2.5K 
The Modern Classical World Trade Centre, Modernist ATB Place, and Scottish Baronial Fairmont Macdonald form a trio of distinct visual styles at Jasper Avenue and 100 Street NW, each representing foregone and influential ages of architecture that helped build Edmonton into the province's second most populous city. Overshadowed by its larger neighbours, the Toronto Dominion Bank at the northwest corner completes the intersection's quartet, and while it may not be the most engrossing of the four, its clean lines and simple geometry are indicative features of the Modernist wave that swept Edmonton in the 1950s and 1960s.
The erection of a TD Bank at 10004 Jasper Avenue on the former site of the 1898-built Gariepy Block signalled the success of the national financial institution in Alberta. Noting its valuable location in the downtown core, Edmonton Mayor Elmer Roper called the building a "symbol of redevelopment."
One of Canada's premier architectural practices, W.G. Milne, designed the seven-storey office building with curtain wall cladding combined with clear and gold anodized aluminum mullions facing 100 Street. A gold anodized aluminum sunscreen stretches from the entrance to the apex of the building along the slender Jasper Avenue elevation, as two marble piers surround it.
The interior was equipped with modern building systems, including elevators and air conditioning. When completed in 1960, it was widely considered to be the most modern building in the city. While the structure is showing its age today, it still finds multifarious use as a city centre campus for CDI and Reeves Colleges. A nightclub and restaurant also currently occupy space in the building.
Do you have building trivia to share? Join the conversation in the Architrivia Tipline thread in our Forum.
