The Jasper House Apartments
12021 Jasper Avenue1961-63John A. MacDonald, Architect
Drawing its name from a Hudson’s Bay Company trading post, Jasper House was one of the first residential towers constructed west of Downtown Edmonton.
Maclab Developments spared no expense on their $818,000, 125 suite project, and the tower featured a host of fine finishes and novel features. Marble floors, murals, red leather furniture, and dark oak panelling defined its common areas. Two Otis elevators provided quick service between floors and access to a furnished rooftop suite accessible to all residents. Speakers pumped in ambient music, provided by Muzak, to each suite, which all featured expert soundproofing, carpeting, and intercom door controls. Utilities were no extra charge.
Outside, the tower became a prime example of Modern design. Maitland et al in a Guide to Canadian Architectural Styles notes that many buildings of this era can be “recognized [by their] use of a module, usually a square or rectangle, that forms the basis of a building’s design.” Plain surfaces and quality materials produced an egalitarian “style of subtlety” that suited postwar optimism. Jasper House’s fairly austere rectilinear form is no different, but of particular note is the frank expression of its structural elements. The unapologetic display of floor slabs and support columns which cut through the tower’s brick spandrel “skin” provides extra decorative value.
Adding a punch of colour to the tower’s stark form is a four-storey art piece precariously hanging off its west wall. Standing sixty-feet tall, the Robert Oldrich-designed sculpture is constructed of coloured porcelain enamel plates joined by rods. “The whole concept,” Oldrich explained, “is to create a loose, joyful and playful result with forms suggested and shapes resolving in each other. Changing light changes the character as well as the relative movement of the observer. The ‘reversed mirage’ composition creates tension, which relieves itself at the beginning, leading the eye on a merry chase back and forth.” Just what the sculpture represents is up to the viewer to decide; it’s “non-objective, leaving the viewer to fill in his own image; to feel and respond to the shape and colour in his own way.”
Sources:
“East Side, West Side,” Edmonton Journal, August 13, 1962.
“It Has Imposing Entrance,” Edmonton Journal, June 8, 1963.
“Commanding River Valley View Feature Of New Jasper House,” Edmonton Journal, June 8, 1963.
“High Art Piece,” Edmonton Journal, June 8, 1963.
Leslie Maitland, Jacqueline Hucker, Shannon Rickets, A Guide to Canadian Architectural Styles (Peterborough, Ontario: Broadview Press, 1993), 178.
“Jasper House Apartments — 1960,” Capital Modern, accessed November 10, 2023,
https://capitalmodernedmonton.com/buildings-by-area/jasper-house-apartment/.
