Aldred Building

The Aldred Building (Édifice Aldred, also known as Édifice La Prévoyance) is an Art deco building on the historic Place d'Armes square in the Old Montreal quarter of Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Completed in 1930, the building was designed by Ernest Isbell Barott, of the firm Barott and Blackader, with a height of 96 metres (316 ft) or 23 storeys. Built at a cost of $2,851,076.00 (equivalent to $57, 091, 058 in 2025), Barott endeavored to design a modern building which would, at the same time, fit with the square's historic surroundings. The building's setbacks at the 8th, 13th, and 16th floors allow more light on the square and create a cathedral-like massing, reflecting the adjacent Notre-Dame Basilica. The building uses limestone, common to other buildings in the area. The Aldred Building also attempts to address both Place d'Armes and Notre-Dame Street which do not meet at right angles, aligning with both streets until the third floor, where it then steps back and becomes square to Notre-Dame. The odd angle is small and not immediately noticeable from street-level. The building resembles New York's Empire State Building, completed the same year, and was built for John E. Aldred of New York. Barott began work on the Aldred Building around 1927, with original design for the building only 12 storeys tall, as building heights were limited to 130 feet (40 m) in Montreal until

Building data from Wikidata (CC0); heights normalised. Summary from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA).