Price building

The Édifice Price is a Gratte-ciel of 18 stages located at Quebec. It is the only skyscraper located inside the walls of the city, and one of oldest with the Canada. It was built at the beginning of the Années 1930 for the company Price Brothers, launching a controversy related to the conservation of the Old man-Quebec. The building was acquired thereafter by the town of Quebec, and is managed today by the real arm of the Caisse of deposit and placement of Quebec. The official Résidence of the Prime Minister for Quebec is there.

History

In 1927, the new leaders of the Price Brothers and Company, John Herbert and Arthur Clifford Price, decide to build a new head office for the company with Quebec. At the time, the principal financial center is on the street Saint-Pierre, but they there find nothing to satisfy them, and rather choose the street Holy-Anne, very close to the Town hall. The plans of the building of sixteen (16) stages are ordered at the prestigious firm Ross and Macdonald of Montreal.

The city, which wishes to introduce a modern image and progressist, gives its agreement to the project in spite of virulent criticisms according to which it is unable to protect the historical integrity from the Old man-Quebec. Two houses are demolished to make place with the new skyscraper. The dates of construction of the building are not clear: certain sources give June 1929 in May 1930. The Cornerstone of the building carries these words: " This stone was ugly Oct. XXIX MCMXXIX" (" This stone was set up on October 29th, 1929 "). All the sources agree on a fast construction, which lasts less than one year. The building is inaugurated in 1931.

The city acquires it in 1983 to place there its division of Ingénierie, reproducing a model already present at New York, where the town hall is flanked by the Manhattan Municipal Building. A little later a Bail emphytheotic in the long run place the building enters the hands of the Real estate company Trans-Quebec (SITQ), a subsidiary company of the Caisse of deposit and placement (CDP). Important restorations, restorations and transformations are started. They continue until in 2005 and include the addition of two stages by the interior, a terrace to the 16th stage and elevators.

In 2001, an apartment of function for the Prime Minister for Quebec is arranged with 16th and the 17th stages - highest usable, since 18th is occupied by machinery. It was originally envisaged to install there one following the use of the top management of the Case. Between 1997 and 2002, a psychiatric private clinic occupies the second and third stages. The Private clinic Holy-Anne represented an experiment to decompartmentalize this type of treatment. The administration affirmed that the agreement of the removal with the installation of the Prime Minister was only one coincidence. In 2002, a Mémorial was installed on the right-sided of the building.

At the time of its construction, the Price Building caused the controversy, as much by its size, perceived as out of proportion in a zone where the buildings hardly reached more than one ten Mètre S, but also because the father of the brothers Price, William Price, died in 1924, intended to move the head office with Kénogami (today part of the town of Saguenay), city which it had founded. On 18 stages, 15 are offices, 2 constitute the apartment of the Prime Minister, and the last is reserved for Machinerie. Such a configuration, combined with the rather recent addition of two invisible stages of outside, feeds confusion as for the real number of stages: between 16 and 18 according to the sources.

The style Art déco chosen by the architects echoes that of the extension of the Hôtel Clarendon, supplemented a few years before.

Monument

The sculpture of the Price Memorial is entitled “the Man-River” . It is in a narrow space between the Price Building and 67-71, rue Sainte-Anne. The memorial was financed by the Caisse of deposit and placement and the Foundation Virginia Parker. The artists are Lucienne Cornet and Catherine Sylvain, of Quebec.

The statue represents a Draveur, a figure highly symbolic system in the culture and the history of the province, in particular thanks to the novel of Felix-Antoine Savard Menaud, Master-draveur . The trunks, stylized, are reduced to Cylindre S, whereas the dravor and his spade are transformed into a plant. The result is very dynamic and seems to want to change on the pavement.

In May 2001, Bernard Landry, which lived up to that point in a three-roomed flat of Quebec, announces that it accepts the offer of the SITQ of an apartment of function at the Price Building, and there moves in in November. The choice is acclaimed for its position symbolic system above the city, but also criticized because the apartment is small, and cannot adapt a family, Landry being unmarried at the time. One also comments on that 1010 Chemin Saint-Louis, the old residence of the Lieutenant-governor of Quebec, sold in 1996 for half of his value and demolished since, would have agreed very well.

It cost some: 195000$ to build and decorate the apartment with: 2800 square feet. The apartment includes a Dining room of fourteen places, two rooms to lay down and other needs. The Prime Minister has also access to the room of reception of the 14th stage so necessary. The apartment is richly decorated: floors of wood-franc in maple, Calcareous Marble and ; furniture is of Québécois traditional style; and a dozen fabrics of Québécois Masters were lent by the National museum of the Art schools of Quebec.

References

External bonds

Photographs of the Memorial Price
Guided visit of the apartment of function of the Prime Minister

Category: Québécois building (city)

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