Description of Historic Place

The Orange Hall is a four-storey structure built in the Richardsonian Romanesque style. It is located at the corner of Gore Avenue and East Hastings Street in Vancouver.

Heritage Value

The value of the Orange Hall lies in its connection to the Loyal Orange Lodge. The Orange Order came came into existence on September 21, 1795, during bitter clashes between Roman Catholics and Protestants. It was based on religious (Protestant) freedom and fraternal congeniality. Although there is evidence of Orangemen in Canada from the eighteenth century, the Grand Orange Lodge of British America was not established by Imperial Warrant until 1832 and incorporated by an Act of Canadian Parliament in 1890. Orangeism grew across Canada as the new country took shape.

The architect was William Tuff Whiteway, noted in Vancouver for several buildings in the Gastown historic district, including the later Sun Tower. The building, the first hall for the Orange Order in Vancouver, was completed in 1907 in a Richardsonian Romanesque architectural style, much of which still remains. Large plate glass windows on the main floor permitted the display of retail merchandise by early tenant Morgan Brothers Furniture, while another storefront housed a printing firm. In later years, the upper levels housed labour and cultural organisations, a gym, and a Jewish congregation, who used the hall until the construction of their new synagogue. These varied uses exemplify the tolerance which the institution espouses.

The hall was abandoned by the Lodge in 1943. The following year, the National Housing Administration announced plans to renovate the building to help alleviate the shortage of housing in the area and hired architect William Frank Gardiner to oversee the renovation. Because of the height of the original ceilings on the top two floors, three storeys were inserted where there had been only two. Windows were altered to allow light into the twenty-seven apartments; the round-headed Romanesque windows of the original upper storey were replaced by rectangular double hung sash to match the those on the second storey. The ground floor was remodelled and occupied by a branch postal station.

Source: City of Vancouver Heritage Conservation Program

Character-Defining Elements

The character-defining elements of the Orange Hall include:
- its corner location and construction to the lot lines with no setbacks
- rectangular form, scale and massing
- its connection with a prominent fraternal order
- Richardsonian Romanesque details including: cornice with brackets, sandstone archway on the Gore Street entrance resting on multiple columns with elaborate capitals, horizontal bands of sandstone between storeys, sandstone lintels, rusticated pilasters
- the presence of street level retail shops
- name and date in sandstone archway over the Gore Avenue entrance
- original wood wainscoting in the Gore Avenue store entrances
- original tile in shop front entry (white, red and green)
- roof top with ventilator shaft