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Completed in 1935, the Armoury at Fort York in Toronto follows the traditional programme for Canada’s armouries but combines classical components in a modern form. It sits on a site leased from the City of Toronto on 1 Nov. 1932 for 99 years, and was constructed using an unusual arrangement of private mortgage financing to relieve the cash-strapped Government of Canada. Built to serve the five units of the 14th Infantry Brigade, it currently houses the Queen’s York Rangers (1st American Regiment), the Royal Regiment of Canada, 32 Signal Regiment, and the Battle School of 32 Canadian Brigade Group, all of the Army Reserve.
A programme to erect armouries for the local militia was undertaken in Canada in the late 19th and early 20th century and resulted in more than 100 of them across the country. Eleven of these were constructed in Ontario, including one on University Avenue, Toronto, now demolished. Many during this period were designed by the Chief Architects for the Department of Public Works, Thomas Fuller and his successor David Ewart. Extant and intact examples include the Major FA Tilson VC Armoury in Windsor, the spectacular James Weir Foote Armoury in Hamilton, and the Peterborough Drill Hall. But few armouries apart from that at Fort York were constructed between the First and Second World Wars.
The building is enormous. It contains over 122,300 sq. ft (11,360 sq. metres) spread over four floors, with the drill hall on the ground floor itself occupying almost 30,000 sq. ft. (2750 sq. m.). Fleet Street was a fitting context for a statement on this scale. In the immediate vicinity stood striking new structures for Tip Top Tailors, Crosse and Blackwell, and Loblaws, all of which survive, and Maple Leaf Stadium, now demolished. In some ways the armoury was similar to the buildings of the nearby Canadian National Exhibition, particularly the Automotive and Electrical Buildings just inside the Princes’ Gates.
Like the CNE buildings, its plan is formally organized around a large central space, enclosed by multiple levels of smaller rooms. The central space takes the form of a double height drill hall 125′ x 138′ encircled by a gallery at the second floor. In the basement originally were training rooms, locker rooms, a rifle range, service rooms, and a caretaker’s apartment. The ground floor held the drill hall, company rooms, orderly rooms, and office canteen. The second floor perimeter contained officers’ messes, sergeants’ messes, drum rooms, lecture rooms, engineers’ offices. And on the third, band rooms were combined with flat decks for open-air practice.
The armoury faces Fleet Street and parklands leading to Lake Ontario beyond. The arrangement of the broad façade reveals a piano nobile arrangement where the ground floor is subordinate to the second, shown through windows of different sizes, the presence of four second-floor French doors with metal balconies, and horizontal bands of stone indicating ceiling heights inside. The main entrance is flanked by a two-story Gibbsian surround of lightly-rusticated Queenston stone, and surmounted by the coat of arms then in use for the Dominion of Canada, carved by Sciortino of Architectural Ornaments Co. and picked out in colour. Similarly the French doors and their transoms are set within stone fields and are crowned by stone crests in the parapet representing the original four battalions and their supporting engineers.
At the time of construction articles on the building were published in both The Journal of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada 12:10 (Oct 1935) pp 162-5 and Engineering and Contract Record 48:47 (21 Nov 1934) pp 987-9. They credit Marani, Lawson & Morris of Toronto as the architects; Harkness & Hertzberg, also of Toronto, as the structural engineers; and W. H. Yates Construction Co. of Hamilton as the general contractors. The Mail and Empire, 19 July 1933, reported that the design originated with Lieut-Col. Ferdinand Herbert Marani, Commanding Officer of the Toronto Regiment from 1932-1936. Marani’s work demonstrated a mastery of classical architectural forms reinterpreted through the lens of modernism, seen also in his other projects like the Crown Life Insurance building at 120 Bloor St. E. (1953) and Bank of Canada at 250 University (1958), both in Toronto, and Bank of Canada, Ottawa (1937-38). In the armoury his restrained Edwardian classicism is overlaid with references from technology and the art moderne movement. Edwardian or Georgian architectural elements, like multi-paned sash windows and limited ornamental stonework, contrast with simple brick cladding. The red brick envelope is horizontally striated with dressed stone string coursing and banded rustication to emphasize the mass. The central drill hall is clad in pressed brick to the height of the 2nd floor gallery, with cinder block above.
The end gables of the parabolic roof recall an airplane hangar, a relatively new form at the time. The soaring lightness of the roof, built from British Columbia Douglas Fir timber, is expressed on the exterior. It is particularly effective when viewed from Strachan Ave. to the west, the delicacy of the broad arch hovering above a field of glazing.
The Fort York Armoury remains in use by the military. Throughout Canada many of these buildings continue to fill their original purpose, while others have been adapted to new uses because their well-built construction and broad spaces are ideal for modification to a variety of other functions.
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