Stephen Leacock Building

Stephen Leacock Building
Leacock Building (2017)
Alternative names	Leacock Building Leacock
Etymology	Stephen Leacock
General information
Architectural style	Brutalism
Address	855 Sherbrooke Street West, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Coordinates	45°30′16″N 73°34′40″W / 45.50444444°N 73.57777778°W / 45.50444444; -73.57777778
Construction started	1962
Completed	1965
Affiliation	McGill University
Height	30m[1]
Technical details
Material	concrete
Floor count	11
Lifts/elevators	3
Design and construction
Architect(s)	Ray Affleck
Architecture firm	Arcop

45°30′16″N 73°34′40″W / 45.50444444°N 73.57777778°W / 45.50444444; -73.57777778 The Stephen Leacock Building, also known simply as the Leacock Building, is a building located at 855 Sherbrooke Street West, on the McGill University downtown campus in Montreal, Quebec. The building was named after Stephen Leacock, a well-known Canadian humorist and author, and Professor of Economics at McGill from 1901 to 1944. Built between 1962 and 1965 by the Montreal architectural firm Arcop, the Leacock Building's purpose was to accommodate the growing number of students at McGill, particularly in the Faculty of Arts which had outgrown its ancestral home, the Arts Building.^[2]

Leacock is a ten-storey, Brutalist concrete structure currently housing the Departments of Humanities, Social Sciences and Islamic Studies at McGill. It contains offices on the upper floors and lecture rooms on the lower floors, including the largest lecture room at McGill, Leacock-132, which seats up to 650 students at a time.^[3] The tower can be accessed from three different levels, either from the first floor at street level, the second floor terrace to the south, or the third floor terrace to the west from McTavish Street. It can also be entered directly from the Arts Building from the east through a two-storey glass-walled corridor.^[4]