1.5K 
The Royal Bank became Canada's largest bank in the 1920s and the first in Vancouver to build a skyscraper as a monument to its financial might. Their 18-storey tower at 675 West Hastings Street replaced the former British Columbia headquarters at 400 West Hastings Street, illustrating the gradual march of the central business district westwards from around Gastown.
The new downtown that was developing west of the historic core was fuelled by a growth in commercial enterprise and population throughout the Edwardian era. At the time Royal Bank secured the site at 675 West Hastings Street, it had become the most valuable piece of real estate in the city. The street offered a number of undeveloped and unhindered canvases for vertical development, while projecting an aura of prominence as one of Vancouver's main thoroughfares.
When the building was completed in 1931 at the corner of West Hastings and Granville streets, it immediately became a beacon in the city's financial district. Chief architect for the Royal Bank of Canada from 1920 to 1942, S.G. Davenport designed the building with the intent of echoing the characteristics of eminent financial institutions: power, strength, permanence, and stability.
The tower's arched windows and classical composition mimic the bank's Montreal headquarters, which had just been completed. About 90 percent of the materials were provincially sourced, with the andesite stone cladding originating from Haddington Island. While the building employed in-vogue Art Deco massing, it was masked by Neo-Romanesque flourishes that reflected the conservatism of banks. It effectively balanced the prevailing popularity of skyscrapers with the dignified look of previous architectural trends.
The heritage building encapsulates the naive economic optimism of the late 1920s, which by the time of the building's opening, had all but vanished. For four decades, the bank's regional offices were located here, until the construction of the new Royal Centre in 1973. The Royal Bank branch on the lower floors of the tower continue to serve the public over 85 years later.
A recent rezoning application seeks to plant a new 28-storey office tower on the adjacent lot while preserving the facade of the heritage tower. Renderings for the glass proposal show a design heavily guided by the massing principles of the Royal Bank Tower, with numerous front setbacks minimizing the girth of the upper floors. Just as the building placed itself at the forefront of Vancouver's westward growth, it now serves as the cradle for progressive vertical expansion.
Do you have building trivia to share? Join the conversation in the Architrivia Tipline thread in our Forum.
