herr2ck: La Baie

August 2025.

Montreal’s Bay Building, until very recently, housed The Bay department store (part of the Hudson’s Bay Company). The original building, known as the Henry Morgan Building, has an interesting Romanesque Revival design, and subsequent large additions have expanded it westward.

The Bay Building is located at 585 Rue Sainte-Catherine West in downtown Montreal, Quebec, occupying an entire city block. It is bordered by Aylmer Street to the north, Avenue Union and Christ Church Cathedral to the south, Rue Sainte-Catherine and Phillips Square to the east, and Boulevard de Maisonneuve West to the west.

History

View of the building shortly after its construction was completed. (McCord Museum)

The Bay Building was commissioned by Henry Morgan & Company, a Montreal department store founded in 1845. They held an architectural competition for a new flagship store, and American architect John Pierce Hill won the commission. His Romanesque Revival design built of Scottish Old Red Sandstone began construction in 1889, replacing stone townhouses on the site, and it was completed in 1891.

1940s-ish view of the Henry Morgan Building and its 1923 addition. (Wikimedia)

In 1923, a Beaux-Arts addition spanning eight stories was constructed onto the west side of the Bay Building. It was clad in red stone and employed similar arches to emulate the original building’s architecture.

Morgan’s was acquired by Hudson’s Bay and Company in 1960. A Brutalist annex was built onto the 1923 addition in 1964, which is largely windowless and fronts Boulevard De Maisonneuve. Quebec locations of Morgan’s retained that nameplate until 1972, when it was rebranded to The Bay.

Proposed addition to the Bay Building that would replace the Brutalist addition. (Heritage Montreal)

In 2021, a tower on top of the Bay Building was proposed, which would have demolished the 1964 Brutalist addition. Heritage Montreal decried this proposal, as it considered the portion historically valuable. I’m not convinced by their arguments that it responds to the original building and Beaux-Arts addition (tacking arched windows on is about it), but they do make a good point that it would be easy to adaptively reuse due to its simple floor plan, and Montreal’s Brutalist work has mostly been lost.

Hudson’s Bay declared bankruptcy in 2025, which likely shelved the above plans. Six locations, this building being one of them, were planned to be kept open in the interim, but all stores ultimately closed in June 2025. This occurred just two months before my visit. As of now, the Bay Building is vacant.

Photos

Here is the 1891 building today, from the corner of Rue Sainte-Catherine and Avenue Union:

Admittedly, I do like the ornamentation, but the building has a strong tripartite expression achieved through the alternating bays. Large arches line the second floor, and the fourth floor has a colonnade supporting smaller arches in the central bays. Various Romanesque pilasters line the walls. The first floor’s storefront has been mostly obscured, and a wide awning covers the sidewalk.

I know the awning isn’t original, but it has these carved iron pillars common in late Victorian through Commercial style architecture, so it must have been installed relatively early in the building’s history. Obviously it has since been altered with crappy corrugated metal underneath and little Postmodern flourishes over each column today.

A little off-center, but here’s the south facade:

Note the intricately carved capitals and details across the facade. I love those giant arches, too.

East facade, featuring the workers setting up the umbrellas in Phillips Square:

The building’s expression dictates the main entrance should be in the middle, but for whatever reason it was altered into a corner entrance. The center bay protrudes slightly and has a higher parapet--these are all subtle clues to draw your attention there.

This detail of the center bay and cornice came out nicely:

The arches have little keystones, which is unusual for Romanesque architecture:

The 1923 addition was much too large to capture in its entirety straight-on. I got this shot of just the windows:

The pilasters and cornice here are definitely more classically influenced than the original building, but the fenestration and materiality is similar.

Nice sense of depth, too: