Description of Historic Place

Isbister School, built in 1898-99, is an eclectically styled brick building that now stands amidst a collection of high- and low-rise residential, commercial and institutional structures on the busy streets of Winnipeg's downtown. Now housing the Winnipeg Adult Education Centre, the school was enlarged in 2004 with a glass and steel addition to its east face, establishing a dramatic contrast with the highly articulated brick surfaces of the old school. The City of Winnipeg's designation applies to the 1898-99 school on its footprint.

Heritage Value

Isbister School is the oldest surviving public school building in Winnipeg. It is also a rare example of the kind of facilities, three storeys high on a squarish plan, favoured by local education authorities at the turn of the twentieth century. Built to relieve enrolment pressure, the structure was one of the buildings that served as a model for how to translate the era's reform orientation and willingness to invest in education into well-designed buildings that were safe, comfortable, inviting and supportive of prevailing pedagogy. The school's elaborate and largely intact exterior, designed by Samuel Hooper, who later became Manitoba's first provincial architect, showcases fine brickwork, varied surfaces and an eclectic mix of elements taken from the Romanesque and Queen Anne revival styles. The interior likewise retains its bright, airy classrooms and some of its fine original materials and finishes. Isbister School, named after scholar Alexander Kennedy Isbister, recalls the type of impressive and richly decorated structures that came to be seen as necessary means for encouraging parental confidence in the school system, as well as regular attendance, academic progress and good taste among students.

Source: City of Winnipeg Historical Buildings Committee Meeting, May 10, 1982

Character-Defining Elements

- its location in Winnipeg's downtown core amidst residential, commercial and institutional complexes, bounded by Colony Street to the west and Vaughan Street to the east
- the grounds somewhat buffered from the bustling surroundings by landscaping, and the east lawn featuring formal walkways and a fence

Key external elements of the school's eclectic style include:
- the three-storey rectangular brick volume marrying elements from the Romanesque Revival and Queen Anne Revival styles to include a truncated hip roof, pedimented gables, and projecting bays on the north and south elevations
- a collection of varied surfaces and materials with richness of detail and near-perfect symmetry on each elevation
- the walls of sand-lime brick trimmed with limestone, with lighter strips of sandstone on the foundation
- the highly detailed central tower featuring a recessed entrance flanked by stone columns and balustrade, pairs of flat-headed windows with one pair set in a highly decorative arch, three small round-arched openings with a balustrade, a stone banner inscribed with `ISBISTER SCHOOL', a copper-clad cupola, and a square lantern, all topped by a high bellcast pyramidal roof and a finial
- recessed windows throughout with continuous, rough limestone sills, including square-headed windows on the first and third floors with rough limestone lintels and round-arched windows on the second level capped with decorative brick arches
- the details, including columns, pilasters and chimneys with decorative brickwork, gable ends with centred bull's eye and half-circle windows, a limestone date stone in the northeast corner, etc.

Key elements that define the school's functional, yet cultivated internal appearance include:
- the formal plan based on a central hall bisecting floors
- the oak staircases rising to the third floor, accessed at the east and west ends of the hallways and featuring finely carved wooden banisters varnished in a honey tone
- the spacious, well-lit classrooms, some featuring cloakrooms, blackboards and maple flooring
- the colourful floral-motif stained-glass panels inset in the tops of numerous windows
- the practical, yet appealing details and finishes throughout, including wainscotting, period door trims of a block and column design with transoms, ceilings of embossed sheet metal, etc.