Statement of Significance
Description of Historic Place
The 1909 East Calgary Telephone Exchange Building is a long, rectangular, one-storey, gable-front building of solid red-brick construction with sandstone detailing. A 1912 rear addition echoes the front. Its symmetrical Romanesque Revival front façade features a Roman-arched central entrance, surmounted by a gabled parapet. It is located on the main commercial street in Inglewood, one of Calgary’s earliest inner city communities.
Heritage Value
The East Calgary Telephone Exchange Building, in continuous use as a telephone exchange until 1967, possesses activity value for its telephone service to the community for six decades and its important role in the development and operation of the city’s telecommunications system.
Colonel James Walker, one of Calgary’s most influential citizens who homesteaded the lands which currently comprise the Inglewood Bird Sanctuary, introduced telephone service to Calgary in 1885 when he installed a line between his office and his lumberyard. In 1887 City Council invited Bell Telephone Company to develop a municipal telephone system which offered city-wide service by 1900. In 1908, the provincial government, which had been providing some rural telephone service since 1906, established Alberta Government Telephones (AGT), the province’s first Crown Corporation, to serve rural areas, improve service in existing urban areas and purchase and expand Bell’s infrastructure. With the rapid growth during the city’s first construction boom, the existing manually-operated telephone exchange could not meet the demand for telephone service. In 1909, the newly formed AGT built a telephone exchange building in Inglewood to house a 300-line, automated “state-of-the-art” electromechanical switching system from the Automatic Electric Company.
The structure is also an excellent example of how buildings employ new construction methods to meet the needs of emerging technologies. Allan M. Jeffers, Alberta’s first Provincial Architect, devised the building’s innovative double-wall construction, in order to maintain the building’s environment within the operating conditions of the sensitive automated equipment it was to house. His unique, windowless design of an exterior brick and masonry shell which enclosed a concrete and terra cotta brick structure created an air space intended to provide both passive insulation and radiant heat source. In addition, the equipment was exceptionally heavy and required steel reinforced concrete floors to carry the load. Within a year of its construction, with Calgary’s burgeoning population, the east office demand grew by 44%, and by 1913 a rear addition was constructed to accommodate the equipment for an additional 700 lines.
The telephone exchange building, designed by Allan M. Jeffers, is a rare and superbly maintained example of Romanesque Revival Style architecture in the community. His design reflects the dual role of the utilitarian and public building by using ‘stripped down’ Romanesque elements for both the original building and extension. These include the Roman arch in the surround above the central front entrance, the modillions under the gable eaves and corbelled cornice in the gable ends, and the use of brickwork to provide texture, such as the brick quoining. Another feature of the style is the building’s polychrome sandstone and painted concrete detailing on the sills, lintels and the coping on the gabled parapets. This building, together with other intact buildings of the Edwardian period, makes a strong contribution to Inglewood’s main street.
Born and trained in Rhode Island, Allan Merrick Jeffers (1875-1926) became Alberta's Provincial Architect from 1907-12 and Edmonton's City Architect from 1912-14. He designed a number of major Edwardian era public buildings including the Alberta Legislature.
The East Calgary Telephone Exchange Building has continued its service to the community through the present day. When the early generation electro-mechanical relay equipment was phased out in 1967, the building was first used as a kindergarten from 1966-72. By 1973 it was acquired by the Inglewood Community Association as part of a Local Initiatives Program (LIP) to develop a seniors’ crafts and social centre serving for over four decades as the Inglewood Silver Threads Drop-In Centre. The exchange building was declared a Registered Historic Resource in 1981 and designated a Provincial Historic Resource in 2009.
Character-Defining Elements
Character-defining elements of the East Calgary Telephone Exchange Building include its:
- form, scale and massing as expressed by its long, symmetrical, one-storey rectangular plan with short façade; rear addition which mirrors form of original building with slightly larger proportions;
- medium pitched, front-gable roof clad in metal; gabled parapets with sandstone coping and very tall, exterior red-brick chimney on east elevation of rear addition with corbelled modillions and sandstone cap;
- double wall construction with exterior masonry walls of red brick with common bond pattern and joined with red-pigmented mortar; concrete and terra cotta brick interior walls with void of approximately 46cm (18") to 61cm (24") within the two walls;
- fenestration pattern on all façades; windows comprising original single, 2-over-4 multi-pane wooden sash storm windows and 1-over-1 sash windows; sandstone lintels and sills;
- additional exterior details such as decorative brick detailing including corbelled cornice under gable, quoining and corbelled modillions on side elevations; central front entrance surmounted by Roman-arch and sandstone lintel; front entrance stairs with railings and two-leaf entry door;
- interior features that reflect the building's original use as a public utility such as the large, open floor plan which originally housed banks of telephone equipment; steel reinforced concrete floors; lath and plaster walls and ceiling;
- location on property, setbacks on all sides; and
- main commercial street setting; relation to other main street commercial and public buildings.
Location