ABSTRACT
The Montreal Exhibition Building and
Museum, 1860: a Monument to Pre-Confederation Canadian Economic Nationalism
Giles Nicholas Chessel Hawkins
1986
This study of the Provincial Exhibition Building
and Museum, the "Crystal Palace," built in Montreal in 1860 after the designs of
the architect, John Williams Hopkins, argues that the specifically Canadian political,
social and economic conditions which prevailed during the period played a direct role in
the decision to construct the building.
The emergence of a "national policy" in
the 1850s and 1860s led directly to the creation of the Board of Arts and Manufactures for
Lower Canada which undertook construction of the building as part of its legislated
mandate to maintain a museum and model room in Montreal and to participate in annual
Provincial exhibitions.
The local roots of the Board are traced to the
activities, programs and leadership of the Montreal Mechanics' Institute. Before either
the construction of Joseph Paxton's "Crystal Palace" in 1851 or the creation of
the Board of Arts and Manufactures in 1857, the institute was holding annual industrial
exhibitions in Montreal and in the 1850s was lobby for the construction of permanent
exhibition buildings in the city.
The creation of the Board in 1857 usurped many of
the functions of the Mechanics' Institute and consolidated the direction and promotion of
technical education and innovation in industry in the hands of the professional and
entrepreneurial class who, as historians of the Canadian economy have argued, were
promoting a Canadian nationalism as a vehicle to protect and consolidate their economic
power.
The Board undertook the construction of the
"Crystal Palace" in Montreal in 1860. It developed a preliminary program for the
building, selected the site, sought the necessary funding and engaged the architect. The
planning and construction of the building are examined and a reconstruction of the
building is proposed.
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