A Remnant of The Commercial Chambers Block
10120 Jasper Avenue
Architects: MacDonald & Magoon
Constructed: 1930
Demolished: 1989
I love these quirky building remnants. Now, it’s not so much for what they represent — they stand as clear reminders of policy failure. Rather, I love them for what they are. They’re curios in a way. Odd bits-and-bobs that somehow manage to scrape by, whether through dumb luck or some perverse form of historical tokenism.
I also loathe them.
There exists a philosophical concept known as Hauntology. In its most elementary understanding, it’s the notion that the present is haunted by the ghosts of lost futures. Slivers of yore limp along and represent “what could have been.” Whether it be a datestone, a column, or a keystone, these remains remind me of that. They act as a portal into seeing what could have been standing if clever thinking, better policy, or swifter action had won out.
Case-in-point, the remnant here. I’m sure many of you have walked by it, biked by it, bussed by it, or drove by it a thousand times and never even noticed. It’s a sundial, a remnant from the Commercial Chambers Building. Built by the venerable McDougall & Secord Limited Co., and designed by George Heath MacDonald and Herbert Alton Magoon’s venerated architectural firm, the building was “a real addition to Edmonton’s uptown commercial and office buildings” when it opened a year into the Depression. The handsome sundial — bearing the inscription of “M&S” on its gnomon — was located just above its stairwell entrance on the southeast corner. Now it sits plastered onto the red granite podium of Commerce Place. Begrudgingly, the complex’s developers, Olympia & York, added it as a nod to what was once there.
To me the sundial, a spectre of the old Comercial Chambers, represents “what could’ve been,” because what ultimately replaced the elderly, two storey classical building? A tower podium that is functionally — in the sense of the built environment — identical: a two storey building. Yet, Commerce Place is functionally worse than its forerunner, lacking the small-scale retail units and inherent charm in favour of monolithic scale and monotony.
A small piece of the Chambers that hangs on. On one hand, it reminds us of what we’ve lost and is a nod to both the site’s and the city's past. On the other hand it stands as a monument to a lost future, one where the building and others like it survived, a future where downtown Edmonton hasn’t struggled due to poor urban planning and poorer urban design, a future that reminds us we’re worse off for its loss.
Image Gallery:
The Commercial Chambers Block as it stood in 1930.
Provincial Archives of Alberta Photo No. PAA-BL-2135 (Cropped).
