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422 Richards Street, Vancouver, BC.

Description of Historic Place:

The Bank of British Columbia is an ornate, three-storey Victorian Italianate masonry commercial building. The building has a narrow frontage on West Hastings Street, a one-storey addition to the east and a chamfered corner. Located on a north sloping lot at the southeast corner of Richards and West Hastings Streets, it is a significant landmark within the context of other commercial buildings of a compatible age and scale in downtown Vancouver.

Heritage Value:

Built in 1889-1891, the Bank of British Columbia Building is valued as an ornate and sophisticated example of the Victorian Italianate style, which was used to convey an image of prosperity and permanence for commercial buildings during the late Victorian era. This is a particularly elegant example of the style, exhibiting a varied articulation of window cases, sill and plat courses, and rusticated ground floor pilasters. The bank was considered to be burglar-proof due to its elaborate vaults, and featured fine interior appointments, such as a Minton tile floor and glass dividing walls between the banking hall offices.

The Bank of British Columbia is a significant surviving commission by architect Thomas Charles Sorby (1836-1924), and is notable for its builder, George C. Mesher (1860-1938). Sorby was an English-trained architect who found work in Canada with the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR), for whom he designed a number of innovative stations. Mesher worked with Sorby in Victoria, and developed a reputation as one of the premier contractors in Victoria. His involvement in this significant project speaks to the generally more sophisticated conditions in the capital city at the time.

Furthermore, the building is evidence of the earliest economic development in the province. It was commissioned for the Bank of British Columbia, founded in 1862, just four years after the Crown Colony of British Columbia had come into existence. The discovery of gold in the colony had attracted the attention of a group of British investors, who established the bank in London. The bank became a major lender to the financially struggling colonial government. However, by the end of the century it was unable to meet increased competition, and in 1901 it merged with the Canadian Bank of Commerce. This building subsequently housed a number of branch banks, including the Bank of Toronto that was located in the one-storey addition to the east.

The building's prominent location contributed to the establishment of the Victory Square area as a district of important commercial activity, and as the city's primary financial and corporate district. The Bank of British Columbia was one of the first commercial buildings to be built outside of Gastown, the initial commercial area of Vancouver. The building housed the most modern banking facility of its day, and offices on its second storey for rental to professionals such as barristers.

Source: City of Vancouver Heritage Conservation Program

Character-Defining Elements:

Key elements that define the heritage character of the Bank of British Columbia include its:
- prominent location at the southeast corner of Richards and West Hastings Streets, on a north-sloping lot; built to the property lines
- contribution to the streetscape as part of an unbroken streetwall with continuous retail storefronts
- commercial form, scale and massing, as expressed by its three-storey height and regular, rectangular plan
- flat roof with raised parapets
- masonry construction with: smooth finished sandstone ashlar masonry cladding on the first storey facades; high-quality brick facing on the upper storeys on the two main facades; common bricks, in American common bond, on the rear and side facades; intricate carved sandstone detailing; rusticated ground floor pilasters; and granite entry steps and foundation blocks
- heavy timber-frame internal structure and wooden ceiling assemblies
- exterior detailing, such as the expressed casing around the round arched windows, capped with scrolled keystones and terminating in carved imposts; second-storey sandstone window surrounds comprised of entablatures with straight, triangular and broken pedimented cornices supported by engaged pilasters; third storey decoration, such as continuous sill course, sandstone casings, and pedimented window heads connected by a string course; and dentil moulding string course between first and second storeys
- regular and nearly symmetrical fenestration on the street facade and irregular fenestration on the rear: rounded arch windows of three parts above the transom bar and plate glass glazing below on the first storey; segmental arched windows and doorway on first storey of the southwest portion of Richards Street facade; rounded arched windows in pairs and groups of three comprised of fixed, rounded upper frame on the third storey; double-hung, two-over-one wooden-sashes on the second storey; segmental arc

400 West Hastings Street, Vancouver, BC.

Description of Historic Place:

The Royal Bank of Canada, West Hastings Branch, is a two-storey plus lower level Classically-influenced masonry structure, clad with carved sandstone on its two main facades and articulated with arched windows and pilasters. It is located at the southwest corner of West Hastings and Homer Streets, within the context of other commercial buildings of similar age and scale.

Heritage Value:

The Royal Bank of Canada, West Hastings Branch, is significant as an important component of the early retail and commercial fabric that made West Hastings Streets one of the most prominent commercial streets in early Vancouver. The southward shift of commercial activities that started during the Klondike era provided the stimulation for major commercial development along West Hastings Street. This location was within close proximity to regional transportation facilities and the booming commerce of Gastown. Several major banks, notably conservative in comparison to other businesses, located their headquarters along Hastings Street after the commercial strip was well established. Opened in 1903, the prosperity and rapid growth of Vancouver and the subsequent success of the Royal Bank is evident by the 1909 renovation that nearly doubled the size of this structure.

Further, this building is of heritage value as the Vancouver headquarters of the Royal Bank of Canada from 1903 until 1931. It incorporated the most modern security features, including a massive reinforced concrete vault with walls 0.6m thick and a steel door with geared combination locking mechanisms, as well as several other secondary vaults. Engineering and structural innovations included reinforced concrete foundations, basement columns, ground floor beams and floor deck, qualifying the building as thoroughly modern and one of the first large-scale uses of poured concrete in the city. After the Royal Bank's new headquarters were completed at the corner of Hastings and Granville Streets, this served as a local branch until 1981, demonstrating the continued growth of the city and the westward shift of the business district.

This building is of heritage value as the first classically inspired bank in Vancouver. It marked the point when local financial institutions started to abandon Victorian eclecticism and embrace the Classical Revival style as symbolic of their conservatism, stability and security. The tripartite articulation, with a solid base, giant pilasters, continuous cornice and somber detailing enhance the sense of monumentality and repose. The Royal Bank was a significant and innovative design by local architects Dalton and Eveleigh, who were instrumental in the development of early Vancouver. W.T. Dalton (1854-1931) and S.M. Eveleigh (1870-1947) were highly regarded for the quality of design of commercial and institutional buildings. The original interior decoration was carried out in an Art Nouveau style by James Bloomfield (1860-1951), one of British Columbia's most notable early artists and designers. Significantly, the building was developed and constructed by Vancouver pioneer, Jonathan Rogers, who built several early branches for the Royal Bank, and a number of other buildings in the area, including the adjacent structure to the west.

Source: City of Vancouver Heritage Conservation Program

Character-Defining Elements:

Key elements that define the heritage character of the Royal Bank of Canada include its:
- siting in an area of historic commercial buildings on Hastings Street
- contribution to the streetscape as part of an unbroken streetwall with continuous retail storefronts
- siting on the property lines, with no setbacks
- monumental and imposing commercial form, scale and massing, as expressed by its two-storey (plus basement) height, flat roof, continuous horizontal parapet, rectangular plan and single entry
- masonry construction, as expressed by: the rough-dressed granite foundation, granite front steps, rough-dressed sandstone facade with smooth-dressed pilasters, common red brick rear and side walls, and concrete internal structure
- Classical Revival influence as evident in the tripartite facade articulation, continuous projecting cornice, engaged pilasters, bands of running Greek key ornament, and entablature with egg-and-dart moulding
- fenestration: large ground floor rectangular window openings, original wooden-sash, semicircular upper-level window openings with decorated mullions, some original upper level double-hung one-over-one wooden-sash windows; and segmental arched window openings on the rear elevation
- exterior features, such as the front elevation chambers entrance demarked with relief lettering, 'Royal Bank of Canada' in bas-relief on front elevation entablature, and wrought iron security bars over basement windows
- surviving interior elements including three bank vaults with heavy, steel and brass, geared combination doors (J. and J. Tay