flho ws Emest Comtier~ anyLJaY? British School of . He then re­ turned to to design fortifica­ Ernest Cormier, Architect and Engineer tions and other military installations (as he always styled himself), was the for France during the last two years first Canadian modern architect. Of of the Great War. He returned to t.lont­ the two or three great architects this real in 1919, spent a year as Instruc­ country has produced, he may have been tor in Architecture at McGill Univer­ the greatest; he was certainly the most sity, and then devoted his energies to honoured. the practice of Architecture.

He was born in in 1885, the That he succeeded may be judged by the son of a doctor. He studied engineer­ honours accorded him. Cormier was made ing at L' Ecole Polytechnique, and spent a Fellow of the RIBA in 1929, and of two years working as an engineer at the RAIC in 1930. He was elected RA in Dominion Bridge. In 1908, he was ad­ 1932. He received medals from the RAIC , mitted to L'Ecole des Beaux-Arts in the PQAA, the American Newspaper Guild, Paris, and studied there for six years. L'Association Canadienne -- Fran~ais e In 1914, he won the RIBA Prix de Rome, pour l'avancement de Sc i ence s, McGill and spent the next two years at the University and la Societe des Archi-

ARCHITECT & ENGINEER

Peter lanken - Architect 1980

Un vers1te de Montreal Ste. Marguente- Mane The Fifth Column Page 23 tectes diplomes par le Gouvernement limited list of references compared to Fran~ais . In 1947, he was selected to the bibliographies of, say, LeCorbusier be the Canadian representative on the or Gropius. International Board of Design for the United Nations Headquarters in New A second reason for Cormier's compara­ York. He was made a member of the Or­ tive obscurity is a corollary of the der of Canada in 1975 . above . It was the writings of the "mas­ ters of the modern movement", much During his 35 years of practice in more than their buildings, that defin­ Montreal, Cormier designed only about ed and disseminated the ideas of the 50 projects . Among them are some of modern movement. Architects other than the greatest buildings in Car.ada: the the European masters ~ere building Supreme Court in , l'Universite magnificent works (Lutyens, for in­ de Montreal, and his magnificent house stance), but their separation from at 1418 West. Mr. Cormier European idealism doomed them to ob­ died in Montreal on New Year's day, scurity. 1980. Cormier was one of those architects. Well, if he was such a great architect, He was not simply a local proponent of !JJhy isn't he famous? foreign ideas, but a designer of works appropriate to Montreal's climate and When Cormier left Paris in 1919, he history. His buildings were inevitably abandoned a world of idealism for a left out of the histories because they pragmatic one . There was hardly any didn ' t conform to the European canon tradition of critical architectural of modern architecture. writing in Canada; Europe had a back­ ground of 400 years of written theory. But ... can he be really callet'! a ".md­ There was little important theoretical el>n" arochi tect? writing in Canada during the 20's and 30's; those decades in Europe saw the There is no question that the six years publication of the manifestoes of Grup­ Cormier spent at the Ecole des Beaux­ po Sette and the polemics of LeCorbu­ Arts, and the two years at Rome, in­ sier and Gropius (amongst many others). delibly imprinted the principles of Neither Cormier or any other Canadian classical architecture on his mind. In architect really participated in that all his buildings, symmetry and axial­ outburst of rhetoric. ity are fundamental; the orders appear on several. But symmetry is only the Now, in a culture such as ours, where best tool for organizing space, and language is the solvent of thought, an columns have for too long been used as architect who does not write is at a a test for antimodernism. severe disadvantage. If the critic is not given a convenient set of ideas on ~~ile in Paris, Cormier had become ac­ which to build his criticism, he does­ quainted with the designers who were n't criticize. Ernest Cormier thought later to organi:e the 1925 Exposition of himself primarily as a builder; he International des Arts Decoratifs. (It didn't write anything, and apparently was this exhibition which proclaimed cared little for rhetoric. ~hen the to the world the Art Deco style.) He RAre Journal published photographs of had worked w1th Pierre Patout on the the Pine Avenue house in 1Y32, th~ir interiors of an ocean liner as early most interesting comment was that the as 1912. (Patout \\'as later to be de­ house 1o1as "strict1y functional in char­ signer of the liner Normandie, whose acter." influence extented as far as Eaton's ninth-floor restaurant. ( For many, As a result, anyone attempting to study Deco '"as to symbolize the t\o.'entieth Cormier today is faced with a very century; its motifs are found in most Page 24 Ernest Cormier

ClockwiSe from left: 1418 Pine Ave .W : Palars de .lJstiCe,Montreal; Ecole An­ thelme Verreau , Unrversite de McrrtreaJ; Saint -Ambrolse

of Cormier's buildings.

He had also studied and practiced eng­ ineering, and understood steel and concrete - those basic materials of modern architecture - to an extent that was impossible in the nineteenth century. Structur?.l clarity is usually the beginning of a Cormier design.

Finally, he had experienced, at no very great distance, the Great War itself. It was this convulsion of history, more than anything P,lse, that divided the twentieth century from the rest of time. Cormier understood, as did every- The Fifth Column Page 25 one else, that a new era had begun, religious buildings and it recurs and that architecture, like everything throughout his career from St-Ambroise else, had to change. (1923) to the Basilian Seminary in To­ ronto (1950). The clearest demonstration of his mod­ ernity is to be found in north ~lontre­ The second theme can only be called al. There, on the same block (between Deco, and is marked by projecting en­ Chambord and de Normandville, just trance canopies and columns that are north of Beaubien), Cormier's Ecole rationali~ed to pure cylinders. These Anthelme Verreau (1930) confronts J.O. elements appear primarily during the Marchand's Ecole St-Ambroise (1927). late twenties, at Universite de Mont­ Marchand had studied at Paris some real (1924-32), the Ecole Anthelme twenty years before Cormier, but the Verreau (1930), and at 1418 Pine Ave­ world had changed during the interval. nue (1930-32) period. Marchand's school is of dark red brick and sits heavily on the ground. Cor­ Entrance and procession are always im­ mier' s is of his favourite yellow brick portant. The visitor approaches the and seems lighter and brighter because court houses by maje~tic stairs and of it. Marchand's building incorporates enters imposing halls through monumen­ massive stone arches to support the tal doors. In the schools, the grand apparently ponderous weight of the up­ hall becomes an assembly hall, but the per floors. Cormier' s finely-drawn hor­ sense of procession is still there. At izontal and vertical lines reflect the the Pine Avenue house, the v1s1tor structure behind and show that it's walks down a simple hall, gradually the concrete, and not the brick, that becoming aware of an approaching cross­ holds this building up. Marchand's axis. But nothing prepares him for the building could have been built in the stunning effect of that cross-axis: to nineteenth century; Cormier's could his left is a curved stair leading only have been built in the twentieth. down, all marble, glass and stainless steel. To the right are four polished What are the important elements of his marble columns; beyond them, centred architecture? in the gloriously sunlit, twenty-foot high studio is a polished marble fire­ Appropriateness is initially the most place, tall and noble against the ve­ striking aspect of Ernest Cormier's neered walls. oeuvre. There is never any attempt to force meaning on a building. If the And here, finally, is the key to Cor­ project is a commercial building on mier's greatness. His profound know­ Ste-Catherine Street, it stands unre­ ledge of architecture enabled him to marked until one notices the careful create monumental and timeless events brickwork and geometrically pure in­ out of the most basic elements of ar­ dustrial windows. If a court house is chitecture: stairs, columns, doors, to be built, polished marble, rare wood light. The four columns at the house - and bronze are lavishly used. simple cylinders of dark marble - make a simpleopening into a grandentrance, Two stylistic themes run through the evoking the most fundamental memories entire body of work. The first of these of ancient hypostyle halls and royal is a Byzantine motif, used earlier in processions. The fireplace, in its Montreal by Marchand ( Congregation turn, informs the visitor of the age Notre-Oame, Ste-Cather1ne Street at of Oeco, but behind that its hierar­ Atwater, 1906). This style was appar­ chial form and gleeming surface brings ently derived through the studies of back atavistic inages temples Egyptian the Beaux-Arts from the French archi­ and older, of ceremonies whose words tect Paul Abadic (Sacre-Coeur, Paris, are forgotten but whose meaning is in­ 1875). Cormier uses it exclusively on tact ... Ernest Cormier Page 26

Finally, what buildings should be vis­ Supre:'r:e Court of Canada, Ottawa (1937): ited? basically the same plan as the Mont­ real Palais de Justice, but elaborated in detail. Superb, uncoloured leaded­ PaZais de ,Tustice, 100 Notre-Oame East glass windows and luxuriously-panelled (1920): Cormier's first major commis­ court rooms. sion in Montreal, with C. J. Saxe and S.A. Amos. A powerful Beaux-Arts com­ National Printing Bureau, Hull (1948): position, but look at the Oeco light remarkable for its double skin and heating standards at the main entranc~. powerful, industrial-aesthetic plant. Eglise Ste-Marguerite-Marie, Ontario East at Oorion (1923): the first of (((( )))) the Byzantine churches; the fa~ade is embarrassingly similar to the same ar­ chitect's St. John Baptist, Pawtucket, REFERENCES Rhode Island, of the same year.

Eglise St-Ambroise, 1215 Beaubien East Education (1923): Byzantine again, and the most complete and coherent church/ tower/ 1. 1.0. Illich, Deschooling Society, presbytery complex by Cornier in Mont­ 1971, pp. 54-56 real. 2. Martin Shapiro, Getting Doctored, 1978, p.49 Universite de Montreal (1924-1932): an 3. op.cit . amazing invention: the totally-enclosed 4 . ibid. p.72 campus was a completely new building 5. ibid. op.cit. type. The tower is rem1n1scent of 6. John Holt, How Children Fail, 1964 Bertram Goodhue's Nebraska State Cap­ p. 25 itol of 1924, but is simplified and 7. op.cit. clarified. Visit the main entry hall 8. John Holt, How Children Learn, with its stepped ceilings and majestic 1969, pp. vii-viii columns and stairs.· 9. ibid. 10. ibid. p. viii Ecole AntheLme Verreau, 6560 Chambord 11. op .cit. (1929-30): notice the r...oating canopies with their inlaid squares, and the Graves typical yellow terra-cotta infill pan­ els. Alan Colquhoun, Michael Graves & Peter Carl, Russell and Freud at the Where­ Cormier House, 1418 Pine Avenue West house, both from MichaeZ Graves, Arch­ (1930): may be the finest work of all. itectural Monographs No.5, 1979 Superb, rationalized Oeco, and more. Shortly to be acquired by Prime Minister Mackintosh T:rudeau, but still a private residence: no entry to the public. Filippo Alison, Mackintosh Chairs , 1978 Roger Billcliffe, Charles Rennie The Dow Tower, Peel Street at Notre­ Mackintosh, 1979 Dame (1935): just the tower, apparent­ Jackie Cooper, Mackint o ~h Architecture , ly, is by Cormier. The original flag­ 1978 poles have recently been removed. Thomas Howarth, Charles Rennie Mackintosh and the Modern Mo vement, 1952 Preehon Building, 1015-1019 Stc-Cath­ Robert MacLeod, Charles Rennie erine Street East (1936): the approp­ Mackintosh, 1968 riate small commercial building.