August 2025.
This second Toronto dump article, continuing from the Distillery District, covers the University of Toronto’s various historic campus buildings. I covered Victoria University’s “Old Vic” in a separate article.
Lillian Massey Building
Historic photo of the Lillian Massey Building. (U of T Medieval Studies)
This Beaux-Arts building sits just east of the Royal Ontario Museum. It was built for the newly established Department of Household Science, which Massey convinced the university to begin and donated the money to construct the building that now bears her name. It was designed by George Miller in 1908 and completed in 1913. The interior held classrooms, laboratories, and various facilities intended for women such as a gymnasium and swimming pool.
Household Science became a part of the Department of Nutritional Sciences in the 1970s, and the building has since been acquired by the Centre for Medieval Studies.
The building is very symmetrical, as is common for Beaux-Arts designs, and features Ionic columns across its facades. The cornice and pediments are surmounted by a third floor, which could possibly be an addition, judging by the slightly different tinge of stone used.
West facade, which lies across Queen’s Park from the ROM:
Tetrastyle portico:
Note the carvings along the frieze and inside the pediment.
One of the pedestals is engraved with the date that construction began:
Highly detailed entrance portal, with anthemia, elaborate corbels, rosettes, and decorative borders:
Burwash Hall
Burwash Hall in 1926. (Victoria University Archives)
Pivoting south a bit back to Victoria University, Burwash Hall forms the eastern and part of the northern quadrangle of the main quad. This Collegiate Gothic design dates to 1913 and was designed by Sproatt & Rolph. It was named after Nathanael Burwash, who was the president of Victoria University from 1887 to 1912, and supplemented Annesley Hall (all-female) as an all-male residence hall.
As is pretty common for Collegiate Gothic architecture, Burwash Hall was inspired by the work on Oxford and Cambridge. The tracery has a pretty unique shape to it, too.
Bay window:
Crenellations and quatrefoils:
Trinity College
1851 original building of Trinity College. (Wikimedia)
Trinity College was incorporated in 1851, as a reaction against the secularization of the University of Toronto by the government in 1849. It was intended to return to the institution’s Christian roots, and all students and faculty were required to be Anglicans. Trinity College’s original Gothic Revival home was built that year by architect Kivas Tully, on a remote site outside downtown on Queen Street West, such that students would not be led astray by “earthly” temptations. By 1881, the college had relaxed its rules slightly, only requiring students be church members if studying for a divinity degree, and allowing women to attend.
The 1851 building by Tully was poorly designed. It had poor temperature control, and the fireplaces meant to combat this would fill rooms with smoke. Various additions, such as a convocation hall, chapel, and residence hall, were built between 1877 and 1894.
After financial struggles over the years, Trinity College was federated into the University of Toronto in 1904. Students originally had to commute from the Queen Street building to the main U of T campus, but due to the city’s expansion, the once-secluded location of the 1851 building was surrounded by slums. It purchased its current site in 1913 but did not complete the building until 1925. The original campus is now Trinity Bellwoods Park, and the building was demolished in the 1950s.
Trinity’s current building is highly influenced by Tully’s original design. The main difference is its more elaborate copper cupolas atop the roof crossings. It has the pinnacle-heavy expression of early Gothic Revival designs.
East cupola detail:
Bay window and gable front:
Soot-blackened gable of the central module:
Taller cupola:
Entrance doors, which have a keystone emblazoned with the founder’s name:
Tall windows of the attached Trinity College Chapel:
Wycliffe College
Historic photo of the Wycliffe College building. (Wycliffe College website)
Wycliffe College was founded in 1877 and moved to the U of T area in 1881. It became a part of the University of Toronto in 1885 and a federated college in 1889, constructing the building on its current site in 1891. I only got a picture of the Romanesque Revival vaulted entrance:
Soldiers’ Tower
Dedication of Soldiers’ Tower’s bells and clock in 1927. (University of Toronto Archives)
Soldiers’ Tower was conceived as a memorial to the 5,308 University of Toronto students and faculty that served in World War I. The president of the university, Robert Falconer, suggested that alumni raise funds to build “a beautiful structure, as fine as the architecture can make it, not too large, but a true memorial, worthy of the greatest event in the University's history.” It was decided that the memorial would be a large Gothic Revival tower linking the newly constructed Hart House to University College (the main building of the university). It was designed by Sproatt & Rolph, and the cornerstone was laid on November 11, 1919, by Canada’s governor general.
The tower was planned for completion in 1923, but it had only reached 85 feet high in October, far short of the 143 feet required. Ultimately, the tower was dedicated in June 1924. The clock and bells were not dedicated until 1927.
Medical Sciences Building
This Brutalist building features unusually asymmetrical bands of concrete applied in an ornamental manner.
The next post will jump back a bit to the Bloor Street and Queen’s Park intersection, near the ROM and Lillian Massey Building, but it will then continue southward to University Avenue.
Sources:
https://www.medieval.utoronto.ca/about-us/about-centre-medieval-studies/lillian-massey-building
https://library.vicu.utoronto.ca/archives/history
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burwash_Hall
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity_College,_Toronto
https://www.wycliffecollege.ca/about-us/history
https://alumni.utoronto.ca/community/soldiers-tower/resources
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