Maison Alcan | |
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Atholstan House, Maison Alcan complex, with Davis Building at rear and Berkeley Hotel building at right | |
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General information | |
Address | 1188 Sherbrooke Street West |
Town or city | Montreal |
Country | Canada |
Completed | 1983 |
Client | Lune Rouge |
Owner | Guy Laliberté |
Technical details | |
Floor area | 270,000 sq ft (25,000 m2) [1] |
Design and construction | |
Architect(s) | Ray Affleck |
Architecture firm | Arcop |
References | |
Official name | La Maison-Alcan |
Type | Classified heritage immovable |
Designated | 2017-02-23 |
Maison Alcan (English: Alcan House) is a building complex located on Sherbrooke Street in the Golden Square Mile district of Montreal, [2] Canada. The complex was used to house the world headquarters for Alcan, now part of Rio Tinto Alcan, until 2015. Completed in 1983, the complex's integration of new construction with restored or renovated buildings marked a turning point in corporate Montreal's approach to development. [3]
Maison Alcan combined restored Golden Square Mile properties — Atholstan House, the Beique, the former Berkeley Hotel, the Holland House, as well as the Salvation Army's Montreal Citadel on Drummond Street — with a new aluminum-clad structure, known as the Davis Building. The Berkeley Hotel serves as the main entrance to the complex and its atrium, on Sherbrooke Street. [1] [4] [5] According to the La Presse newspaper, Maison Alcan marked the first time a major corporation based in Montreal had sought to preserve historic properties as part of a new headquarters. In contrast to the controversial demolition of the nearby Van Horne Mansion, Maison Alcan preserved part of the architectural heritage of the Golden Square Mile. [6]
Maison Alcan was designed by the Montreal-based architectural firm of Arcop (Architects in co-partnership), with Ray Affleck as lead architect. [7] [8] Peter Rose collaborated with Peter Lanken on the interior planning and design. [9]
In May 2011, it was reported that Rio Tinto Alcan was looking to sell Maison Alcan and move to new headquarters, due to the cost of renovating the building for a smaller workforce—and with the historic status of four of the seven buildings possibly complicating renovations. [10] The complex was listed by real estate brokers Cushman & Wakefield, with a $30 million minimum bid. [1]
In 2015, Alcan moved its HQ from the building and relocated to the Deloitte Tower, which is located between Windsor Station and the Bell Centre. [11] In June 2016, Alcan sold the complex to Nacla General Partner Inc. for $48 million. [12]
After plans to turn the location into condos [10] and build a 30-story office building [5] fell through, Maison Alcan was classified as a heritage immovable by the Ministry of Culture and Communications on 23 February 2017. [13]
Rio Tinto Alcan is a Canada-based mining company. Headquartered in Montreal, Quebec, it is a subsidiary of global mining conglomerate Rio Tinto. It was created on 15 November 2007 as the result of the merger between Rio Tinto's Canadian subsidiary and Canadian company Alcan.
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Hugh Graham, 1st Baron Atholstan, known as Sir Hugh Graham between 1908 and May 1917, was a Canadian newspaper publisher.
The Golden Square Mile, also known as the Square Mile, is the nostalgic name given to an urban neighbourhood developed principally between 1850 and 1930 at the foot of Mount Royal, in the west-central section of downtown Montreal in Quebec, Canada. The name 'Square Mile' has been used to refer to the area since the 1930s; prior to that, the neighbourhood was known as 'New Town' or 'Uptown'. The addition of 'Golden' was coined by Montreal journalist Charlie Lazarus, and the name has connections to contemporary real estate developments, as the historical delimitations of the Golden Square Mile overlap with Montreal's contemporary central business district.
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Raymond Tait (Ray) Affleck was a Canadian architect. He was born on 20 November 1922 in Penticton, British Columbia. He died in Montreal on 16 March 1989. One of the founders of Montreal-based architectural firm Arcop, he also taught at leading universities in Canada and the United States.
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Arcop was an architectural firm based in Montreal, renowned for designing many major projects in Canada including Place Bonaventure, Place Ville-Marie and Maison Alcan. The firm was originally formed as a partnership under the name Affleck, Desbarats, Lebensold, Michaud & Sise between Ray Affleck, Guy Desbarats, Jean Michaud, Fred Lebensold and Hazen Sise, all graduates and/or professors at the McGill School of Architecture. In 1959, after the departure of Michaud and the addition of Dimitri Dimakopoulos, another McGill Architecture graduate, the firm was renamed Affleck, Desbarats, Dimakopoulos, Lebensold, Sise which it maintained for a decade afterward. The company did not adopt the name Arcop, which stands for "Architects in Co-Partnership", until 1970.
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