| ALEXANDER TILLOCH GALT DURNFORD | CAC Accession No: 11 |
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DESCRIPTION Alexander Tilloch Galt Durnford (1898-1973) was born in Montreal. In 1922 he graduated with a Bachelor's degree in architecture from McGill University. After working for a few years in New York, initially with the architectural firm of G. B. Post and Sons, later for Delano and Aldrich, Durnford returned to Montreal where he practised architecture from 1924 onwards. From 1924 to 1934 Durnford practised architecture alone. In 1934 he merged his practice with that of Harold Lea Fetherstonhaugh (1887-1971). In 1946 their practice was joined by Richard E. Bolton (b. 1907) and R.V. Chadwick (b. 1916). Fetherstonaugh retired in 1955. Durnford served in the Second World War and lived in Ottawa during the war. He was a member of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada and the Royal Institute of British Architects. In 1964 Durnford retired from the firm of Durnford, Bolton, Chadwick and Ellwood. Lucy Durnford Lewis, Alexander Tilloch Galt Durnford's daughter, gave the CAC the materials that Durnford kept at home, such as his early commissions and his later small commissions for private houses. In 1986 Michael G. C. Ellwood donated a box of materials, including thirty-five file folders, documenting different projects through photographs, drawings, clippings and correspondence, as well as a publication on the Saguenay Inn containing photographs and publicity pamphlets. The Ellwood donation has not been accessioned or processed. Architectural Drawings, 1916-72, 2206 drawings. Ninety-four projects are documented by architectural drawings. They range in date from Durnford's student drawings to alterations to the St. George Parish House in Richmond Square, Montreal in the early 1970s. The majority of the projects are for urban and rural domestic architecture in Montreal, primarily in Westmount and the surrounding regions. The Zeta Psi Fraternity Chapter House on University Street in Montreal is one of the few public commissions that is documented in the archive in great detail.
Photographs, 1926-69, 102 photographs. Primarily designs, additions, and alterations to houses in Westmount and Montreal, as well as country houses in Grand Metis, Ste. Agathe and other Quebec sites are documented in photographs. Twenty-seven of Durnford's projects are documented by photographs. Papers, 1922-72, 78 cm. Correspondence, specifications, notes and clippings relating to seventyfour of Durnford's projects are found in the Durnford archive. The majority of the papers concern additions and alterations to residential dwellings in Westmount and Montreal and country houses in the surrounding regions.
Fetherstonhaugh and Durnford | |