Description of Historic Place

The Wright Building is a four-storey brick commercial building, located on Barrington Street in downtown Halifax, Nova Scotia. Its elegant Chicago-style architecture and central location on one of the city’s busiest commercial streets makes the building an important fixture of downtown Halifax. The municipal designation extends to the building and the parcel of land it occupies.

Heritage Value

The Wright Building is valued for its association with George Wright and architect James Charles Dumaresq; as an excellent example of modern commercial construction; for its Chicago-style architecture; and for its contribution to the surrounding streetscape.

The building was designed for George Wright, a successful catalogue and directory publisher. Wright was born in Tuft’s Cove, Nova Scotia in 1856. As a young man he embarked on a world cruise and while in Philadelphia conceived the idea of publishing an international business directory. His travels in Asia, Europe, the Pacific and the U.S. provided material for this endeavour and he went on to publish business directories that were distributed worldwide. By the end of the 1890s, Wright was a wealthy and prominent member of Halifax society. In 1912, he perished in the sinking of the "Titanic". He bequeathed his home, a registered heritage property, located on the corner of Young Avenue and Inglis Street, to the Canadian National Council of Women.

The Wright Building was designed in 1896 by architect James Charles Dumaresq. In his distinguished career, Dumaresq designed many venerable buildings throughout the Maritimes, including the Presbyterian Church at Great Village (1883) and the Parliament Building (1880) in Fredericton. In Halifax he designed Poplar Grove Church (1883) and the Saint Mary’s Glebe House, as well as several commercial buildings on Barrington Street, including the G.M. Smith building (1893) and the Saint Paul Building.
The Wright Building’s Chicago-style architecture complements the architecture of the Nova Scotia Furnishings building that was built next door in 1895. The Chicago style emerged during the rebuilding after the Chicago fire of 1871 and eventually led to the development of the steel and glass high-rise of the twentieth century. Developments in steel beam technology meant that a steel frame could support a much higher structure than heavy masonry walls and accommodate much larger window expanses; brick or stone cladding could also be applied to the steel frame.

The Chicago elements of the Wright Building include its symmetry, height and large windows. Its original decorative features on the upper storeys remain intact, including the Wright name and building date cast in stone on the rooftop parapet, but the street level storefront and upper floor entrances have been modified from the original design. The building currently houses various commercial tenants and is a contemporary example of a successful historic building revitalization.

Source: HRM Community Development, Heritage Property Program, the Wright Building property file.

Character-Defining Elements

The character-defining elements of the Wright Building relate to its Chicago style and include:

- original 4 storey massing;
- flat roof;
- steel framing;
- symmetrical six-bay upper façade organized into three structural bays, each sub-divided by paired arched window openings;
- grey and red brick cladding;
- roofline cornice with terra cotta and corbelled brick accents and high central parapet with the name 'Wright Building' and the date '1896' in bas relief;
- paired windows, divided by red marble colonnettes;
- arched windows on the top storey, and large central multi paned window;
- decorative brick detailing above the second and third storey windows, and on the sides of the main structural piers on the second, third and fourth storeys;
- wide signband between the storefront and upper storeys;
- three original structural piers with colonnettes on storefront that match those on the upper storeys.