Cardiff

City hall in Cardiff is one of the finest civic buildings constructed during the Edwardian period and has the brilliant proportions and elegant interiors of the age. The architects Lanchester, Stewart and Rickards, had no size restrictions and thus were able to produce a full dome on the main entrance simply frothing with carved mythological creatures, opening up onto a very organized and useful overall plan.

For those interested in the classical styles, this is an example of High Edwardian Baroque in the most opulent form. It is clearly an evolved version of the Beaux Arts/ Baroque Revival styles with the monochromatic facades filled with carvings and ornament. The west tower is protected by a arge Welsh dragon.

Suburban Bow Window

The middle classes were coming into their own during this period. Voysey's design for Broadleys in Windermere had a series of two storey bow windows. Within a few years this window style had made it to the many small suburbs around London. here is a bow window with Queen Anne Revival style shingles against a red brick wall.

King Edward Hotel Toronto

Of course the best place to start a diiscussion of Edwardian architecture is with the sumptuous and elegant King Edward Hotel in Toronto. The Hotel was granted its name by the King himself, and opened two years after King Edward's coronation in 1903. It was designed by the Chicago architect Henry Ives Cobb and Toronto architect E.J. Lennox.

Dr. Sally Gibson has prepared a full illustrated history of the hotel

Toronto

The side view of this building shows that it has exaggerated Gibbs Surrounds. This, again, is a nod to the Baroque revival style popular in England during the Edwardian period.

Toronto

From this view you can see that the design of the building is reminiscent of Italian Palazzo design. The ground floor is of a different material from the above floors, and the building is capped with a large cornice.

The Edwardian influence is easily recognizable. The second floor has oversized keystones. The first and third floor windows have colonettes with heavy bands. On the lower floor, there is a three-part window with an architrave. The front entrance is on a corner. It is flanked by two columns and topped with a balustraded balcony.

Toronto

Like many Edwardian buildings, this factory on King Street has an imaginative frontispiece and exaggerated lintels on an unremarkable rectangular brick building.

The piers of the frontispiece are highlighted by heavy stone bands that encompass the Ionic columns. Above this is a lunette with banded voussoirs, an inflated keystone and a Baroque- inspired segmental curved pediment with stone dentil blocks. The pediment is supported by weighty but not ornate brackets.

Rather than a profusion of Classical details as in the Beaux Arts Classicism, Edwardian buildings have one or two concentrated Classical motifs. The stone portico or frontispiece with heavy horizontal banding on a dark building is a standard feature.

Thunder Bay

Here is another extravagant and imaginative frontispiece, this time on a CN Rail building. The niche effect of the semi-dome is found on many public Renaissance and Baroque buildings in Europe. The central cartouche is also a standard feature above doors, in Renaissance Château design particularly, and the plaque with guttae is a nice detail. The agraffe below the cartouche is also key to this style.

Within the doorway there is a clock surrounded by a metal grille and metal molding. The door beneath it is new, but is contextual.

The rest of the building is largely a smooth brick surface with minimal detailing around the windows.

Thunder Bay

Also in Thunder bay, and not too far down the street, is the Thunder bay museum housed in the Fort William police station and court house. It was designed by Robert Mason and was erected in 1910. The building has three stories, the top story being above a large cornice in the manner of the triumphal arches. There is a huge entablature topped with ta 'broken' Florentine pediment.The pediment is situated in what was known as the attic story of the triumphal arch.

The two oversized columns forming the porch of the front door, known as the 'Giant Order" because they span two floors, are also a Baroque element, being used first in the courtyard outside St. Peter's in Rome, designed by Michelangelo when he was just entering his Baroque phase.

This building is a classic example of the Edwardian Classicism, an offshoot of the BAroque Revival used in many civic and commercial buildings in England during the Edwardian period.

The building houses an active and vital Historic Society.

Galt

The Galt Public Library was built with a $20,000.00 grant from the Andrew Carnegie Foundation in 1903. It was designed by

Like many Carnegie funded libraries it is close in style to the Beaux Arts which evolved in the first decade of the century into Edwardian Classicism.

Like the Fort William Police Station, it has a 'giant order' of columns. Here the columns are topped by a beautiful entablature and pediment.

Galt

The door surround has many classical elements. In fact it has far too many classical elements to be considered strictly 'Classical"

The cornice over the door has a central acroterion as well as two acroterions on the corners. This would conform to the greek use of acroterions. The four extra acroterions put it over the line into the baroque format.

Note as well the scroll consoles on either side of the door. These are similar in style to those used by Christopher Wren on St. Paul's in London. Part of the Baroque evival style popular during the reign of Edward VII used Renaissance elements in conjunction with the norther version of the Baroque employed by Wren. In fact, there was so much of this influence that the style was popularly known as the Wrenaissance Revival.

Note that the library was constructed in 1903, the same era as the King Edward Hotel in Toronto.

Galt

Here is a detail of the pediment of the library. It is adorned with three lovely acroterions. Within the tympanum we find, not the heroic stories found in the Greek tympanae, but a Renaissance wreath surrounding an open library book.

Library - Sault St Marie

This was formerly the Sault St. Marie Registry office. It is currently used as a law library.

Built in 1907- 1908, this library has exaggerated quoins and a large lintel with an exaggerated jack arch and prominent keystone.

Sault St Marie

The window surround is typically Edwardian.

Hamilton

Hamilton's south end was expanding to attract smaller homes and elegant apartments. The Herkimer Apartments, then as now, was an enviable address.

Hamilton - Herkimer Apartments

The front entrance is welcoming and quietly dignified.

Ceramic Doorway

The doorway to the apartment block is made entirely of ceramic tile. Each piece was molded and painted, then fired and finally assembled on the building. It looks as fresh and lovely as the first week it was built. One can only wonder why more ceramic tile is not used.

Hamilton

The entablature is crowned by an attic storey with the name of the apartment and then a crested cartouche.

Ceramic columns

Hamilton - Window Surround

Flavell House Toronto

This

Gable - Toronto

This side gable is extraordinary. Within the broken pediment on the gable is an ornately carved window surround containing a ribbon with the date.

The gable end contains a round headed arched window atop a French door. This is flanked by four engaged ionic pilasters. An iron balconette is added for safety.

Edwardian Mantel - Toronto

This house is gorgeous any time of year but really spectacular in autumn.

A five bay Georgian with traditional shutters and door, the windows were replaced later in the 19th century.

French Door - Toronto

French doors were carried over in elegant houses from the Renaissance through the Baroque, into the Regency period and up to the Edwardian.

Frescoe - Toronto

The Edwardian era had Art Deco influences mixed with Arts and Crafts.

Wood Panel - Toronto

The sitting room is paneled throughout. The ceiling has Arts and Crafts frescoes. The mantel is probably the best Edwardian mantel in the country.

Door Hamilton

This door has a variation on the columns and entablature. The triglyphs and guttae are in place without the metopes. Above the cornice on the entablature is the 'attic story'. This contains some heraldic feathers and a crest with the date: 1908.

Door Hamilton

This door surround has an exaggerated keystone.

Apartment Building Toronto

This is a typically Edwardian building with Gibbs surrounds on both the door and the upper window. The front entrance is spectacular and the remainder of the building is nicely proportioned.

Burlington

Georgian Door Toronto

Ottawa

Edwardian Classicism was popular in housing in Ontario well into the 1930s. This house on Monkland St. in Ottawa is an example of concentrated Classical elements applied to a basically rectangular brick building. The front portico is an extended barrel vault held in place by modified Doric columns, a plain architrave and an exaggerated cornice with heavy dentil blocks. The barrel vault on the front takes the shape of a Florentine pediment, the lower cornice of which is broken in the Baroque manner.

The window surrounds are large but not ornate. The owners have taken the trouble to keep the original windows and have storm windows added and removed annually to protect the original design. The roof is supported by a soffit with heavy dentil blocks held in place by paired roof brackets.

Toronto Fireplace

Edwardian Fireplace in Toronto. This is a classic Edwardian design for a fireplace mantel.

Saint Catharines

Modest residences like this one in St. Catharines show their Edwardian influence largely on the front entrances.

Here we see a veranda that spans the whole front façade with a pediment over the staircase. The porch is supported by gently tapered smooth columns supporting ornate Ionic capitals and stylized abacuses. Above the columns, a plain architrave supports the porch. Under the soffit of the roof, a similar plain frieze board echoes this architrave.

Sault St Marie

This house is Sault St. Marie is rather grand and very large with the strings of windows seen in Voysey's work.

Sault St Marie

Here is another good example of a simple Edwardian house.

Brantford

Edwardian middle class homes were constructed in the first decade of the last century between the large Victorian homes on huge garden lots in the middle of town. AS the owners sold off land to keep up their life style, these charming Edwardian homes became more prevalent.

This Edwardina home runs under the heading of what Alastair Sevice quite rightly called Edwardian free style.

Toronto

Edwardian residences are often best appreciated from the inside. This is a nice house, on a nice street, but the exterior gives no clue as to the treasures on the inside.

Toronto

This is

Toronto

Like the Renaissance Revival and the Art Deco, painting, sculpture and decoration are part of the fabric of the design. This Bachanalia adds a note of cheer to the dining room coving.

Toronto

This is typical of Edwardian Arts and Crafts art glass. The owners of the house have been very careful to keep the original glass. They had storms made that are almost invisible.

Toronto

This type of Edwardian craftsmanship is often destroyed by new owners in their zeel for modernising. We need more crafts people to be able to reproduce this when it is lost.

Toronto

Hamilton

Here is another beautifully maintained Edwardian house. It is an example of the Edwardian Arts and Crafts movement, inspired by the British architect Charles Voysey. Voysey's signature houses had plain white stucco exteriors, many banks of windows, not related to one another necessarily, in the sort of classical way, and always a signature heart shape.

Hamilton

The exterior is rough cast stucco with banks of windows.

Hamilton

The Heart shape s found on the downspout of the eaves troughs. These are all galvanized metal.

Hamilton

er blocks than the rest of the façade.

Hamilton Window Surround

Dundas is a very old community that was originally a working town. There are a lot of very old workers cottages and cottages in the downtown core that have been restored and are in wonderful shape. This is an example of that.

Edwardian Newel

This

Edwardian Newel

This

Edwardian Sconce

This beautifully restored georgian store front in Westfield has a false-front,

Hamilton

Hamilton has a lot of lovley Edwardian buildings. This one on Aberdeen Avenue is a great example of the clean Edwardian style with Arts and Crafts elements. The dormer is oversized with some half-timbered effects. There is a lovely porch large enough for a few chairs, and the plain black and white finishes are elegant and understated.

Hamilton

The porch is typical of the Edwardian era. Paired posts are held together with a wooden band. The roof is held in place by large paired brackets. The stairs are wide and generous , and not encumbered with a lot of fancy detailing. The white stucco finish is well maintained, and the roof is textured but the same colour as the trim. The effect is one of calm good taste.

Hamilton

Inside there are many windows that reflect the 'Art Glass' look that is popular in both Arts and Crafts and Edwardian buildings. Here, the Art Glass has an upsdie- down heart that may be reflective of Voysey. The rest of the piece is very Art Nouveau.

Hamilton

Here is another example from the same house. The owners have been very clever in their maintenance of the house. The windows have been maintained and storms have been put on the outside for maintaining the heat. Many studies have proved that original glass with a wooden storm is at least as energy efficient as new windows, if not more. The look of the building is maintained as well as making the home warm and cosy.

Belleville

This is only one of the fabulous doors destroyed in the fire. It had a Baroque Revivaldoor surround with a festooned keystone and a broken pediment.

Consoles adorned the sides of the lugged door casing.