Remember a couple of weeks ago when I was in downtown Ottawa? The classes with Nancy Bush were at the top of a hotel right beside the massive Museum of Nature, and at lunch time I went out to hunt down a few examples of Art Deco architecture that I’d seen before when driving through the neighbourhood. Here are my top 3 buildings of that little walk:
335 Metcalfe – The Trafalgar
Park Square at 425 Elgin
Windsor Arms at 150 Argyle St – This massive building drew me in, and I wanted to get as much of it as I could in one picture.
What really surprised me were the colourful tiles. I haven’t seen another building like this in Ottawa.
It called to my mind this amazing building in Montreal: 1414 Drummond (Drummond Medical Arts Building).
I’m so glad I took advantage of the sunshine to look at some buildings I’d only seen briefly when driving into the downtown core. Seeing the tile decoration was like finding an Easter egg!
I love getting to see my city through other peoples’ eyes! Especially when they pull out tiny hidden snippets of beauty
Have you explored New Edinburgh yet? Lots of stuff up your alley around the back edges of Rideau Hall.
Bill and I spent the first year of our marriage on Somerset St. near the canal (I worked as a lawyer on Lisgar St., just down from where I’d gone to high school). It was the era before panhandlers and student housing (no bridge across the canal then), and the area was full of high-end boutiques and food shops. Very different from now. At the time, many senior bureaucrats lived in the area, many in those wonderful art deco-era apartment buildings.
In response to the earlier comment: I grew up in New Edinburgh, facing into the GG’s grounds. It’s truly a beautiful part of Ottawa, but most of it dates from the late Victorian period, with no art deco construction at all that I can think of (except for maybe one double house on Stanley Ave. not far from Sussex).