The Splendiferous Redpath Museum Montreal

A shrunken head. Mummies. Dinosaur bones. An anaconda skeleton. Shells the size of a child’s head. A life-sized origami Pterodactyl. A gorilla guarding the staircase. With nearly three million objects spanning natural history, ethnology and mineralogy, the Redpath Museum Montreal is the ultimate Victorian curio cabinet.

The first purpose-built museum in Canada, it was commissioned by Peter Redpath and opened in 1882 to preserve and display the collections of Sir William Dawson, a noted Canadian natural scientist and Principal of McGill University. Architects A.C. Hutchison and A.D. Steele “conceived an idiosyncratic expression of eclectic Victorian Classicism, synthesizing ancient and modern as well as European and North American sources to dignify the campus and express the significance of its purpose.”

[pullquote]The controllers of the overwhelming majority of Canadian rail, shipping, timber, mining, fur and banking consisted of a small group of about fifty men who called the Square Mile ‘home’ …[F]rom about 1870 to 1900, 70% of all wealth in Canada was firmly in the hands of this small group. ((http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Square_Mile))[/pullquote]

The Redpath Museum Montreal sits in the centre of the ‘Golden Square Mile’,  former farmland on the slope of Mount Royal north of Sherbrooke Street. It became, from the late 1700’s until the early 20th century, the wealthiest residential enclave in Canada. Montreal’s anglophone captains of industry shifted from the crowded confines of Old Montreal to rural, expansive surroundings, building estates that reflected their social position.

The Redpath is a theatrical, bodacious building, a late example of  Greek Revival and a shrine to the wealth and civilizing pursuits of the English. For fans of the film A Night at the Museum, think an intimate, manageable version of New York’s American Museum of Natural History.

While the eclectic collection is fun and cleverly curated, it’s the building that steals the show; no Hollywood set designer could offer improvements. The coffered ceiling, Virgin Mary blue, is the heavenly colour of ecclesiastical ceilings and temple-like public buildings. With its apse and nave, it was designed in the classical shape of a church. Honey-coloured wood trim, cast plaster ornamentation, and built-up mouldings deck the walls floor to ceiling. Freestanding and built-in oak and glass cabinets house the collections. Shifting light streams through the atrium windows, creating late-afternoon shadow play between the cast iron balustrade and floors of the elevated walkway. Imagine what it must look like by moonlight.

The museum has several research labs and a unique, circular Victorian teaching auditorium, which can be seen in this Historica Canada Heritage Minute.

The fortunes of the neighbourhood eventually waned and most of the mansions were torn down or assimilated into the university.  The Redpath remains an enchanting remnant of a dynamic time and place in Canadian history.

Additional Reading:

Beneath My Feet by Phil Jenkins