Tallest buildings (Top 25): Winnipeg & Buffalo comparison

[Wigs]

As some of you may know, I wrote a comparison piece on Buffalo and Winnipeg a few years back and there were a surprising number of similarities between the two cities.
Anyway, it's also interesting (imho) that the tallest buildings are generally in the same range in height. So using the diagrams database, I compiled a comparison of the Top 25 buildings in each respective city. Of course, Winnipeg rules the high-rise apartment/condo category.

cheers to the unofficial sister cities!

[drew]

Buffalo has an impressive stock of tall, early twentieth century buildings.

In comparison, nothing from that era in Winnipeg got much beyond 10 stories.

[Wigs]

Originally Posted by drew

Buffalo has an impressive stock of tall, early twentieth century buildings.

In comparison, nothing from that era in Winnipeg got much beyond 10 stories.

yes it does
both Winnipeg and Buffalo were boom towns. Buffalo just boomed earlier and with a lot more population.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larges...by_decade#1900

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...ties_by_census

[biguc]

I wish we had a couple of those nice art deco towers. Buffalo's buildings seem to tend to be better looking in general, probably because they are office buildings.

[esquire]

Buffalo has an amazing stock of pre WWII and then early modernist towers.

Considering what a boomtown Winnipeg was in the pre WWI era, I find it somewhat surprising that there was never a signature skyscraper of at least 20 storeys built in those days, something kind of like the Sun Tower in Vancouver. Even the dear departed Childs Building at Portage and Main was only a dozen storeys.

[Urban recluse]

Back then, was the reason not the ground conditions?

I too wish Winnipeg had a couple of 20+ art deco towers. Almost every US has them: OKC, Tulsa, KC, Toledo, etc etc.

[biguc]

Originally Posted by Urban recluse

Back then, was the reason not the ground conditions?

I too wish Winnipeg had a couple of 20+ art deco towers. Almost every US has them: OKC, Tulsa, KC, Toledo, etc etc.

You can thank the general strike for that. The '20s were a good time for skyscraper building everywhere but Winnipeg. It took 10 years for people to decide this city wasn't just a bunch of irate commies ready to sink any investment (a real concern in those days) and by the time the paleo-Richardson building above came along, the Great Depression was just around the corner.

[DowntownBooster]

Originally Posted by biguc

You can thank the general strike for that. The '20s were a good time for skyscraper building everywhere but Winnipeg. It took 10 years for people to decide this city wasn't just a bunch of irate commies ready to sink any investment (a real concern in those days) and by the time the paleo-Richardson building above came along, the Great Depression was just around the corner.

I think the completion of the Panama Canal also played a role in halting development in Winnipeg. There likely would have been a lot more of those buildings here had it not been for those events (World War 1, Panama Canal, etc.) occurring within the same decade.

[wardlow]

Originally Posted by DowntownBooster

I think the completion of the Panama Canal also played a role in halting development in Winnipeg. There likely would have been a lot more of those buildings here had it not been for those events (World War 1, Panama Canal, etc.) occurring within the same decade.

Ah, the tired old Panama Canal myth...

Winnipeg was doing great and was the Chicago of the North before the Panama Canal happened. Okay, fine. So if the canal decimated the Chicago of the North, what happened to the real Chicago? (Or to Minneapolis, St. Paul, or other gateway cities?) Oh right, they resumed growing after about 1921 and built a billion art deco towers.

[TimeFadesAway]

Originally Posted by biguc

You can thank the general strike for that. The '20s were a good time for skyscraper building everywhere but Winnipeg. It took 10 years for people to decide this city wasn't just a bunch of irate commies ready to sink any investment (a real concern in those days) and by the time the paleo-Richardson building above came along, the Great Depression was just around the corner.

Really just around the corner. Demolition started for the Richardson Building on October 12, 1929. Black Tuesday was October 29.

[drew]

Back then, was the reason not the ground conditions?

^ Nah. The still do basically what we do today. Hotel Fort Garry is on caissons on bedrock, as is the Leg.

The closest Winnipeg would have got to a nice art-deco tower was the stalled Richardson building. IIRC the Great Depression stopped that one getting out of the ground.

[esquire]

^ One of the more unfortunate 'never builts' in Winnipeg history


source: West End Dumplings

[drew]

^ look at all those pedestrians disrupting traffic!

[Urban recluse]

Sigh.

[Wigs]

shame

that would have been like an equivalent to The Electric Tower in Buffalo

http://donsphoto.com/blog/wp-content...c-building.jpg
source: Jordan Cooper via donsphoto.com

instead the Richardson building built looks kinda like One Seneca (formerly One HSBC-before the bank vacated)

[HomeInMyShoes]

I prefer the Continental Insurance Building in St. Louis...


Continental Insurance Building by (HomeInMyShoes), on Flickr

Winnipeg has a great selection of buildings, but it would have been nice to have something poking up in the skyline a bit more from that era. The US was just ahead of Canada, especially Western Canada when it comes to built form and population at that point in time. We have to remember that Buffalo around 1930 was over half a million people. Winnipeg was a quarter of that and St. Louis city was over 800,000.

[OTA in Winnipeg]

Originally Posted by HomeInMyShoes

I prefer the Continental Insurance Building in St. Louis...

image

Winnipeg has a great selection of buildings, but it would have been nice to have something poking up in the skyline a bit more from that era. The US was just ahead of Canada, especially Western Canada when it comes to built form and population at that point in time. We have to remember that Buffalo around 1930 was over half a million people. Winnipeg was a quarter of that and St. Louis city was over 800,000.

We did get this:
https://www.google.ca/maps/@49.89405...e0!7i13312!8i6

[HomeInMyShoes]

Originally Posted by OTA in Winnipeg

We did get this:
https://www.google.ca/maps/@49.89405...e0!7i13312!8i6

Winnipeg got a lot of great buildings in its early growth days and thankfully has managed to keep a good percentage of them intact. It gives Winnipeg a distinct feel to it that many Canadian cities could learn from.

[Wigs]

Originally Posted by OTA in Winnipeg

We did get this:
https://www.google.ca/maps/@49.89405...e0!7i13312!8i6

a fine Deco example

[Andy6]

Originally Posted by HomeInMyShoes

I prefer the Continental Insurance Building in St. Louis...


Continental Insurance Building by (HomeInMyShoes), on Flickr

Winnipeg has a great selection of buildings, but it would have been nice to have something poking up in the skyline a bit more from that era. The US was just ahead of Canada, especially Western Canada when it comes to built form and population at that point in time. We have to remember that Buffalo around 1930 was over half a million people. Winnipeg was a quarter of that and St. Louis city was over 800,000.

Winnipeg had way more than 125,000 people by 1930. The reasons for the buildings not being taller were soil conditions, the lack of any really large tenants, and a widespread belief that tall commercial buildings were aesthetically out of scale and exemplifications of American vulgarity. Also, Winnipeg’s economic boom was in 1911-13, not the 1920s when taller skyscrapers were becoming more common and acceptable.