Bank of Canada Building

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The Bank of Canada Building in Ottawa.

The Bank of Canada Building is the head office of the Bank of Canada, located in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.

Built from 1937-1938 by architect S.G. Davenport of Montreal and completed by the Toronto firm of Marani, Lawson and Morris, it replaced the Victoria Building to the east of this building on Wellington Street. Constructed of grey granite from Quebec, it is late neoclassical in style, which was very popular at the time among banks, and won a number of architectural awards, including the Gold Medal from the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada.

The large bronze front doors were designed by Ulysses Ricci of New York, and decorated with facsimiles of Greek coins from the British Museum. The sculptures decorating the front facade were designed by Jacobine Jones, and represent the Canada's seven principal industries at the time: fishing, electricity, mining, agriculture, forestry, manufacturing, and construction. The cornerstone was placed by Prime Minister Mackenzie King and the Bank's first governor, Graham Towers.

Plans for additions in the 1940s and 1950s were scrapped, and while more substantial plans were drafted during the 1960s, construction was delayed due to Ottawa's already-strained construction industry, and only commenced in 1972. The glass structure behind the original 1937 structure was completed in 1979 by the firm Marani Rounthwaite & Dick (successor to Marani, Lawson and Morris) and Arthur Erickson. The building contains an enclosed courtyard with a large tropical garden bordering a shallow pool which is very popular with wedding photographers, and a three-ton Yap Stone.