ARCHITECTURE:
Victoria Press Building is a linear two-storey, flat-roofed building, of Late Modern architectural style with pre-cast concrete panel cladding and a prominent, sculpted entryway. Its simple Modern design was influenced by Formalism, a short-lived style used primarily for high-profile cultural, institutional and civic buildings. Formalism highlighted Classical proportions and elements, but also incorporated new concrete technologies, which often resulted in sculpted forms, as displayed on the curved full-height walls on either side of the front entryway. The building remains a refined and rare example, outside of Winnipeg, of the work of Moody Moore Duncan Rattray Peters Searle Christie, who were known for their institutional commissions. [Compare with Saanich Municipal Hall, 770 Vernon Av, 1964-65 by local firm Wade Stockdill Armour & Partners, Designated Heritage.]
The elements that define the heritage character of the Victoria Press Building are its: continuous use by Victoria Press Ltd. since 1971; commercial form, scale and massing as expressed by its symmetrical rectilinear form, two-storey height, with full-basement level, and prominent central entryway; characteristics of the Late Modern style including its pre-cast concrete panels, exposed aggregate stucco cladding at the entry, roof and foundation lines, and its full-height central entryway with rounded pre-cast concrete walls. The entryway features a bell-cast stucco-covered entry, red-tiled steps, and geometric metal handrails, which are also featured in the building’s interior; original smoked-glass recessed fixed-pane window assemblies designed to fit one per pre-cast panel across all elevations; and red and yellow cedar carvings by prominent West Coast artist Godfrey Rupert Cripps Stephens (b. Duncan, BC 1939-), erected in 1973 in the lobby.
ORIGINAL OCCUPANTS:
The Victoria Press Building is significant for its association with the Times Colonist newspaper, as its purpose-built headquarters. The Times Colonist was created by the 1980 merger of the British Colonist, which began serving the people of Victoria in 1858, and the Victoria Daily Times, which began publishing in 1884. The British Colonist was founded by Amor De Cosmos (b. William Alexander Smith in Windsor, NS 1825-1897), who became second premier of British Columbia. Coinciding with BC’s centennial as a Province of Canada, the new Victoria Press Building was constructed along Douglas Street in 1971. The Times Colonist newspaper exists today as the oldest daily newspaper in Western Canada and the building remains a venerable symbol of the importance of the paper to Victoria’s history since the middle of the nineteenth century. The Victoria Press Building is additionally significant for its association with the mid-century developments in the newspaper industry. Victoria Press Ltd. was established in 1950 when Calgary businessman and publisher George Maxwell “Max” Bell (b. Regina, SK 1912-1972) bought the British Colonist and the Victoria Daily Times and brought them under a single corporate umbrella. In other ‘two-newspaper cities’ across North America, similar consolidations were occurring in response to the rising costs of producing newspapers and the changing technologies surrounding their production, such as the merging of the mechanical and financial departments of the Vancouver Sun and Vancouver Province in 1958. The first Victoria Press Building was constructed next door to the current structure in 1951, before expansion and new processing technologies required the construction of this new and larger building in 1971.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION & IMAGES:
• Map of Victoria Heritage Register Properties
• This Old House, Victoria’s Heritage Neighbourhoods,
Volume Three: Rockland, Burnside, Harris Green,
Hillside-Quadra, North Park & Oaklands