page_title: Macdonald-Harrington Building
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Macdonald-Harrington Building / History
caption_attribution_description: McDonald Engineering Building, McGill University, Montreal
context_page_description: The Macdonald-Harrington Building is a building located at 815 Sherbrooke Street West, on McGill University's downtown campus in Montreal, Quebec. Designed and built in Renaissance Revival style by Sir Andrew Taylor between 1896 and 1897, Macdonald-Harrington was one of the many donations made to the university by Sir William Macdonald. Today it houses the McGill School of Architecture and the School of Urban Planning, and prior to 1987, contained the Department of Metallurgy and Mining laboratories and the Department of Chemistry.
  The six-storey building contains all of the architecture studios at McGill ranging from first year undergraduate to Ph.D., as well as offices, lecture halls, a workshop, laser cutting room and light/dark rooms. It is connected to the Frank Dawson Adams building from the south, and the Macdonald Engineering building from the north.
context_section_description: In 1896, Sir William Macdonald made a donation to McGill University in order to construct a new building on campus to hold the university’s chemistry department. Sir Andrew Taylor, who had previously designed multiple buildings on McGill's campus, including the Redpath Library (1893), Macdonald Physics Building (1893) and Montreal Diocesan Theological College (1895), was hired to be the building's architect along with his partners at the time, Morley Hogle and Huntley Davis. 
  The building was originally called the Macdonald Chemistry Building but was recently renamed Macdonald-Harrington after Bernard J. Harrington, McGill’s first chemistry professor. The building opened in 1898, and Harrington was the director for nearly a decade after until his death in 1907. His portrait by Robert Harris is located in Room 212 of the building today.
  Early on, the two basement levels housed the Metallurgy and Mining labs. Some of these rooms can still be found today on these levels, though many have since been re-purposed as rooms related to the School of Architecture. The rest of the building at the time belonged to the Department of Chemistry, and contained labs, lecture rooms and offices. The third floor contained labs for organic and industrial chemistry, a balance room and a combustion room. The fourth floor held mineralogy labs, the Geological Services Library and a geology lecture room, all part of the Department of Chemistry at the time.
  In 1957, a modern, two-storey extension was constructed on the north side of Macdonald-Harrington to provide more lab space for the growing chemistry department. In 1987, the entire section underwent major renovations by the Montreal architecture firm, Arcop, founded by graduates and professors at the McGill School of Architecture, and the building shifted ownership from the Department of Chemistry to the Schools of Architecture and Urban Planning, which it continues to function under today.
caption: The Macdonald Chemistry Building within 5 years after the date of its construction.
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