Bronson Place

  • Bronson Place

    View of south tower from primrose Ave. E and Bronson Ave.

  • Bronson Place

    Looking east towards downtown

Address
420 and 440 Gloucester Street, Ottawa, ON
Year(s)
1980 - Sister towers on Centretown’s periphery clad in rough concrete, these towers offer views all the way down Bronson Avenue.

These matching brutalist towers take up the entire block east-west from Percy St. to Bronson Ave., and north-south from Gloucester St. to Nepean St. The towers were originally clad in rough concrete, with semi-recessed concrete balconies. The balconies feature glass railings with visually solid brown balusters.

The towers have the same organization on their site as the neighbouring Queen Elizabeth Towers, however Bronson Place is at a slightly reduced scale. Furthermore, Bronson Place has a softer interaction at the ground plane, with a more natural landscaped option and a small pavilion instead of Queen Elizabeth’s site-wide parking garage.

In 2021 both towers underwent renovations to add steel panels and additional layers of insulation on top of the original rough concrete façades. Changes were not made to the walls behind the balconies, or to the balconies themselves, and the contrast between light grey steel panels and the original brownish grey concrete is certainly interesting.