Royal Bank Tower (Montreal)
Skyscraper at 360 Saint-Jacques Street in Montreal, Quebec
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Royal Bank Tower is a skyscraper at 360 Saint-Jacques Street in Montreal, Quebec. The 22-storey 121 m (397 ft) neo-classical tower was designed by the firm of York and Sawyer with the bank's chief architect Sumner Godfrey Davenport of Montreal.[4] Upon completion in 1928,[5] it was the tallest building in the entire British Empire, the tallest structure in all of Canada and the first building in the city that was taller than Montréal's Notre-Dame Basilica built nearly a century before.
| Royal Bank Tower | |
|---|---|
| |
 Interactive map of the Royal Bank Tower area | |
Alternative names | Tour de la Banque Royale |
| Record height | |
| Tallest in the British Empire from 1928 to 1929[I] | |
| Preceded by | Old City Hall (Toronto) |
| Surpassed by | Fairmont Royal York Hotel |
General information | |
| Type | Office |
| Location | 360 Saint-Jacques Street Montreal, Quebec |
| Coordinates | 45.5019°N 73.5594°W |
Construction started | 1927 |
Completed | 1928 |
| Height | |
| Roof | 121 m (397 ft) |
| Technical details | |
| Floor count | 22 |
| Floor area | 344,400 sq ft (32,000 m2) |
| Lifts/elevators | 8 |
| Design and construction | |
| Architects | York, Sawyer of New York and Sumner Godfrey Davenport of Montreal (as Chief Architect for the Royal Bank) |
| References | |
| [1][2][3] | |
The bank's first official head office was at Hollis and George in Halifax in 1879.[6] In 1907 the Royal Bank of Canada moved its head office from Halifax to Montreal. As its original building on Saint-Jacques Street turned out to be too small, in 1926 the board of directors of the biggest bank in Canada hired New York architects York and Sawyer to build a prestigious new building a short distance westward. Between 1920 and 1926 the bank had bought up all the property between Saint-Jacques, Saint-Pierre, Notre-Dame and Dollard Streets to demolish all the buildings there including the old Mechanics' Institute and the ten-storey Bank of Ottawa building in order to make space for the new 22-storey building.
In 1962, the Royal Bank moved its main office to another famous Montreal building, Place Ville-Marie, however kept a branch in the impressive main hall of the old building, situated in Old Montreal. That branch relocated to the nearby Tour de la Bourse in July 2012.[7]
Saint-Jacques street with the Royal Bank building (the tallest), 1935
