MacDONALD, Robert John (1883-1945) was active in Alberta, and later in British Columbia, from 1906 to c. 1913. Born in Rootfield, Co. Rosshire, Scotland on 8 April 1883, he attended the Art School at Inverness and served a five year apprenticeship with the firm of Ross & MacBeth of Inverness from 1897 to 1902. He then joined the Edinburgh office of Hippolyte J. Blanc, a leading architect in Scotland, and worked as his assistant, and later moved to London in 1903 where he was employed by an architect “Ernest Taylor“, perhaps a reference to Alfred Ernest Taylor. He emigrated to Canada in 1906 and settled in Alberta where he “..had charge of the provincial government’s work”, likely in the office of Edward C. Hopkins, Provincial Architect for Alberta from March 1906 to September 1907.
After arriving in Vancouver, B.C. in early 1908, he was invited by Edmund Wright to form a partnership (see list of works under Wright & MacDonald). Their collaboration was brief, and by late 1908 MacDonald was operating his own office in Vancouver, and was active there until late 1913. One of the employees working in his office during this period from 1912 to 1914 was Robert C. Kerr. MacDonald appears to have been well-versed in the Edwardian style, and used it to great effect in his perspective drawing for the Padmore Building, a slender 9 storey tower intended for downtown Vancouver and designed in 1912.
In 1914 it was reported that MacDonald had been appointed as the external architect for the Pacific Great Eastern Railway Co. with headquarters in Vancouver, and that he had previously practised as an architect in Calgary and Edmonton, and that before coming to Canada, he had his own office in London, England (Vancouver Sun, 19 March 1914, 6; Pacific Coast Architect [San Francisco], vii, May 1914). The outbreak of WWI may explain why he appears to have left Canada in 1914 and moved to the United States. In 1919 he is likely the same “Robert John MacDonald” recorded in Detroit, Mich. as an architectural draftsman for the Burroughs Adding Machine Co. By 1930, he was living in Great Falls, Montana, near the border with Canada, and close to the town of Kamloops, B.C. where his brother was living. MacDonald died in Kamloops on 15 May 1945 and was buried at the local cemetery there (biog. Who’s Who in Western Canada, 1911, biog. Who’s Who & Why in Canada, 1913, 470; biog. E.O.S. Scholefield, British Columbia: From the Earliest Times to the Present, 1914, Vol. 4, 1169).
(works in Vancouver)
GLASGOW HOTEL, Westminster Avenue at East Pender Street, major addition of 60 rooms, 1908-09 (Vancouver Daily World, 4 Nov. 1908, 5, descrip.)
WEST END HOSPITAL, Barclay Street near Nicola Street, and later called The Barclay Manor Boarding School, 1909 (dwgs. at Vancouver City Archives)
LEE ON & CO., East Pender Street near Carrall Street, stores and rooming house, 1910 (dwgs. at Vancouver City Archives)
ALMER HOTEL, Cordova Street, 1912 (dwgs. at Vancouver City Archives)
SHAUGHNESSY HEIGHTS, residence for Dr. John W. Ford, Matthews Avenue near Hudson Street, 1912 (Province [Vancouver], 3 Aug. 1912, 25, descrip.)
SHAUGHNESSY HEIGHTS, residence for Frank Baynes, Laurier Avenue at Hudson Street, 1912 (Province [Vancouver], 3 Aug. 1912, 25; Saturday Sunset [Vancouver], 22 Aug. 1914, 6, illus. & descrip., but lacking attribution to the architect)
SHAUGHNESSY HEIGHTS, residence for Dr. Aubrey T. Fuller, West 16th Avenue at Cypress Street, 1912; but not built (Province [Vancouver], 12 Oct. 1912, 23, descrip.)
FERGUSON ROAD PUBLIC SCHOOL, perspective drawing of his competition entry, c. 1913 (Year Book of the British Columbia Society of Architects - Vancouver Chapter, 1913, illus.)
(with Robert C. Kerr) PADMORE BUILDING, Cordova Street, for F.W. Padmore, 1912 (The Sun [Vancouver], 19 March 1912, 9, illus. & descrip.; perspective drawing in Year Book of the British Columbia Society of Architects - Vancouver Chapter, 1913, illus.)
(works outside Vancouver)
KELOWNA, B.C., a fish cannery building for F.R.E. De Hart, 1909 (Vancouver Daily World, 15 April 1909, 39)