Contents: About Industrial Architecture of Montreal | Original Site Credits | Tech

About Industrial Architecture of Montreal

About the 2024 Redesign

Industrial Architecture of Montreal is an index of approximately 130 industrial buildings in Montreal. It was originally created in 1999 by McGill’s Blackader-Lauterman Library, led by Marilyn Berger. The site was migrated to CollectionBuilder in 2024; view the original site from 1999 via the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine. While the site’s content has not been updated since its initial launch in 1999, certain features have been changed or modernized.

The buildings photographs taken by McGill Libraries staff in 1999 are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Unfortunately, during the site migration we were unable to locate higher resolution images without copyright watermarks.

Questions about the site can be directed to rarebooks.library@mcgill.ca.

About the Original Site

For almost a century Montreal was the industrial centre of Canada. Between 1847-1945, the area surrounding the Lachine Canal had the highest concentration of industrial buildings in the country. The variety of buildings included factories, elevators, warehouses, mills, and refineries which today provide a legacy of historic and architectural interest. Beginning in the late 20th century, industrial districts of Montreal were remodeled and transformed, particularly in the vicinity of the Lachine Canal, as part of the city’s deindustrialization. This project aimed collect, organize, and preserve textual and visual information on key industrial buildings before their transformations.

Entries in the database contain historical and contemporary images of the building, it’s name, address, building type and dates relating to its construction. Many entries also include information about the architect, historical images, building materials, present use, alterations and renovations.

Citations to books, periodicals and newspaper articles which include details about illustrations accompany the architectural information provided. An on-line database provides access to compiled information. This database is patterned after the Archindont project–the Architectural Index for Ontario–an initiative by the Toronto Reference Library.

The project also researched biographical information on several architects of Montreal’s industrial architecture. Prominent architects and firms from Montreal’s history such as Alexander Hutchison; John Ostell; Hopkins, Lawford & Nelson, and Ross & Macdonald are featured. It also includes information on engineering firms such as T. Pringle & Son and John Metcalfe & Co.

Original Site Credits

Initial funding for this project was generously provided by Young Canada Works in Heritage Institutions and Young Canada Works in Science and Technology. The Blackader-Lauterman Library extends its sincere appreciation to the Canadian Library Association and the Department of Canadian Heritage for making these funds available and to the Digital Collections Program, McGill University for their cooperation.

Original site Produced By: Blackader-Lauterman Library of Architecture and Art, McGill University

Financial Assistance Graciously Provided By: Young Canada Works in Science and Technology and in Heritage Institutions, the Department of Canadian Heritage, and the Canadian Library Association

Project Head: Marilyn Berger, Head Librarian

Researcher/Project Coordinator: Jessica Schaap

Webmaster/Database Designer: David Clearwater

Special Thanks: David McKnight and Marwan Al-Sabbagh, Digital Collections Program, McGill University; Dinu Bumbaru, Heritage Montreal; Francoise Roux, Librarian & Veronique Rodriguez, Archivist, Canadian Centre for Architecture Library and Archives; Heather McNab, McCord Museum Museum of Canadian History, Notman Photographic Archive; Dr. Jeanne Wolfe, Department of Urban Planning, McGill University; Jean Letendre, Parcs Canada; David Janigan, Mill Manager, Kruger Inc.; Staff at the Rare Books and Special Collections Division, McGill University; Carol Marley, Walter Hitschfeld Geographic Information Centre, McGill University