Chicago and the Romanesque Revival

Some of the finest warehouses in North America based on an American Romanesque style can be found in Winnipeg. This style was developed by Chicago architect, Henry Hobson Richardson and used in the Marshall Field Warehouse constructed in Chicago in 1885. Thereafter, it was also used by Winnipeg's foremost warehouse architects Charles H. Wheeler, James H. Cadham, George Browne, S. Frank Peters and John H.G. Russell. The Romanesque are typically of heavy wood post and construction with foundations of large rough-faced stone blocks set with deep, recessed joints (called rustication) and brick walls with piers and stone spandrels to support heavy loads. The Romanesque or round-head arch is used in the tunnels through the buildings which provided for protected loading and unloading of goods within, and in the large windows which provided natural light to the interior before electric light was affordable.

John H.G. Russell was born in Toronto, Ontario and apprenticed with H.B. Gordon, a prominent local architect. He visited Winnipeg in 1882 and then travelled south and worked in Chicago, Sioux City, Tacoma and Spokane. Russell returned to Winnipeg in 1893 and opened his architectural practice in the city in 1895. The first Manitoban elected to be President of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada (in 1912), he was Winnipeg in the American Romanesque style and another transitional style of the Edwardian era.