As the space available in the Owens Art Gallery proved to be more and more inadequate the Gairdner Building was erected to house Mount Allison's Fine Arts department. The Department operated here from 1965 until 2014 when it moved to the new Purdy Crawford Centre for the Arts.

Designed by the architectural firm of Brown, Brisley & Brown, the Gairdner building was intended primarily for the teaching of drawing and painting with a large open studio on each floor. Both the main facade, facing the upper campus, and the Mansard roof were filled with north-facing windows, apart from a wall of Wallace sandstone surrounding the main entrance.

This building is currently not in use by the university.

Plaque placed by Mount Allison University
in 1965.

Leroux, John and Thaddeus Holownia, A Vision in Wood and Stone: The Architecture of Mount Allison University (Kentville, N.S.: Gaspereau Press, 2016), pp.169-171.