Aldred Building

Montreal, Canada

Exterior only

Visible from the street; the inside is private.

Find out more

ReferenceSkyscraperPage↗

On Montreal's historic Place d'Armes square in Old Montreal, the Aldred Building rises 96 metres as a striking Art Deco skyscraper designed by Ernest Isbell Barott of the firm Barott and Blackader. Completed in 1930 for New York businessman John E. Aldred, the 23-storey limestone tower was built for $2.85 million and deliberately harmonizes with its surroundings through strategic setbacks at the 8th, 13th, and 16th floors—creating cathedral-like massing that echoes the adjacent Notre-Dame Basilica while maximizing light on the square. Barott ingeniously resolved the urban geometry problem where Place d'Armes and Notre-Dame Street meet at an oblique angle by aligning with both streets until the third floor, then stepping back to square alignment. Originally envisioned as merely 12 storeys when conceived around 1927, the building was enabled to reach its current height by a 1929 bylaw clause permitting structures on public squares to exceed Montreal's then-standard 130-foot limit. The building resembles New York's Empire State Building, which was completed the same year.