main, 1967. The old Great-West Life and Grain Exchange buildings on Lombard can be seen in the background. (Source: City of Winnipeg)

[esquire]

It pains me to see what North Main used to look like. It's astounding how it went from thriving if somewhat downmarket commercial area in the mid 60s, to full on skid row not even 25 years later.

[1ajs]

Originally Posted by drew

Winnipeg is not "like other places". Unless that other place is maybe Portage La Prairie. The ground conditions coupled with the extreme weather puts the longevity of buildings at a distinct disadvantage to other areas. Especially intricate older buildings like the old City Hall.

The old City hall would have been founded on relatively shallow footings bearing directly on clay, complete with rubblestone/brick foundation walls and little to no waterproofing or subsurface water removal (i.e. weeping tile).

Had this building lived to see modern times, it would almost certainly have been out-of-level, suffering cracking finishes throughout the interior finishes and definitely in the exterior brick facade, and almost certainly severe foundation wall decay.

I would have loved if this building remained - however it must be understood that to do so would have required an enormous amount of big ticket remediation. Maybe not in the 1950s/60s - but almost certainly by then the building would have been displaying some structural issues. And at that point in time, nobody cared to keep these old buildings around.

in the 40's the old city hall needed major work that woulda saved it but councle got into a bickering fight in fear of wasting money on its self witch looks bad so they axed the idea in their opions

and how i know this is from researching the old incinirator on henry in the wfp archives finding stories on the same page and such was interesting

[blueandgoldguy]

Reading several of the posts here over the years, you would think Winnipeg has the worst soil conditions for building structures on the entire planet.

[drew]

Originally Posted by blueandgoldguy

Reading several of the posts here over the years, you would think Winnipeg has the worst soil conditions for building structures on the entire planet.

The city sits on 25 to 50 feet of solid, poorly draining, highly plastic clay. Not only that but the top 6 feet of which freeze and thaw yearly.

For any building that isn't on a properly engineered, piled foundation (I.e. Most houses, most older low and midrisr buildings) - your interpretation is pretty spot on. And really not far off.

There are worse places, but certainly not many.

But hey, what do I know about it?

[Andy6]

Originally Posted by blueandgoldguy

Reading several of the posts here over the years, you would think Winnipeg has the worst soil conditions for building structures on the entire planet.

Is that self-evidently impossible?

[1ajs]

Originally Posted by esquire

^ That's a very pragmatic take. Although the continued lamenting of the loss of the old City Hall speaks to what a beloved building it really was. I mean, at this point not very many people have first hand memories of the old place, but it's still sorely missed.

In terms of grand buildings from pre-1890, St. Mary's Cathedral also stands out, particularly because there aren't that many 19th century buildings at all left in the area where it's located south of Portage. The only other one around there that jumps to mind is Holy Trinity Church. Beyond churches I can't think of any, although there must be some others?

From a building nerd standpoint, it's too bad the Catholic church never built a replacement cathedral during the boom era, or even into the 20s. St. Mary's was built when the population was still a frontier town of probably no more than 20,000 people... it would have been pretty cool to have a cathedral built when Winnipeg was a bona fide city. Maybe we could have ended up with a showstopper like this:

they had the one in st b i thought

[esquire]

Originally Posted by 1ajs

they had the one in st b i thought

Yes, that one was the most impressive of Winnipeg's Catholic cathedrals but it burned down of course.

Winnipeg is in the somewhat rare-for-these-parts situation of having three Catholic cathedrals (St. Boniface, St. Mary's and the Ukrainian Catholic one, St. Vladimir and Olga on McGregor). But while all three are nice in their own way, none of them are really all that exceptional in terms of size or how ornate they are. Any of them would look at home in a place like, say, Brandon.