| Architect: Rule Wynn Rule (the Rule, Wynn, Rule
Collection is held by the Canadian Architectural Archives
at the University of Calgary)
Contractor:
Commonwealth
Construction Company was the General Contractor. Dominion
Bridge had the steel fabrication and erection contract.
Original
cost:
$5,000,000 for the
twenty storey main tower called Elveden House built
1959-1960. $4,500,000 for the fourteen storey east tower
called the British American Oil Building built 1960 -
1961. $5,000,000 for the third tower built to the west
side and called the Guinness House built in 1964.
Original
owner:
British Pacific Building
Limited, a Guinness subsidiary. The Company owned
Calgary's Duke Drilling Investment Company Limited and
Seabridge Investments. In Vancouver they built the Lions
Gate Bridge, Capilano Golf Club and the Park Royal
shopping centre.
Construction materials:
Steel, concrete,
limestone, marble and glass. Double glazed glass on all
sides with the southern exposure tinted to allow natural
light in all offices. Green enamelled steel spandrel
panels on the towers.
Architectural style:
Modern with regional
adaptations of Modernism. Author Trevor Boddy outlined
some of the adaptive features, "the design motif of
the hexagon is featured on the spandrel panels, on
pedestrian canopies, lobby walls, and even light diffuser
boxes. This cladding colour and the mosaic harps and
angels are allusion, unusually explicit for a high Modern
building, to the Irish source of the Guinness
fortune."
Original interior
details:
Designed to feature the most economic use of office floor
space and maximum comfort. Provided office space for
Calgary's expanding oil industry in the area of the city
which became known as the "oil patch."
Technological innovations included air - conditioning,
natural light, a mail chute, incinerators, intercom and a
sidewalk snow melting system.
Historical highlights:
- In 1958 property
for the first two towers was purchased through
the Lyle Brothers Ltd. Real Estate.
- The architects,
Wynn, Rule, Wynn detailed the elevations,
interiors and massings of the three towers as one
complete conception.
- When completed the
complex included three towers linked by a three
storey podium.
- Eleveden House was
Calgary's first skyscraper.
- The main twenty
storey tower was constructed 1959 - 1960. It
towered 263 feet above the sidewalk. The lower
three floors measured 205 x 72 feet, the upper
floors 60 x 147 feet. The basement stretched
under the entire property.
- October 14, 1960,
Viscount Elveden officiated at the cornerstone
laying ceremony for the twenty storey main tower.
Mayor Hays placed a "box of records" in
the stone which included the Guinness "Book
of Records", an architect's drawing of
Elveden House, pictures of Calgary, coins, local
newspapers and magazines and a couple of bottles
of Guinness. Hays called the building a
"landmark, a monument and a milestone."
- The fourteen storey
east tower was constructed 1960 - 1961 for
occupation by the British American Oil Company
Limited. Officially opened in September 1962 by
Lord Elveden. It had 192,174 square feet of floor
space compared to 207,384 square feet in the main
tower.
- The east tower was
joined to the main tower both subterraneously and
above ground.
- In 1963, British
Pacific Building Limited bought the 37.5 foot
frontage lot,a residential property west of
Elveden House and the 25 foot frontage 7th St.
and 7th Avenue corner lot of Quinton Realty.
- In 1964 the
estimated value of the completed Elveden complex
including land and three towers was $18,000,000.
In that year the two existing towers were 98%
occupied.
- The third tower
built in 1964, a fifteen storey building called
Guinness House, provided an additional 120,00
square feet of office space plus two floors of
enclosed tenant parking for 100 cars. The main
Elveden House glass enclosed concourse was
extended westward to link the main lobbies of all
three buildings.
- 1998 - Estancia
Investments Inc. own and manage the complex which
consists of Ernst and Young House (707), Elveden
House (717) and Guinness House (727).
- Rental agents,
Westcorp Realty, report retail and office space
vacancy within the 450,000 square foot complex is
currently 7%.
- Original plans for
the Elveden complex (1959 - 1965) are available
for viewing at the Canadian Architectural
Archives, University of Calgary.
|
Elveden Centre