Located on a residential street between Scott Street and the Sir John A Macdonald Parkway and across from the Graham Spry Building in Ottawa’s Westboro neighbourhood, the Centre Jules Leger occupies a large open site, with room on all sides of the two storey building.  Originally constructed as Champlain High School, the building was originally designed the Ottawa firm of Hazelgrove, Lithwick, Lambert and Sim the prolific high school architects who designed many Ottawa High Schools during this period. Champlian was different than their past schools (Rideau, Laurentian and Ridgemount) featuring a slightly more adventurous, but still restrained, material palette of dark brown brick, granite fieldstone and patterned open-web concrete block.  In addition, orange enamel spandrel panels added colour to its neutral colour palette.  Unfortunately, renovations have since removed most traces of this critical sense of playfulness.  More subtle traces of colour remain in the mosaic tile, providing small scale and tactile detail when up close while also emphasizing key points such as entrances.

Designed to take advantage of its large site the school is set well back from Lanark Avenue allowing visitors to take in the entire south elevation from the street.  From the street the school displays two masses, a two storey structurally gridded classroom wing and a single storey wing clad in fieldstone.  To add variation to the elevation, the lower floor of the classroom wing is recessed to add shadow and reinforce the structural grid.

Due to increasing populations in the surrounding area, the school received its first addition in 1968, a 6-classroom wing at its northwest corner.  This addition was designed by the same architects in a style consistent with the two storey classroom wing.  Change would be constant over the following few years with the Ottawa Board of Education transitioning the 1000-student English high school to a French-only high school starting in 1970.  This transition would be completed by 1974, after which the school would be known as Ecole Secondaire Champlain.  The building would remain under this banner until 1995 when declining enrollment forced the closure of the school and its eventual sale to the Province of Ontario.  In 1997 the Centre Jules Leger would take up residence, a use that remains to this day.  For a much more comprehensive review of the building’s history see the Kitchissippi Museum link below.