About this site
About the 2026 redesign
The History of McGill University’s Buildings documents the architectural development of McGill’s downtown and Macdonald campuses. Originally titled Virtual McGill: Campuses and Buildings, the site was first launched in 1996 by staff at McGill University Libraries working with the Canadian Architecture Collection. View the original site via the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine.
The site was redesigned and migrated in 2026 using CollectionBuilder. The new site retains most of its original content, with minor corrections and additions to enhance usability while preserving its integrity.
Currently, 79 buildings are indexed, including some records that refer to the same structure but are listed as separate entries. Some records may lack images, descriptions, or other information that was unavailable at the time of migration.
Questions about the site can be directed to rarebooks.library@mcgill.ca.
Copyright information
The images on this website were collected from the McGill University Archives, the Notman Archives (McCord Museum), the John Bland Canadian Architecture Collection (McGill University), and the Instructional Communications Centre (a former McGill University department).
We provide information about the copyright status of each item in its record where available and to the best of our knowledge. Copyright status differs between items based on each image’s creation date, so please refer to the “Rights” box associated with each image for relevant information.
Original Virtual McGill overview
The following text introduced the Virtual McGill site in 1996:
Virtual McGill: Campuses and Buildings has been developed as one of several documentary projects honouring the University’s 175th anniversary. The project was conceived by the staff of the Canadian Architecture Collection (CAC), McGill University Libraries. It was implemented by McGill students with funding from the Department of Canadian Heritage.
The purpose of Virtual McGill is to give McGill students, past, present and future, a sense of the history of the individual campus buildings, as well as of the programs which were or are housed in them. The intention is also to share the history of McGill buildings, many of which once served as private residences of prominent Montreal citizens, with researchers, architects, and the community at large. Future expansions of the Virtual McGill web site will aim to arrive at a comprehensive architectural history of the University and its downtown and Macdonald campuses.
In addition to CAC-held photographs and drawings, the project has extensively drawn on the resources of other University repositories and affiliates. These included the University Archives, the Instructional Communications Centre, Physical Resources and the Notman Photographic Archive of McCord Museum of Canadian History. We are grateful to the above units for sharing with us their collections, as well as their equipment and expertise. A very particular word of thanks goes to the University Archives, since approximately three quarters of all images used in this project come from their collections and were digitized with their equipment. For textual information on university buildings, we have drawn on CAC files and the existing university and city publications, most notably those of Dr. Stanley Frost, John Bland and Donald Mackay, whose research has been invaluable to us.
Original site credits
Preliminary concept (1994-95)
- Irena Murray, David Johnson, and Debbie Miller
Project team
- Irena Murray: Head, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections / Curator, Canadian Architecture Collection: Project Leader and Editor
- Rebecca Michaels: Photography, Imaging, Research and Building Descriptions
- David Johnson: Web Design, Systems Analysis, Website Direction and Maintenance
- Odile Bourbigot: Translation into French
- Glenna Vinokur: Web Design and Development, Graphic Design
- Sylvain Pimparé: Image Conversion
- Daniella Rohan: Architectural Consulting