Article from Urbsite. Few more pictures of the existing and renders of the facelift on the website.
AN IAN JOHNS FACELIFT: THE NEW SKIN INN
Nostalgicists for the haute-1970s style should have been heartened to learn that the holding company which has owned the former Inn of the Provinces has halted its plans to demolish the building. Recent inspections of the relatively delicate deconstruction that is now taking place here might be further encouraging. Maybe a respectful resurrection of this earth-tone beauty? I needed to find out for myself and discovered a number of computer-generated drawings set up on easels about the abandoned hotel's through-block lobby atrium.
A Bill Teron/Urbanetics by chief designer Ian Johns venture, this chocolate brown brick cluster was seen as a more humane antidote to the thrusting soulless cliff presented by Robert Campeau's Tower 'C' at Place de Ville. Sawtooth edges, cutaway corners and sheltered open spaces broke up the mass with a thoughtfully composed series of sliding diagonals.
It was the city's first development to undertake wind impact studies using scale models set up in the NRC's wind tunnel at the Ottawa International Airport, and the Inn's inset balconies were part of the resulting analysis. The hotel's shorter wing at the left along Bay Street was added later.
The developers had wanted to fill out the southern block with a second office tower next to their Park Square condominiums, hence its blank rear walls. This was rejected by the City of Ottawa which wanted to see residential development here. Just as well because it was intended to be an L-shaped version of the complex's monotonously horizontal office building.
The demolition would have preceded this mixed use development - two chunky towers for an office, condo, hotel by WZMH Architects. A last-minute intervention for a serious heritage assessment from Sarah Jennings, the wife of the Inn of the Provinces designer Ian Johns came too late. The City of Ottawa had already approved the project. For various reasons (demolition of the Inn would have been prohibitively expensive and there was apparently some difficulty in finding a contractor who would take on the job) the city was spared yet another anodyne addition to the skyline.
The Inn of the Provinces first tower opened in August 1975. It was a hostelry unlike any other in Ottawa. Not only did each suite have a sheltered balcony but 'Every unit in the 188-room hotel has its own fully equipped kitchen. The operation is designed mainly for the long-stay businessman, and it's expensive. One bedroom suites will go for about $36 a day. There are smaller and less expensive units.' (Ottawa Journal, August 18, 1975). Within a year of its launch Urbanetics sold the Inn's operations to Delta Hotels of Vancouver B.C.
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The Hilton Garden Inn and Homewood Suites is aimed at a slightly more value-for-money traveller. The retrofit's design is credited to Chamberlain Architects|Contractors|Managers, a GTA based architectural services corporation whose motto is 'Beauty Is Not Just Brick Deep'. Which is apt because they're not using any and they plan to cover up a lot of bricks.
It had been a mecca for 70s swingers. Le Quadrille, the entertainment lounge featured a 36-foot long dimensional wall sculpture of habitants dancers by Quebec wood carver Julien Bourgault , a revolving stage, and a DJ booth for disco nights. In the La Provincial dining room each table was cocooned by high-backed banquettes for maximum discretion. The lobby bar was famous for three-martini lunches and other assignations. After three decades or so Delta sold the hotel. It changed ownership a few more times, going ever more downmarket ending up as the National Hotel which closed two years ago. Their official colour was royal blue.
Delta's Inn of the Provinces wood-wrapped porte-cochere on Queen Street - the scene of a hotel workers' strike in 1981 (Photo: LAC)
It's being dismantled as balcony doors and windows are being removed from the hotel rooms above.
To give it a little more prestige the hotel's municipal address is on Sparks Street, but it was for pedestrians only because of the plans for extending the car-free Sparks Street westward to the Garden of the Provinces. The hotel's name would seem to be a no-brainer, but as they had done at their previous Carleton Towers on Albert Street Urbanetics struck a special committee.
The horizontal contours of the office tower and the hotel's podium will get wrapped in white cladding. Incidentally Morguard has had a relationship with the Inn and its successors for over 40 years. They bought the property in 1976 as the hotel operations were being transferred to Delta.
What's lost in the Hilton/Morguard retrofit is the dense texture formed by the intersection of brick piers - the angled tips of the building's projecting triangles and the precast balcony panels.
Perhaps the architects|contractors|managers were seeking the maximum contrast of colour and finish, but it's an uneasy marriage. Is this a 'It could have been worse' story? Certainly not friendly towards the aesthetics of Urbanetics.
The recessed 'V' terraces will be filled in, glazed, and made flush with the building wall. The original layouts made for oddly-shaped rooms which the new operator probably needs to straighten them out in order to make the suites larger, brighter and less eccentric. And balconies are likely a maintenance and security issue.
In designing their 1978-79 addition (Reno Negren, with Leonard Koffman Architect) Delta Hotels opted for a more practical floor plan, although there was a slight tip of the hat to the zig zag edge on the top floor rooms.
The two separate towers will allow Hilton two offer two types of accommodation. The Bay Street wing with standard hotel rooms will become the Garden Inn and the original tower's self-contained efficiencies the Homewood Suites.
In 1977 the Ottawa Society of Architects and the Federation of Citizens' Associations partnered to establish the Built Environment Awards for the area's 'finest visual turn-ons'. Urbanetics' celebrated Chief of Design Ian Johns was recognized for his work on the Inn of the Provinces which won praise 'for the way the hotel fits in between highrise office buildings and a residential area'. It was hoped to be the first of annual OSA/FCA awards, but the event was never repeated. This summer Mr. Johns returned to Ottawa from Boston, where he now lives, to receive the FCA's Builders Award in recognition of the high calibre of his architectural designs. (Centretown Buzz, July 2017 and Ottawa Journal, September 12, 1977)
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