Barber and Barber

Barber and Barber, architects, Winnipeg's most prolific architectural firm 1876-87. Founded in 1876 by Charles Arnold Barber (b at Irish Creek, near Athens, Canada W c1847; d 1916) and joined in 1882 by his brother, Earle William Barber (b 1855; d 1915), the firm designed over 100 buildings in little more than a decade during one of the city's greatest building booms. Apparently neither brother had professional or academic architectural training, and by the mid-1880s their style began to lose favour in competition with better-educated architects such as George Browne. After a scandal over construction estimates for Winnipeg City Hall, in other ways their finest work in the city, the brothers left town (1887) and set up practice in Duluth, Minn, and Superior, Wis.