Description of Historic Place

The Ukrainian Cultural Centre, a large masonry office structure built in 1912-13, dominates the intersection of two major thoroughfares in downtown Winnipeg. The City of Winnipeg designation applies to the building on its footprint.

Heritage Value

The Ukrainian Cultural Centre is a grand Neo-Classical-style commercial building of historical and contemporary importance in Winnipeg's social and cultural development. It originated as the regional headquarters of the British and Foreign Bible Society, which distributed multilingual versions of Biblical Scriptures and worked with social reform groups to promote Christian values among the poor and new immigrants. The premises were later acquired and converted into the Ukrainian Cultural and Educational Centre, an important focus of Ukrainian culture in the city. The building's visibility has increased greatly over time due to redevelopment and loss of surrounding properties, and its physical and aesthetic prominence establishes a striking link between the city's historic warehouse district and mixed-use Point Douglas area.

Source: City of Winnipeg Committee on the Environment Meeting Minutes, April 21, 1980

Character-Defining Elements

Key elements that define the prominent Ukrainian Cultural Centre site include:
- its exposed location, just southeast of two major thoroughfares, Main Street and the Disraeli Freeway
- the building's placement, flush to the sidewalk on Alexander Avenue, facing north

Key exterior elements that define the grand Neo-Classical style building include:
- the five-storey rectangular form, modestly L-shaped on floors two to five, with a raised concrete basement, solid brick and limestone walls and a flat roofline with high parapets
- the formal classical composition of the primary (north and west) facades, symmetrically organized, including a ground-floor base of channelled ashlar limestone, upper storeys of brown brick delineated horizontally by continuous smooth-cut stone sills and lintels, and a deep pedimented entablature
- the elegant five-bay front elevation with its shallow pilasters, round-arched entranceway and fanlight recessed within a delicately carved stone architrave framed by Corinthian columns, and third-floor bracketed stone pseudo-balcony and pediment
- the generous fenestration, including large lintelled main-floor openings and an ordered arrangement of tall rectangular two- and three-part windows with stone mullions on the front facing, and similar single and paired openings on the west side
- classical details such as the metal entablature between the ground and second floors, the metal-clad modillioned cornice, the oculus in the upper pediment, the raised pilaster caps on the parapets, etc.
- the well-lit rear (south) elevation with numerous, symmetrically placed, segmental-arched windows and a one-storey, flat-roofed annex in the southeast corner
- the east side's solid brick wall with an iron fire escape accessed by doors at each level

Key internal elements that define the building's heritage character include:
- the centre-hall plan on all levels, supplemented by a well-lit south stairwell and the spacious main (north) vestibule
- the finishes, such as the second-floor hardwood floors, and the metal basement vault