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This wall is a catalogue of unexpected architectural surprises: stained glass, shingles, ornamental brickwork and wooden window detailing.
Stumped? It's the building at 2085 Bishop St., not far from Sherbooke St., which houses the Applied Human Sciences Department.
Liberal Arts College art historian Virginia Nixon says it was, and still is, "a handsome multi-dwelling structure that combines different stylistic currents.
"The grey stone and slanting roof of the street faade links it with the dominant Montreal aesthetic of the Second Empire," she explained, "but the side view tells a different story.
"That large window points to the aesthetic of the Queen Anne style. A British domestic style of the last three decades of the 19th century, Queen Anne paid a lot of attention to entry halls and staircases. The details of the chimney brickwork, the stained glass, the shingles below the window and the decorative woodwork across it are further indicators of the new upscale housing of the period.
"This wall deserves a garden to set it off," she said enthusiastically. "How about it?"
