Stratford City Hall

In 1856, the village of Stratford began building a town hall at the tip of a property it had purchased.[1] The stipulation imposed by Donald McDonald for the sale was the development of a market on the land, so the building's ground floor was allocated for business market stalls.[1]

The Neoclassical building consisted of two floors topped by a cupola and bell tower.[1] The ground floor had market stalls at the rear, and four stores at the front with a central entrance opening to a stairway leading to the upper floor.[1] These stores had cellars, and in 1864 one housed a brewery.[1] Behind them were a police station and a fire department; the latter moved to another location in 1893.[1] Above the market stalls was a concert hall, and the upper floor of the front of the building housed the council chamber and municipal offices.[1]

A night constable making his rounds in the early morning of 24 November 1897 discovered a fire.[1] He released the prisoners from their cells and raised the fire alarm.[1] The fire was exacerbated by the ignition of gas in a custodial room, and it eventually destroyed the building.[1]

The city held two design competitions for a new city hall.[1] The competition reusing the remains of the older structure was won by Alexander Hepburn, a local architect, and the design for a new building was won by George W. King of Toronto.[1] The town held a referendum to determine the final design, which was awarded to King and his associate John Wilson Siddall.[1][2] They hired local contractors Edmund Cawsey and John Lant Young to erect the building.[3] On 2 November 1898, the foundation stone was installed,[1] and in 1900 the building was opened.[3] It is located on a triangular town square.[4]

In March 2016, the city held an open house displaying three proposals to redevelop the land behind the building.[5] The committee selected a proposal by GSP Group, which was approved later at the end of March, and construction began in December 2016.[6]

Structure

New city hall in 2015

Built in the "Jacobean end" of the Queen Anne Revival style,[2] the building exhibits an eclectic combination of features, including gables in Flemish Renaissance style, a classical cupola, and panelled chimneys.[1] Each end of the building has a dodecagonal base, the central portion a hexagon, and the clock tower a circle.[1] A restoration completed in 1974 updated the auditorium and increased office space.[1]

The exterior brickwork is a dark red, and was the third choice for the building.[2] The architects had planned on using a buff-coloured brick, and city councillors preferred the pale colour of the original town hall.[2] The red was chosen after a local brickyard over-fired its white bricks.[2] The trim is in sandstone, and the large plinth is limestone.[3]

The main entrance is flanked by two terracotta seals, one depicting a train symbolizing industry, and the other depicting a beehive symbolizing enterprise,[2] mounted in pilasters.[3] Above the door is a semi-circular arch window framed by a banded voussoir.[3]

The building was designated as a National Historic Site of Canada on 6 November 1976,[4] and in 1982, it was designated under the Ontario Heritage Act.[1]

The building was used on the cover of a book about Canadian town halls published by Parks Canada.[1] It was described by architect Robert Fairfield, who designed the Stratford Festival Theatre,[7] as a "splendid municipal building".[8]

A proposal to demolish the building and replace it with a ten-storey hotel surmounted by a revolving restaurant was made by the city's mayor C.H. Meier in 1967.[9] City council agreed to demolish the building in 1969, but received a petition from the newly formed "Save the City Hall League" to retain it.[10] By 1972, the plans for the hotel were withdrawn.[10] Some members of "Save the City Hall League" would go on to form Heritage Stratford, the city's heritage committee.[10]

In 2015, a local filmmaker proposed upgrading the auditorium for use as a digital art cinema.[11]

• Fairfield, Robert (1990). Saddlemeyer, Ann (ed.). Theatre and performance halls. University of Toronto Press.
• Leitch, Adelaide (1980). Floodtides of Fortune: The Story of Stratford and the Progress of the City Through Two Centuries. Corporation of the City of Stratford. ISBN 0969004702.