HomeMy WebLinkAbout350 "Article written by G. Zimmerman, dated December 19, 1992.
The church building of St. Francis de Sales Roman Catholic Church is an exemplary High
Victorian design that is entirely representative of what has been termed the Picturesque
Eclecticism period in architectural design in Canada in the 1870's and 80's.
The building is traditional basilican in plan, expresses narthex, nave and apse; but its exterior
expression has the exuberant variety of materials, colours, shapes, patterns that would have
been expected from a designer in the vanguard in the early 1870's. The principal exterior material
is smooth clay brick arranged in polychrome patterns of red range and buff which emphasize the
variety of shapes used in the windows, doors, gables and the tower. The roofing of the nave is
asphalt shingles but may have been slate tile in two or three colours originally.
The shapes of the windows, buttresses, tower and spire are obviously intended to emphasize
verticality. The spire has a wonderful, slender, eight-sided verticality; its corner ribs are
hard-edged and contrast the roofing and add to the soaring quality as they merge into the filigree
ironwork of the pinnacle. Similarly, the slender, structured brick buttresses along the walls at
intervals and at the corners of the tower are topped with filigree ironwork. The spire rises from an
eight-sided segment of the tower. The lower segment of the tower that encloses the main
entrance is four-sided.
The windows contribute to the intentionally picturesque variety of shapes and angles used in the
building. The nave windows are very slender, paired, Gothic with each pair topped by a quatrefoil;
the tower's louvered, lancet openings are even more slender, and the nave roof is pierced by
dormers enfolding trefoil windows. (Eric Arthur writes of the dormer windows added after 1870 to
St. Michael's Cathedral, Toronto:"" Dormers on a cathedral roof must be extremely rare....."")
The east and west ends of the church, that is, the main entrance and the apse, contradict the
verticality of the rest of the building fabric, in that they suggest sheltering roofs coming towards
the observer rather than soaring away from one. In spite of that and even with the variety of
shapes, materials, patterns and colours used in the composition, the designer has exhibited
some typical Ontario Victorian restraint and this characteristic serves to unify the separate parts
into a still-satisfying balanced whole.
"
"We should be thankful that this fine church building remains almost totally unchanged in its
nineteenth century form and detail. It would appear as though only the entrances and the roofing
have been altered. In basic form it looks to be much the same as it did in the illustration of
Pickering Village in the Atlas of Ontario County for 1877.
G. Zimmerman
1992-12-19
"