Recently, someone asked me what I thought Canada’s most iconic university building was.  That is, which building is a) instantly recognizable and b) utterly representative of the campus on which it sits?  I put the question out on twitter and got some interesting answers from my excellent and disputatious followers.

The question, of course, is to some degree an unfair one because to be instantly recognizable, the university itself needs to be fairly well-known.  That condition makes it difficult for any school which is not in the U-15 to make the running.  If you went to Acadia or Mount Allison, there’s a good chance you think of University Hall or Convocation Hall (respectively) as emblematic of the campus and you’d be right. But, not to put too fine a point on it, most Canadians have absolutely no idea what either place looks like, so it’s tough to get the “recognizable” label.  And that’s not just a small university thing: the terminally-unlovely Dunton Towers, with its occasionally-functioning elevators, is arguably fully emblematic of Carleton, but I am not sure that a non-descript, square, 22-story building would be recognizable to anyone outside Ottawa.

That’s not to say there aren’t some pretty spectacular buildings outside the U-15.  Two Arthur Erickson creations – University Hall at Lethbridge and the Academic Quad at Simon Fraser certainly fit the bill.   In fact, one could make a pretty good case for the Quad topping this list; the complicating factor is that it’s not so much the building itself as the pond and other spaces within that make it special and – maybe more important – many people recognize the building (FBI headquarters in the X-files, an outdoor market on Caprica in the pilot of the Battlestar Galactica re-boot) without necessarily knowing it is part of a campus.  Similarly, the Sharp Centre at OCAD U is incredibly distinctive, but due to its location at the corner of McCaul and Dundas, gets lumped in with the Art Gallery of Ontario as much as it does with OCAD U.  These would both come top of my list for “great Canadian university buildings” but don’t quite meet the “iconic” definition.

Moving to the U-15, we can eliminate a whole bunch of campuses off the bat because Laval, Waterloo, McMaster, Saskatchewan and Calgary are all pretty much devoid of iconic architecture.  Dal has the Hicks Building but its position on campus and the trees on University Avenue means it’s hard to see most of the time.  Alberta has the Butterdome, which is iconic but possibly not in a way anyone would want.  Manitoba’s has a neo-Palladian Administration Building which kind of fits the “iconic” bill but then in true Winnipeg style has ringed this Italianate masterpiece on three sides with a parking lot, which detracts a bit from the effect.

The University of Ottawa has Tabaret Hall, a stylized version of which forms part of its logo, so it certainly ticks the “emblematic” box; however, it’s architecturally nothing special and I would guess not many people outside Ottawa could guess its location if they saw it.    Grant Hall at Queen’s is emblematic of the campus to Queen’s students but unless you actually attend the school and know about its history and the events it hosts, you wouldn’t put it at the top of your list (it is very Queen’s for the most Queen’s-like building to be a secret Queen’s thing).  Western’s University College would probably rank high on this list but for the fact that the university itself de-emphasized its iconic-ness (iconicity?) a few years ago when it removed the building from its logo.

UBC is probably the most beautiful campus in the country (certainly from November to March, anyway).  But because despite being a great campus, I am not sure it has many actual iconic buildings.  The Main Mall makes for great photos, for instance, but hard to pick out a single building (yes, yes, Erickson’s Anthropology Museum is striking, but nowhere near on par with the quad at SFU).  Similarly, the University of Toronto is interesting because it actually has several potential candidates.  Convocation Hall will often get a mention here, as will the Robarts library which is easily the world’s foremost piece of brutalist architecture in the shape of a turkey.  University College may come closest to the “iconic” definition given that it visually encapsulates much of the school’s Oxbridge-lust and historically ultra-WASP identity, plus it is on the cover of pretty much every piece of student-facing promotional material the institution produces.  But while one could make a strong case for UC, the very fact that Toronto has multiple choices for iconic building weakens the case that any single one of them could win this title.

That leaves us with the two Montreal institutions, each of which has a top candidate for this prize.  The Pavillion Roger-Gaudry in many ways is l’Université de Montréal.  The art-deco-ish style is distinctive, as is its priapic tower, which makes for a heckuva silhouette.  This one comes very close to the top of my list; my niggling doubt is that anglophone Canada has almost no clue about anything in Montreal north of the Mountain which leaves me a bit doubtful about the instant-recognition factor.  Unfair, perhaps, but there it is.

That leaves McGill and its Arts Building.  The building itself for the most part is nothing special.  But the cupola, topped by the flag, makes it absolutely distinctive.  But what holds the eye is the fact that the entire campus – indeed, much of downtown Montreal – is built around it.  McGill College Avenue, which bisects the city from Place Ville-Marie to Sherbooke St., is like a huge Champs-Elysées leading through the Roddick Gates and up in a triumphal procession towards the Arts Building (or, you know, it would be if the Champs-Elysées were dotted with Van Houttes and you replaced the Louvre with PVM).  With Mont-Royal framing the building from behind, it is 100% recognizable and utterly emblematic.

My call, which will undoubtedly be criticized for alma mater favouritism, the Arts building at McGill wins most iconic by a nose, with Montreal’s Roger-Gaudry and SFU’s Academic Quad close behind.  Honourable mention to OCAD U’s Sharp Centre, even if everyone does think it is part of the AGO, and a lifetime achievement award to Arthur Erickson.