2006

Our Cultural Heritage Places

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In this quick tour, we visit a number of Canada’s heritage buildings that were created especially for people to get together or a good time, some entertainment, or another cultural purpose. A big city fine arts museum, a dance hall in a spa town, a prairie opera hall, a downtown movie palace, and the community hall of a rural village—each building tells a story. These places express a purpose, a people, and the view of a time. For the early First Nations people of this land there was a unity of purpose in their built environments. As far as we know, longhouses, fire rings, totems and other structures were not built for a single activity, but for many kinds of gatherings. Potlatches, social celebrations, spiritual occasions, tribal meetings—these activities focused on the kinship, beliefs and needs of First Nation peoples. In the early European settlements,fortresses, and colonies, the newcomers first attended to fundamental needs and built their shelters, structures for defence, and then, places for religious worship. But after they had provided for the basics, the settlers, entrepreneurs and soldiers might have thought about another need: the social need to get together to enjoy each others’ company, leisure and entertainment. It’s likely that the first theatrical performances and concerts in French and British North America took place in whatever space was large enough to accommodate a gathering. That might have been a large assembly room in an inn or the mess hall of a fort. As settlements grew, so did some of the first structures built purposely to provide for leisure and entertainment.

In 1764, Quebec City’s Gazette reported dances held at a “Concert Hall.” That hall is no longer standing. There are historical references to other
special buildings in early Quebec. Documents mention concerts and performances in the Thespian Theatre, Marchant’s Coffee House, and Nouvelle Salle des
Spectacles. A play was performed in 1805 at the Théâtre Patagon, but the name of that drama is lost to history. Taverns were popular gathering places, and many had an assembly room on the upper floor where a drama could be staged. From the late 18th century until the middle of the 19th century, there was frequent entertainment in the taverns in St. John’s, Halifax, Montreal, and Quebec.

In Montreal, people gathered at Dillon’s Hotel and Mr. Frank’s Assembly Room to hear musical performances. In St. John’s, the Amateur Theatre and Globe Tavern were known for their talented actors and musicians. There are few survivors among these old buildings. Most were lost to fire or demolition. (Two buildings of this type that have survived are the Cardno Building (1877) in Seaforth, Ontario, and the Academy Theatre (1892) in Lindsay, Ontario.) With industrialization and the growing affluence of cities, there was a growing need for buildings for meetings, important events, and entertainment. By the mid-1850s, Montreal and Toronto had constructed Mechanics Halls which were used for a variety of cultural, political, and social occasions. Emma Albani, the Quebec-born opera star, and the “divine” Sarah Bernhardt, the greatest actress of her time, performed in such halls. St. Lawrence Hall (1851) in Toronto is a rare example of a specially built performance space that has survived from the mid-19th century, a time when fire repeatedly ravaged entire neighbourhoods of Canadian cities. In the last decades of the 19th century, touring companies of actors and musicians performed the standard dramatic repertoire and melodrama. Thanks to rail links, the companies travelled to major cities and smaller towns throughout the country. To accommodate these professionals from Boston, New York, and even London, communities built concert halls, often near the train station. A surprisingly large number of towns and cities built civic auditoriums which they called “opera halls.” It is a grand term to describe a concert hall that was not necessarily intended for grand opera. Still, these were specially designed buildings, well-appointed, with lavish interiors, fine stages, and superb acoustics.

Virden, Manitoba, is a prairie town that foldocuments lowed this fashion. By the end of the 19th century, Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, and Nelson, BC, as well as Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Kingston, Winnipeg, and Vancouver—and even gold rush towns like Dawson City and Barkerville—all had “opera” halls. Most small towns and villages had less grand pretensions, but almost every place had a fine community hall which served many social functions. Often these halls were built by a fraternal organization for use by their group and the community at large. The Society of United Fishermen Lodge in Heart’s Content, Newfoundland and Labrador, is such a place.

Still, many social events took place in private homes. This was true from the earliest years of settlement through to the late 19th century. Whether in a farmhouse kitchen or a
middle-class parlour, Canadians engaged in song, music and dance. The democratic ideal that all classes should have access to leisure and culture was gradually taking hold. Social and political reformers worried about the unhealthy and corrupting influences of big cities, factories, and industrialization. They believed that culture had the power to combat moral and spiritual decay. Canada’s most celebrated concert hall was built for this reason. Toronto industrialist Hart Massey was a man of Victorian sensibilities who believed literally in the power of music to inspire moral improvement. He was benefactor of Massey Hall, a grand concert hall with seating for 3,700, and superb acoustics. (The hall was designed by architect Sydney Badgely in the 1890s.) Halifax Public Gardens were created for a similar purpose: to inspire the moral, physical, and spiritual wellbeing of people from all social classes. Back in the mid-1800s the science of botany was all the rage; the gardens were a living museum of hundreds of different specimens. Historians might call the gardens a cultural landscape—a space that is profoundly meaningful for people. There are few actual buildings. One is the beautiful bandstand with its delicate Victorian gingerbread trim, a favourite place for summer concerts.

The idea that working class people should have access to leisure was evidence of profound social change. Canada’s first museums were born of a similar recognition that the benefits of culture need not be confined to a single social class. In Montreal, the city’s art society decided to build a museum for fine arts and an art school. The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts was the country’s first. The architects chose the Beaux-Arts style to convey the museum’s high artistic purpose and grandeur. In Ottawa, Canada’s first national museum building was constructed to house the Geological Survey of Canada and a natural history collection. It was the Victoria Memorial Museum, built in 1905/1911 to honour Queen Victoria who had died in 1901. It’s a massive stone building, with castle-like features in the crenellated roof and turrets, as well as distinctly Canadian mosaics and stone carvings of wildlife. In Rocky Mountain parks, architects and designers of the Banff Park Museum and other buildings developed a rustic style that was perfectly suited to the majestic wilderness. In the late 19th century a new popular entertainment was sweeping North America. Vaudeville! Historians disagree about the origins of vaudeville, but it seems that legitimate theatre and classical as well as popular music, minstrel shows, itinerant performers, and circus shows all contributed.

A standard vaudeville show consisted of music and dance and specialty acts such as mind readers, escape artists (like Houdini), strong men, living statuary, and even regurgitators! Vaudeville theatre required a new North American building type. Architects designed majestic theatres patterned after European palaces. Canada’s vaudeville theatres are opulent palaces whose designers were lavish in their use of decorative detail—stained glass, marble pillars and arches, wrought iron decorations, balconies, and gargoyles. These theatres proclaim themselves as places of cultural refinement, luxury, and success. With the first moving pictures, whole communities gathered together and watched the antics of Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton or films such as The Birth of a Nation while a musician played an impressive Wurlitzer organ. In some places the early movies were shown in outdoor tents. In Ottawa, there was the Flower Theatre, with a retractable roof supplying natural air-conditioning. The building spree of vaudeville and cinemas meant more work for architects and engineers too. These theatres employed the latest technologies in fireproofing and airconditioning as soon as they were available. Some of the first theatres equipped for film projection were designed for both vaudeville and movies. They were glittering palaces built in every style known to architecture— Spanish Revival, Moorish, Neoclassical, and, in the 1920s and 1930s, Art Deco. It seemed as if every Canadian city and town had a Pantages, Loews, Orpheum, and an Allen, some of the big theatre chains of the day.

A night at the pictures was a special occasion. Even the ushers wore tuxedos. The lavish facades of the theatre promised luxury within. Grand marble stairways led to impressive salons with vaulted ceilings, crystal chandeliers, and velvet drapery. The fantasy continued in the auditorium with fabulous decoration, plasterwork and gold leaf, faux painted scenes of Mediterranean gardens, and atmospheric lighting. The Imperial Theatre in Saint John is one of these great vaudeville-movie palaces. It was commissioned by the Keith-Albee Vaudeville Organization and was originally on the vaudeville circuit before it became a movie house. The period after the First World War ushered in a time of new social freedom. From coast to coast people went crazy for social dancing. New dances like the foxtrot and the two-step actually required couples to embrace each other on the dance floor! It was the era of swing, jazz, and the big
band.

Even Prohibition couldn’t stop the growth of night clubs, cabarets, and dance halls. Radio and phonographs just fuelled the appetite for live music and dance. During the Roaring Twenties and the Dirty Thirties, Victoria Hall, in Westmount, Quebec, was a locally famous gathering place for Saturday night dances. Entertainers in later years included the Johnny Holmes Orchestra and their pianist Oscar Peterson.

Visitors to the Saskatchewan spa town of Manitou Springs had their pick of three dance halls on a Saturday night. Danceland was a great sprawling hall with a special dance floor of tongue and groove maple atop a layer of springy horsehair. It is still a popular spot
for social dancing. If the buildings and places described in these pages seem quaint or old-fashioned, perhaps that is because they remind us of how our parents and grandparents used to get together when they went out (before the cultural buildings of our time—the multiplex cinema, the disco, the art centre, and the indoor skating arena). These places are remarkable examples of fine design and craftsmanship, often works of art.

But there is something else that makes them special. Visit the Orpheum Theatre in Vancouver,
the Opera Hall in Virden, or St. Lawrence Hall in Toronto—and you know immediately that you are in a place of elegance and refinement.  The SUF Lodge in Heart’s Content, Newfoundland and the Victoria Community Hall in Victoria, Prince Edward Island are honest and unpretentious. They are simple spaces, but their walls resonate with pleasure and good times. These buildings are living symbols of their time, space, and culture. They speak strongly to us of a particular time and place and community purpose. But they are more than just relics. They are survivors who have sometimes known hard times and have certainly had to adapt to new times.