Those those of us who first rode the Montreal Metro as kids visiting Expo '67 may find this mosaic oddly resonant. It adorns the entrance of the Jackson Building at the corner of Bank and Slater and was created by Quebec artist Jean-Paul Mousseau. During the 1960s, Mousseau was commissioned to decorate the Peel Metro station, which he did, extensively, in the same op-art style we see here — his cheerfully-coloured rotated disc motif evoking the motion of the subway trains themselves. Or maybe he was just into dots.
This mosaic carries well enough into the Jackson's early '70s style — which, as it turns out, has nothing to do with the building's original (1920) appearance.
According to Urbsite, (check out his informative and much-illustrated article here)
"...The Jackson Building (1919-20) was designed by J. Albert Ewart in a restrained Tudor-Jacobean style. Ewart had just completed the Transportation Building (1916) for Booth, and later designed Gordon Edward's Victoria Building on Wellington Street (1928) in a similar vein.
As it grew grimy with age, and the rooftop features became unstable and had to be removed, the Jackson Building entered a long slow decline. In 1969-71 the Jackson was modernized with a total makeover designed by James Strutt...."Also, take a look at "A History of the Jackson Building" at Images of Centretown.
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| Splendid, Modern, Fireproof... Ottawa Journal, May 13 1922 |
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| Peel Metro Station, David Sidaway / Montreal Gazette, March 12 2017 |
In 1958, the "old" Jackson Building suffered blast damage from a gas explosion at the Addressograph-Multigraph Building directly across the street on Slater. "Today in Ottawa's History" has an account of the disaster here. According to TiOH,
"...The Jackson Building, where thousands [?!] of civil servants worked, situated at the corner of Slater and Bank Streets across from the Addressograph building, was also severely damaged. Virtually all its windows were blown out; debris, sent high in the sky by the force of the blast, littered its roof. Major-General H.A. Young, the deputy minister of public works, said that the building had been reduced to “a shell.” So twisted were its elevator shafts that all twelve elevators were out of commission; filing cabinets and furniture were later retrieved using external hoists. Remarkably, however, the sturdy, nine-story office building, the tallest in Ottawa, remained structural sound, and was later repaired..."
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| blast damage at Bank and Slater, via "Today in Ottawa's History" |
