Our World Tuesday

September 2013 - Toronto On


Bank of Nova Scotia in Toronto, located at 44 King Street West, is on the northeast corner of the intersection at Bay and King. John M. Lyle, was its architect. He also designed Union Station and the Royal Alexandra Theatre, as well as the Runnymede Library in the Bloor West Village. Lyle was born in Ireland in 1872, but spent his childhood in Hamilton, Ontario. He studied at Yale University and in Paris. He commenced his career in New York City, but returned to Canada in 1905, and lived in Toronto.

The Bay Street facade of the bank building, facing Bay Street. The carvings by Frederick Winkler are visible above the windows of the podium level.

Unfortunately, his design for the Bank of Nova Scotia was shelved in in 1929 because of the Depression. In the late-1940s, the plans for the building were revived, but Lyle had died in 1945. The structure was redesigned and completed by Mathers and Haldenby, with Beck and Eadie, employing much of the original Art Deco aspects that Lyle had included in his original scheme in 1929.

Click here for more of Toronto's old (and new) bank buildings.