The Elgin Square Apartments, Golden Triangle, Ottawa

 The Elgin Square Apartments (475 Elgin Street) loom above the berm of the Queensway, bathed in the glow of a pastel sunset.

The first ads for Elgin Square appeared in May 1974. 

The lot was previously a service station — the yellow block on this 1965 aerial photo shows what would become the Elgin Square's footprint. More than half of that area is occupied by the rear parkade, a boxlike structure attached the back of the main building. Note the Queensway bridge being built over the Rideau Canal, and the Tiffany Apartments (1954) backing onto the Elgin Square lot.

We can see how the parkade is configured in this Google image —

Elgin Square's construction style has been described as barely-Brutal or Brutalist-lite. Robert Smythe, the late historian of Ottawa architecture, penned an underwhelming assessment —

Planned or unplanned — like Toronto, which has the second highest number of apartment towers in North America, Ottawa has a great many high-rise apartments in both the inner and outer suburbs. Some were developer-planned mixed use communities. Some just sprouted like giant concrete weeds.

The boom of the early 70s occurred at an unfortunate time in architecture, when the favoured material was raw cement used for poured-in-place solid walls and balcony parapets, at best relieved by some grooves. Where does it come from? It's is not particularly rooted in Brutalism. No bush-hammering, exposed aggregate, gnarly formwork, precast panels or extreme sculptural shapes.

This "poured-in-place" raw cement appears to have contributed to a fatal incident on the Elgin Square job site.

Mr. Freitas, described as being in fair condition in the article, would die from his injuries some three weeks later. For its part, Centretown Developments seemed to have been more concerned as to whether the incident might scare away renters.

 

Centretown Place on Slater Street was completed the following year — a near-identical twin to Elgin Square. Ads began to appear in September 1975.