Just a quick post this week as I’m currently busy with another sort of architecture– Minoan peak sanctuaries on Crete– for a presentation later this week.
Herakles watched over the comings and goings of the Bank of North America’s patrons from his perch over the main entrance. The building (now the Irish Embassy pub) is situated at 49 Yonge St, Toronto, at the northeast corner of Yonge and Wellington. The bank was built by Henry Langley in 1873-4 and designed in the Second Empire style by architect Thomas Lamb. Originally the main entrance to the bank was on the Wellington street facade, but by 1903 Yonge Street had become the major thoroughfare and the segmented (arched) pediment doorway was moved to the Yonge street side.
As mentioned, the building is the Second Empire style, a French-derived style originally brought to Toronto in the 1866 Government House.
This head can easily be identified as Herakles by the Nemean lion skin he wears. It’s hard to get a really good view of it from the ground, since Herakles is looking up and out rather than down, but you can see the lion’s jaws above Herakles’ forehead. No one has really determined why Herakles occurs here, although I would venture to suggest that he is playing an apotropaic (warding off danger) role. It is common on Classical buildings to see a god, goddess, or, especially, a gorgon, staring out from a temple’s pediment. Their purpose was to ward off evil. I would suggest that this is Herakles’ role here, although the question remains as to why Lamb chose the hero Herakles.
There is another, and quite different, Herakles above the Elgin and Winter Garden Theaters.
(Sources: McHugh 6-7, Murray 75-77.)
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Alison Innes 