McGill Libraries
McLennan Library Building3459 rue McTavish
Montreal, Quebec
H3A 0C9
Title and statement of responsibility area
Title proper
Macdonald Engineering Building
General material designation
Parallel title
Other title information
Title statements of responsibility
Title notes
Level of description
File
Reference code
CA CAC 1-1-15
Edition area
Edition statement
Edition statement of responsibility
Class of material specific details area
Statement of scale (cartographic)
Statement of projection (cartographic)
Statement of coordinates (cartographic)
Statement of scale (architectural)
Issuing jurisdiction and denomination (philatelic)
Dates of creation area
Date(s)
-
May 1907-April 1908 (Architect)
- Architect
- Nobbs, Percy E. (Percy Erskine), 1875-1964
-
May 1907-April 1908 (Client)
- Client
- McGill University.
Physical description area
Physical description
112 drawings : 82 ink on linen, 2 ink on paper, 5 ink on card, 11 pencil on paper, 1 pencil on card, 1 watercolour on paper, 10 blueprints
3 photographs
Publisher's series area
Title proper of publisher's series
Parallel titles of publisher's series
Other title information of publisher's series
Statement of responsibility relating to publisher's series
Numbering within publisher's series
Note on publisher's series
Archival description area
Name of creator
(1875-1964)
Custodial history
Scope and content
File consists of architectural drawings and blueprints for university building. Includes 8 measured drawings (floor plans, numbering of rooms), 7 presentation drawings (proposed elevation, front and back elevations, north and south elevations, sections), 3 development drawings (drafting room, floor plan, treads and nosing section), 16 working drawings (floor plans, roof plan, elevations, sections), 76 detail drawings (room plans and elevations, sections, doors, structure, stairs, lettering, gallery, gables, corridor, entrance hall, windows, porch, ducts, sashes, theatre plan and sections, seats, staircase, marble work [including partitions and wall linings], fittings, lintels, lighting, terracotta [including porch, vestibule, door, hall, locker room], stonework [including windows, elevations, entrance, gables, panels]), 1 consultant drawing (roof diagram), 1 record drawing (elevation). Also includes 32 photographs (3 models, 2 construction, 6 finished exteriors, 18 finished interiors, 3 others).
Notes area
Physical condition
Immediate source of acquisition
Arrangement
Language of material
Script of material
Location of originals
Availability of other formats
Digital surrogates provided represent a selection of materials in the file.
Restrictions on access
Terms governing use, reproduction, and publication
Finding aids
Associated materials
Accruals
General note
See 3d objects nos. 1,6,8,27,28 and 29.
General note
On the 5th of April 1907, the Macdonald Engineering Building was almost entirely destroyed by fire. Designed by Andrew T. Taylor (1850-1973), the building exterior was solidly built of limestone, but its interior was of mill-construction. Both the interior and the roof of the building were entirely wrecked, and the external stone walls were seriously damaged. Percy Nobbs was commissioned to redesign and rebuild the structure on condition that it be operational for the fall semester that same year, which in fact he achieved. (Norbert Schoenauer, “Percy Erskine Nobbs: Teacher and Builder of Architecture,” Fontanus: from the Collections of McGill University 7 [1996]: 51) In his Macdonald Engineering Building Nobbs pays homage to Richard Norman Shaw (1831-1913). Although the building derives its own character from the local limestone, the relationship of plan elevation, and a programmatic use of detail, its massing looks to Shaw’s work such as Piccadilly Hotel in London. Nobbs’s deference to Shaw also had a deeper consequence. His willingness to accept the resurgent Classicism and the Grand Manner of English architecture as a model suitable for Canada was the final link in a chain of influences and ideas which Nobbs developed in his writing and which he set forth as a course for the development of Canadian architecture. (Kelly Crossman, Architecture in Transition: From Art to Practice, 1885-1906 [Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1987], 134-35)
Alternative identifier(s)
Nobbs database project ID
15
Nobbs database op number
075