herr2ck: A Hunk of Stone

August 2025.

Windsor Station in Montreal is a very iconic Richardsonian Romanesque design. Largely eschewing ornamentation in favor of its monumental stature, its stalwart and low masonry appearance is the direct opposite of the glass skyscrapers that surround it. The design represents the sensibility of Richardsonian Romanesque architecture to prioritize form and materiality over applied ornamentation, a radical idea for its time.

Windsor Station is located at 1160 Avenue des Canadiens-de-Montreal in downtown Montreal, Quebec. It is bordered by Rue Peel and Place du Canada to the north, the Bell Centre and Tour Deloitte to the south, Rue Saint-Antoine West to the east, and St. George’s Anglican and Avenue des Canadiens-de-Montreal to the west.

History

Windsor Station’s original appearance as it was designed by Bruce Price. (Wikimedia)

Windsor Station was built for the Canadian Pacific Railroad, which was founded in 1881 and began operations in 1886. Its first station, Dalhousie Station, was completed two years earlier in 1884. Windsor Station was designed as a larger, more convenient station with better access to Canadian Pacific’s rail routes. It also was used as their new headquarters.

Windsor Station was designed in 1887 by American architect Bruce Price in the Richardsonian Romanesque style. Price had previously designed the Banff Springs Hotel and Chateau Frontenac in Canada. He submitted four different iterations before Canadian Pacific would accept it, and ultimately it cost CA$300,000 to build (about $7.4 million USD today). His design was completed in 1889, and the first trains departed that February.

c. 1900 view of Windsor Station with its first addition. The tower of St. George’s Anglican is on the right. (Wikimedia)

Windsor Station has had either two or three additions over its lifetime (my sources conflict), possibly one of which has been demolished. The first addition occurred in 1900-1906 by Edward Maxwell, which added the western wing on Avenue des Canadiens-de-Montreal and porte-cochere. The possibly demolished second addition was designed by Canadian Pacific’s company architect W. S. Painter, a nondescript concrete structure derogatively nicknamed the “mud hut” and demolished in 1973. (One source mentions this, but I haven’t found anything to corroborate it.) The final was in 1909-1914, also by W. S. Painter, which included its fifteen-story tower and current eastern front on Rue Saint-Antoine. The existing additions are to plans that blend in indistinguishably with the original building.

The 1914 addition under construction. (Images Montreal)

In 1970, Canadian Pacific planned to demolish the building and replace it with a CA$250 million, 60-story office tower, which would be designed by Minoru Yamasaki (architect of the World Trade Center and Pruitt-Igoe). The project was delayed and ultimately scrapped, and the station has stood since.

At the same time, Canadian Pacific considered its passenger trains no longer economically viable, and they tried to divest before being required by the Canadian government to maintain services, while also subsidizing the railway’s financial losses. In 1974, Pierre Trudeau promised to create a nationwide passenger train corporation like Amtrak, and this eventually became VIA Rail in 1977. The vast majority of Canadian Pacific’s passenger routes were rerouted to Canadian National’s nearby Central Station, and the remainder were canceled by 1981. At this point, Windsor Station was used solely by commuter trains that only serviced Montreal’s suburbs.

1971 photo of Windsor Station. (Wikimedia)

In 1993, the Bell Centre began construction, which was being built on land that formerly housed Windsor Station’s tracks. The station was fully cut off from rail traffic that year, and it was replaced by Lucien L’Allier Station on the end of the Bell Centre, which opened in 1997. Canadian Pacific abandoned or sold its trackage in the mid-1990s, and the company moved to Calgary in 1996. They sold the station in 2009, and it has since become a mixed-use office complex.

Windsor Station was named a National Historic Site of Canada in 1975, a Heritage Railway Station in 1990, and a provincial heritage site of Quebec in 2009. The tracks and canopy have since been removed.

Photos

We’ll start at the northwest corner of the station, the same angle as the 1971 photo above:

This is probably one of the most raw Richardsonian Romanesque designs I’ve ever seen. No polychromatic masonry or anything, mostly relentless rough stone with a highly regular pattern of windows.

Looking closer at the shorter tower, part of Price’s design:

I think certain sections of stone on the facade have been replaced, namely much of the tower’s crown. The lighter, unrusticated stone is a dead giveaway.

The western corner of the north facade:

This view has a good look at the loggia of shorter, closer arched windows along the top floor. The corner features an octagonal tower. There is some subtle ornamentation here, namely the cornice and columns, but it’s very hard to discern. More on that later.

Back to the tower:

There’s a balustrade beneath one of the windows, and they have a different pattern than the bulk of the facade surrounding it. Beyond the tower’s height, this is another method to set it apart.

Along with the tower’s battlements, it is carved with organic patterns and female heads at the corners:

Looking west towards Painter’s addition:

The additions are so well-designed that they blend in indistinguishably with the original building. Also note how the even rougher base extends downward as Rue Peel slopes. The window and dormer pattern from the original east end are continued onward, with a massive tower further east. The dormers and the tower’s many spires are more Chateauesque features, which was also a popular style at the time and similar to Romanesque Revival.

Here is the fenestration pattern that defines much of the lower areas of the station:

Each bay is slightly recessed and supported by two large, thin columns, which serve as the base for the massive arch above to spring from. The first two windows are rectangular with corbelled corners, an uncommon shape, and the third is vaulted. Again, notice how subtle the ornamentation is--the string courses are only differentiated by a slightly rougher cut of stone, the spandrels between windows, and the small column capitals.

A closer look at the corbelled rectangular windows:

The two top floors and one of the larger dormers above:

The loggia with smaller, more numerous arches is still apparent, but an additional floor of rectangular windows in line with the ones below exists on this part of the building. Everything appears almost primitive with its rough, undecorated style of construction and different shades of stone. These dormers are similar to the ones on the west side but have vaulted windows instead.

Two of the bays west of the tower have this unique window arrangement, with a second arched window below and taller rectangular windows:

Old vs. new column capitals:

The north face of the tower:

Again, beyond the height, the different fenestration sets it apart from the remainder of the facade. What’s interesting is that the face seems to undulate, which is an effect achieved via the triangular buttresses.

Its entrance is expressed in the common Romanesque manner of a grand arched portal, though the doors are supported with what looks like a cast-iron design similar to a commercial storefront of the period:

A closer look at the arch voussoirs and seal above the doors:

Detail of the three small arches above the entrance portal:

Bay window:

Tower shaft--note the Ionic capitals at the top:

This arched window specifically belongs to one of the three bays between the large tower and corner entrance to the east, which sit where the rusticated base does on the original part of the building:

We’ve finally reached the northeast end and have a nice overall view of what would be considered the principal facade today:

The corner is chamfered instead of square like the other side, and that move sets up the grand entrance to the station. Beyond the grand arched portal and signage, a more elaborate crown sits atop this part, much like the one on the nearby tower:

Here’s a closer look at just the corner area:

Also note how the octagonal towers embedded into this module help create a transition from the orthogonal, regular wall plane beyond it. It is one of the more decorated areas of the building with its various roof peaks, balustrades, and niches.

Detail of the central vaulted window:

Nicely framed shot of the “WINDSOR STATION” sign above the entrance:

I also like the old-timey Canadian Pacific logo with overlaid letters and the beaver on top, which is a symbol of Canada. The gilded clock above the doors with a lion and unicorn is pretty cool, too.

There are also two corner openings on either side of the entrance, which are windows today but may have been additional entrances originally. I like their smaller blind arches above:

Now you see what I was yammering about in the intro to this one?

A smaller set of doors elsewhere on the building, with a uniquely denticulated archway and lintel above the doors:

Along with the arch itself, the columns that support it are also unique to this area of the building.

I didn’t cover the west facade in much depth, mainly because I couldn’t get far enough away to do overall shots. Here is an oblique view of the northwest corner, which also dates to Price’s original design: