page_title: Canada's grand railway hotels
section_title: Architecture
hierarchical_section_title: Canada's grand railway hotels / Architecture
caption_attribution_description: English: Interior rotunda view of the Royal Alexandra Hotel in Winnipeg.
context_page_description: Canada's grand railway hotels are a series of railway hotels across the country, each a local and national landmark, and most of which are icons of Canadian history and architecture; some are considered to be the grand hotels of the British Empire. Each hotel was originally built by the Canadian railway companies, or the railways acted as a catalyst for the hotel's construction. The hotels were designed to serve the passengers of the country's then expanding rail network and they celebrated rail travel in style.
context_section_description: Many of the railway hotels were built in the Château style (also termed the "Neo-château" or "Châteauesque" style), which as a result became known as a distinctly Canadian form of architecture. The use of towers and turrets, and other Scottish baronial and French château architectural elements, became a signature style of Canada's majestic hotels.  Architects also used the style for important public buildings, such as the Confederation and Justice buildings in Ottawa. 
  In later years, the railway companies departed from the Château style for some of their properties, notably with the construction of Winnipeg's Royal Alexandra Hotel in 1906; the Palliser Hotel in Calgary, built in 1914; and the elaborate second Hotel Vancouver, designed in grand Italianate style, unlike any of the previous Canadian railway hotels.
caption: Interior rotunda view of the Royal Alexandra Hotel in Winnipeg (Source: https://archive.org/details/PC017733)
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